Williamsburg eighteenth century press letters

Capital letters or majuscules (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, D, ...) are also simply called capitals, caps or upper case; manual typesetters kept them in the upper drawers of a desk, keeping the more frequently used minuscule letters on the lower shelf. This practice may date back to Johann Gutenberg. The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Letter case. ... This article or section is missing references or citation of sources. ...

Most writing systems (such as those used in Arabic, and Devanagari) make no distinction between capital and lowercase letters (and, of course, logographic writing systems such as Chinese have no "letters" at all). Indeed, even European languages did not make this distinction before about 1300; both majuscule and minuscule letters existed, but a given text would use either one or the other. Writing systems of the world today. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language, which is the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. ... () is an abugida script used to write several Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati,Marathi, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Marwari, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Pahari (Garhwali and Kumaoni), Santhali, Nepali, Newari, Tharu and sometimes Kashmiri and Romani. ... Egyptian hieroglyphs, which have their origins as logograms. ... The Chinese written language consists of a writing system stretching back nearly 4000 years. ...

History

Historically, majuscules are divided into five eras:

• Greek majuscule (9th - 3rd century B.C.) in contrast to the Greek uncial script (3rd century B.C. - 12 century A.D.) and the latter Greek minuscule
• Roman majuscule (7th century B.C. - 4th century A.D.) in contrast to the Roman uncial (4th - 8th century B.C.), Roman Half Uncial, and minuscule
• Carolingian majuscule (4th - 8th century A.D.) in contrast to the Carolingian minuscule (around 780 - 12th century)
• Gothic majuscule (13th and 14th century), in contrast to the early Gothic (end of 11th to 13th century), Gothic (14th century), and late Gothic (16th century) minuscules.

The Book of Kells, c. ... Also see: France in the Middle Ages. ... Example from 10th century manuscript Carolingian or Caroline minuscule is a script developed as a writing standard in Europe so that the Roman alphabet could be easily recognized by the small literate class from one region to another. ...

Usage

In alphabets with a case distinction, capitals are used for:

1. Capitalization,
2. Acronyms,
3. Supposed better legibility, for example on signs and in labeling (but see Ascender), and
4. Emphasis (in some languages).

Capital letters were sometimes used for typographical emphasis in text made on a typewriter. However, long spans of text in all upper-case are harder to read because of the absence of the ascenders and descenders found in lower-case letters, which can aid recognition. With the advent of modern computer editing technology and the Internet, emphasis is usually indicated by use of a single word Capital, italic, or bold font, similar to what has long been common practice in print. When an acronym or initialism requires a string of upper-case letters, it is frequently set in small capitals, to avoid overemphasizing the word in mostly lower-case running text. (By contrast, the "small print" in legal documents is often capitalized to make it harder to read.^{[citation needed]}) In electronic communications, it is often considered very poor "netiquette" to type in all capitals, because it can be harder to read and because it is seen as tantamount to shouting. Indeed, this is the oft-used name for the practice. Capitalization (or capitalisation) is writing a word with its first letter as a majuscule (upper case letter) and the remaining letters in minuscules (lower case letters), in those writing systems which have a case distinction. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Backronym and Apronym (Discuss) Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations, such as NATO, laser, and ABC, written as the initial letter or letters of words, and pronounced on the basis of this abbreviated written form. ... A stop sign informs drivers to stop. ... A label is any kind of tag attached with adhesive to something so as to identify the object or its contents. ... The ascenders are the parts of the characters that lie above the midline, highlighted in red. ... Bold and Boldface redirect here. ... The ascenders are the parts of the characters that lie above the midline, highlighted in red. ... The descenders are the parts of the characters that lie below the baseline. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Bold Bold, see Bold (disambiguation). ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Backronym and Apronym (Discuss) Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations, such as NATO, laser, and ABC, written as the initial letter or letters of words, and pronounced on the basis of this abbreviated written form. ... In typography, small capitals, or small caps, are uppercase (capital) characters that are printed in a smaller size than normal uppercase characters of the same font. ... Small print (also known as fine print in the United States) refers to the practice of including necessary legal terms, warnings, disclaimers or other phrases in small writing on commercial or contractual documents. ... For the more general networking concept, see computer network, computer networking, and internetworking. ... Netiquette, a portmanteau of network etiquette, is the convention on electronic forums (Usenet, mailing lists, live chat, and Internet forums) to facilitate efficient interaction. ... For the song, see ALL CAPS (song). ...

Capitalization is the writing of a word with its first letter in upper-case and the remaining letters in lower-case. Capitalization rules vary by language and are often quite complex, but in most modern languages that have capitalization, the first word of every sentence is capitalized, as are all proper nouns. Some languages, such as German, capitalize the first letter of all nouns; this was previously common in English as well. (See the article on capitalization for a detailed list of norms). Capitalization (or capitalisation) is writing a word with its first letter as a majuscule (upper case letter) and the remaining letters in minuscules (lower case letters), in those writing systems which have a case distinction. ... Write redirects here. ... For other uses, see Word (disambiguation). ... In typography, a grapheme is the atomic unit in written language. ... In linguistics, a sentence is a unit of language, characterized in most languages by the presence of a finite verb. ... A proper noun is a noun that picks out a unique entity. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Capitalization (or capitalisation) is writing a word with its first letter as a majuscule (upper case letter) and the remaining letters in minuscules (lower case letters), in those writing systems which have a case distinction. ...

Other meanings

For paleographers, a Majuscule script is any script in which the letters have very few or very short ascenders and descenders, or none at all (for example, the majuscule scripts used in the Codex Vaticanus, or the Book of Kells). Palaeography, literally old writing, (from the Greek words paleos = old and grapho = write) is the study of script. ... Page from Codex Vaticanus Graece 1209, B/03 The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. ... This page (folio 292r) contains the lavishly decorated text that opens the Gospel of John. ...

See also

Look up capital letter in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• All caps
• CamelCase
• Shift key
• Start Case
• Letter case
• Roman square capitals
• Small caps

Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 151 languages. ... For the song, see ALL CAPS (song). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The shift key on a modern Windows keyboard The shift key is a modifier key on a keyboard, used to type capital letters and other alternate upper characters. ... In orthography and typography, letter case (or just case) is the distinction between majuscule (capital or upper-case) and minuscule (lower-case) letters. ... The Arch of Titus, with an inscription in Roman square capitals Roman square capitals, also called elegant capitals and quadrata, are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. ... In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are uppercase (capital) characters that are printed in a smaller size than normal uppercase characters of the same font. ...

External links

• Codex Vaticanus B/03 Detailed description of Codex Vaticanus with many images.
• All-caps is harder to read
• Capitals, a Primer of Information About Capitalization With Some Practical Typographic Hints as to The Use Of Capitals by Frederick W. Hamilton, 1918, from Project Gutenberg

Page from Codex Vaticanus Graece 1209, B/03 The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. ... Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize, archive and distribute cultural works. ...

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