as Faroese orthography was based on normalised spelling of Old Norse and Icelandic language. Both Faroese silent letters and are replaced by a hiatus glide consonant (, or ) when followed by another (unstressed) vowel. German In German, silent letters are rare apart from word-internal and the digraph . Silent h is used in German to indicate vowel length or hiatus. This h is almost regularly added at the end of inflectable word stems, e.g. Kuh (cow), Stroh (straw), drehen (to turn, stem dreh-). There is only a fairly small number of exceptions to this, mostly nouns in -ee or -ie (see below), apart from isolated cases such as säen (to sow). Otherwise silent h may be written before the letters l, m, n, r as in nehmen (to take), Stuhl (chair), Zahn (tooth). This latter use is highly irregular, however, and there are just as many words where the h is missing. Historically, this use of silent h goes back to the Middle High German consonant , which became silent in words like sehen (to see), zehn (ten). By analogy it was then also used in words that had no such h in Middle High German. The majority of silent h’s in modern German are analogical rather than etymological. The long i-sound is usually written , with a silent , as in viel (much), spielen (to play), Wien ('Vienna'), and hundreds of other words. In native German words this spelling is fairly unambiguous. Some words of foreign origin also behave like native words, e.g. Kurier, Papier, Turnier and all verbs ending (e.g. appellieren, organisieren). In other foreign words, however, the after may be pronounced, e.g. Ambiente, Hygiene, Klient, or names like Daniela, Gabriel, Triest. Words ending in can be particularly tricky to learners: There are generally two possibilities: (1.) when the final is stressed, it represents long as in Zeremonie ; (2.) when the preceding vowel is stressed, represents the separate vowels as in Folie . To the first group belong e.g. Akademie, Allergie, Amnesie, Amnestie, Apathie, Artillerie, Batterie, Blasphemie, Chemie, Chirurgie, Demokratie, Energie, Epidemie, -gamie, Garantie, Genie, Geometrie, -grafie/-graphie, Harmonie, Hysterie, Infanterie, Ironie, Kavallerie, Kompanie, Kopie, -logie, Liturgie, Magie, Manie, Marie, Melodie, Monotonie, Nostalgie, Orthopädie, Partie, Phantasie, Philosophie, Poesie, Psychiatrie, Rhapsodie, Sinfonie, -skopie, Theorie, Therapie, Utopie. To the second group belong e.g. Akazie, Aktie, Amalie, Begonie, Emilie, Familie, Folie, Geranie, Grazie, Hortensie, Hostie, Immobilie, Kastanie, Komödie, Kurie, Lilie,