The Word-Initial kn of English

English words such as knee and knife have a silent k. It is not pronounced. The phonetic value is zero. However, it was pronounced in Middle English.

Before the sixteenth century, the k was pronounced in these words. This was the case in the time of William Shakespeare. However, in the beginning of the 1600s, speakers gradually stopped pronouncing it.

The reason for this sound change is not clear. It may be due to the influence of French and Latin, languages which did not have the kn cluster. It is an example of consonant cluster simplification.

The other Germanic languages did not undergo this change. The word for knife in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish is kniv, and the k is pronounced. The German word for knee is Knie, and in Dutch it is knie. In these words the k is pronounced as was the case in Middle English.

The change in the pronunciation of the kn resulted in homophones such as knew-new, knot-not and know-no. The English language retained the spelling kn despite the change in pronunciation. The spelling reflects the pronunciation of Old English and Middle English.

In word-initial kn, the k is not pronounced. The original CC sequence became C. This sound change did not occur in other Germanic languages which still retain the [kn] of Old English and Middle English.