The Modern English word knight derives from the Old English cniht. 5,8 Many silent letters in Modern English can be also attributed to phonetic infidelity during this script-switching. Even Chaucer, the famed 14 th century author of Canterbury Tales, would often spell the same word differently in his works. 4 As Middle English developed under Norman rule in the 12 th, 13 th, and 14 th centuries, the incompatibility of the Latin alphabet with certain Anglo-Saxon phonemes continued to cause confusion and inconsistencies in spelling. Since the Latin script couldn’t entirely express all Old English sounds, many Old English words could be spelled in different ways- the word and, for example, could have also been written as ond. The Latin script, however, was not as capable as the pre-existing script at phonetically conveying the Old English Language. The Norman invaders spoke a dialect of Old French (more precisely, an Oïl language), and imposed a Latin script upon their English subjects. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 changed the circumstances significantly and prompted the evolution of Middle English.
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