Why Is “Knight” Spelled Like That? (Essential Etymologies)

     The word “knight” came from the word “cniht” meaning “boy” or “servant”. Its signification was eventually strengthened to what we now think of as a “knight”. 

     How did we get from the pronunciation of “cniht” to “knight”. Well, the earliest pronunciation was probably (using the IPA):

  • [knixt]
     Then, the voiceless velar fricative [x] became the voiceless palatal fricative [ç] through contact with the front vowel [i]. So, now it’s:
  • [kniçt]
     After that, the [k] sound at the beginning of the word was dropped, giving us:
  • [niçt]
     Then, the [ç] sound was dropped, but the previous vowel underwent compensatory lengthening:
  • [ni:t]
     Then, the Great Vowel Shift happened. A lot of vowels moved their pronunciation around the vowel space, but the important change we’ll focus on is [i:] to [aj] (there was also a companion change of [u:] to [aw]). So, instead of [ni:t], we have:
  • [najt]

      Oh, and a quick note, from “cniht” to “knight” there were a few spelling reforms. “Cn” at the beginning of a word became “Kn” and “h” denoting [x] or [ç] was written as “gh” instead! 

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