Why a capital I as a subject?

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Anonymous

#444804 Wed, 21 Nov 07 02:05 PM

This is a question an English girl asked me when I told my French pupils not to forget that "I" is always written in Capital letter.

Do any of you know why this is so?

Anonymous

Capital letters

Rotter

#444808 Wed, 21 Nov 07 02:28 PM

It is a pronoun.
France is a pronoun in English. We always write France and never 'france'.

Rotter

Joined on Sun, Jul 24 2005

Japan

Regular Member (655)

Я люблю российских девочек.

Nouns, Pronouns

Philip

#444810 Wed, 21 Nov 07 02:30 PM

Anonymous wrote:

This is a question an English girl asked me when I told my French pupils not to forget that "I" is always written in Capital letter.

Do any of you know why this is so?

I sometimes find that the best answer to a "why" question is simply "because".

Philip

Joined on Thu, Jun 23 2005

USA Pacific Northwest (Seattle)

Veteran Member (6,181)

At reise er at leve! - H. C. Andersen

Capital letters

Cool Breeze

#444814 Wed, 21 Nov 07 02:36 PM

In Old English the pronoun was ic and it became reduced to i in the 12th century. People began to capitalize it in the mid-13th century to mark it clearly as a distinct word. In those days everything was written by hand and it was also quicker to draw just one vertical line without a dot.

CB

Cool Breeze

Joined on Fri, Apr 7 2006

Helsinki, Finland

Senior Member (2,858)

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.- Mark Twain

Nouns, Pronouns

Philip

#444830 Wed, 21 Nov 07 03:11 PM

Cool Breeze wrote:
In Old English the pronoun was ic and it became reduced to i in the 12th century. People began to capitalize it in the mid-13th century to mark it clearly as a distinct word. In those days everything was written by hand and it was also quicker to draw just one vertical line without a dot.

CB

I knew someone would come up with the linguistic history of the word, which is really better than "because". Thanks!

Was the pronunciation at the time of [ic] similar to the German [ich]? If so, when did it change to [eye]? Before or after the dropping of the ?

Philip

Nouns, Pronouns, Pronunciation

Cool Breeze

#444847 Wed, 21 Nov 07 04:42 PM

Philip wrote:
Was the pronunciation at the time of [ic] similar to the German [ich]? If so, when did it change to [eye]? Before or after the dropping of the ?

Hi Philip

The pronunciation of ic, which was spelled with a dot above the c, I just can't pruduce it on my keyboard, was fairly close to the German ich. It was pronounced exactly as itch is in modern English. The diphthongization of [i:] began after the c had disappeared from the word. This chain of massive changes in English vowels is called the Great Vowel Shift. It began in Chaucer's lifetime and was completed in the 18th century. You may want to take a closer look at the changes here

One concrete example: life was spelled lyf in Chaucer's days. i.e. the late 14th century. It was pronounced [li:f], in other words, the same as the ea in leave. Shakespeare's pronunciation was [leif], or the same as the a in hate. Incidentally, in modern Swedish life is liv and the i in it is still pronounced long, as it was pronounced in English 600 years ago.

Cheers
CB

Cool Breeze

Vowels, Pronunciation

khoff

#444853 Wed, 21 Nov 07 04:56 PM

Before or after the dropping of the ?

I always forget -- was the Dropping of the Coffee Cup before or after the Great Vowel Shift?

By the way -- just for the record -- "France" is not a pronoun, and pronouns are not necesarily capitalized. It is a proper noun, and therefore capitalized.

khoff

Joined on Sun, Mar 6 2005

Denver, Colorado, USA, Earth

Senior Member (2,570)

Native speaker of American English (but not a grammar expert)

Nouns, Pronouns, Vowels

Anonymous

#445417 Fri, 23 Nov 07 08:52 AM

Thank you for these answers, the historical one satisfies me better than the "because" (which I actually used as an escape on the spot). My other explanation would have been that I am important so I am in Capital letter. But that did not sound a grammatically proper answer!!!

Thanks again, I have just discovered this forum and so I am still anonymous. But it is now part of my favorite sites and I'll soon create an account.

Mathilde

Anonymous

Capital letters