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Episode 153: Zombie Letters

The History of English Podcast

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Greek Lone Words and Their Impact on English Spelling and Pronunciation

latin words that passed through french and lost a specific sound and letter then were borrowed into english, where the letter was revived. This scenario happened a lot in the 15 hundreds because it was a period in which there was a lot of borrowing directly from latin. And those greek loan words had experienced their own sound changes over the centuries, and that also impacted english spelling during this period. In today's English we use an h to mark aspirated or breadthy greek consonants. The same thing happened with rhosoceros: Words like rhythm, rhyme, rhetoric and rhinos all regained their original r spellings after being used as loan words for many years.

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