Linie, Orgie, Otilie, Pinie, Serie, Studie, Tragödie, Zäzilie. Note that in female names there is a third category of words stressed on the antepenult, where also represents , e.g. Amelie, Leonie, Nathalie, Rosalie, Stefanie, Valerie (all stressed on the first syllable). A special case arises when the after is a grammatical ending. In this case it is always pronounced. Therefore Zeremonie becomes Zeremonien in the plural, and the same is true of all other nouns in group 1 above. The noun Knie is pronounced when it is singular, but usually when it is plural. Spermien is plural of Spermium, hence also with a pronounced . Country names in -ien can also be joined to this group: Australien, Brasilien, Indien, Kroatien, Serbien, Slowenien. Other letters Other silent letters occur mainly in borrowings from French and other modern languages, e.g. Porträt (portrait), Korps (corps). Informally, the letter may be silent in function words like ist (is), jetzt (now), nicht (not), and otherwise in clusters like Gedächtnis (memory), Kunststück (piece of art). These t’s are commonly silent in everyday speech, but will be retained in careful, formal parlance. Romance languages French Silent letters are common in French, including the last letter of most words. Ignoring auxiliary letters that create digraphs (such as , , , , , , and , and and as signals for nasalized vowels), they include almost every possible letter except and . Vowels Final is silent or at least (in poetry and song) a nearly-silent schwa ; it allows the preservation of a preceding consonant, often allowing the preservation of a grammatical distinction between masculine and feminine forms in writing, e.g., in vert and verte (both ‘green’); the is pronounced in the latter (feminine) but not the former. Furthermore, the schwa can prevent an awkward ending of a word ending in a consonant and a liquid (peuple, sucre). After , , or , a final is silent. The spelling is pronounced just the same as that for and is entirely an etymological distinction, so in that context, the is silent. The digraph , used to represent before the front vowels and , has a silent . In contrast, the u is pronounced in . for has the same silent before and . When the is not silent it must be marked with a trema: . Before and , the is not silent. Consonants is silent outside of the digraph