4 ms·

I wonder why we still have capital letters. I understand that Latin had more angular letters to inscribe on marble, compared to the more rounded lower case lett

by sn41 6y ago

I wonder why we still have capital letters. I understand that Latin had more angular letters to inscribe on marble, compared to the more rounded lower case letters for day-to-day writing. Now that we have the technology to do rounded inscription, why hang on to this outmoded notation? The simplicity of the Latin alphabet is unnecessarily complicated by the presence of capital letters. This is not as absurd as it sounds. After all, over the centuries, we have introduced punctuation to make it easier to read, unlike classical writing [1]. Why not carry through with remaining reforms? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_continua https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_continua

m463 6y ago
Why not upper and lowercase numbers? Could emphasize cheap or expensive in a price. :)
- TheCoreh 6y ago
  Lowercase numbers actually exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_figures
- hakfoo 6y ago
  I always imagined a writing system that used uppercase/lowercase to be "before and after a decmial point" without an explicit decimal. Like how some advertising material renders "$499.99" as 499 in a large size, followed by 99 in a smaller, often superscript style, and no discrete decimal.
Talanes 6y ago
I think you have it backwards, it was technology rendering the difference between the two obsolete that brought capitalization about. Latin just used one script or the other depending on use-case, it was when we had printing presses that we started to start codifying rules for how to mix the two scripts into one large character set.
nullsense 6y ago
Need them for password strength
seszett 6y ago
As far as I know (or as I was taught at school in France) it is Charlemagne who introduced bicameral usage in the latin script with more easily legible "lower case" (which were not actually "lower case" back then of course) letters for most of the script while keeping upper case letters at the beginning of sentences or important words also to improve legibility (serving as cues that help keeping track of where you are in the text). This was basically modern script, only the lower case fonts have evolved somewhat. Capital letters in modern script are therefore not a remnant of technical limitations, the mix of lowercase/uppercase was actually voluntarily introduced for legibility once these technical limitations were gone.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> I understand that Latin had more angular letters to inscribe on marble, compared to the more rounded lower case letters for day-to-day writing. Funny thing to understand; this has no connection to reality. Letters for inscription are formal and there is no bias towards angularity. Look at this plaque from the first century: https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2012/04/Roman-military-document-1024x640.jpg https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2012/04/Roman-m... You can clearly see the letters B, C, D, G, O, P, Q, R, and S graven in bronze with all the same curviness they'd have if they were instead carved in marble. [1] They're carved that way because that is what the letters look like; if they're difficult to carve, that just means the carver has to suck it up. The letter we commonly render U is V in Latin. That is not due to the needs of the medium; that is what the letter looks like. In Latin, there is no letter U. V is not pointed because it was difficult to carve C, D, O, Q, P, R, and S. V is pointed for the same reason M is -- because that is the shape of a V. [1] Here's an example that is carved in marble: http://codex99.com/typography/images/ancient/trajan_sm.jpg http://codex99.com/typography/images/ancient/trajan_sm.jpg
simias 6y ago
I don't understand your argument, are you saying that removing capital letters would improve legibility? Note that as far as I know during the antiquity there was no semantic meaning associated with font case, you could use full caps in some settings and full lowercase in others. The image in your linked wikipedia article uses full uppercase for instance. At any rate it's not at all obvious to me that removing case would improve things. I'm currently reading a book my Valter Hugo Mãe who's an author who (generally) only uses lowercase letters: https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20210402-153754_maquina.jpeg https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20210402-153754_maquina.jpeg I've also got a Latin grammar book that, for extra authenticity, only uses uppercase at the beginning of the paragraphs: https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20210402-154010_latin.jpeg https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20210402-154010_latin.jpeg In both cases I often find myself missing the end of a sentence, I think mainly because ',' and '.' are easy to mix up but normally you expect '.' to be followed by an uppercase. Of course part of the issue might just be lack of familiarity. I'm not arguing that capitals are vital and we couldn't read and write correctly without them, but as you point out we could say the same of spaces and general punctuation. I can read unaccented French just fine for example, but it does force me to slow down at times and to infer more from context. butanywaythatsjustmyopinion

by sn41 6y ago

m463 6y ago

Why not upper and lowercase numbers? Could emphasize cheap or expensive in a price. :)

TheCoreh 6y ago
Lowercase numbers actually exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_figures
hakfoo 6y ago
I always imagined a writing system that used uppercase/lowercase to be "before and after a decmial point" without an explicit decimal. Like how some advertising material renders "$499.99" as 499 in a large size, followed by 99 in a smaller, often superscript style, and no discrete decimal.

Talanes 6y ago

I think you have it backwards, it was technology rendering the difference between the two obsolete that brought capitalization about. Latin just used one script or the other depending on use-case, it was when we had printing presses that we started to start codifying rules for how to mix the two scripts into one large character set.

nullsense 6y ago

Need them for password strength

seszett 6y ago

As far as I know (or as I was taught at school in France) it is Charlemagne who introduced bicameral usage in the latin script with more easily legible "lower case" (which were not actually "lower case" back then of course) letters for most of the script while keeping upper case letters at the beginning of sentences or important words also to improve legibility (serving as cues that help keeping track of where you are in the text). This was basically modern script, only the lower case fonts have evolved somewhat. Capital letters in modern script are therefore not a remnant of technical limitations, the mix of lowercase/uppercase was actually voluntarily introduced for legibility once these technical limitations were gone.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> I understand that Latin had more angular letters to inscribe on marble, compared to the more rounded lower case letters for day-to-day writing. Funny thing to understand; this has no connection to reality. Letters for inscription are formal and there is no bias towards angularity. Look at this plaque from the first century: https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2012/04/Roman-military-document-1024x640.jpg https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2012/04/Roman-m... You can clearly see the letters B, C, D, G, O, P, Q, R, and S graven in bronze with all the same curviness they'd have if they were instead carved in marble. [1] They're carved that way because that is what the letters look like; if they're difficult to carve, that just means the carver has to suck it up. The letter we commonly render U is V in Latin. That is not due to the needs of the medium; that is what the letter looks like. In Latin, there is no letter U. V is not pointed because it was difficult to carve C, D, O, Q, P, R, and S. V is pointed for the same reason M is -- because that is the shape of a V. [1] Here's an example that is carved in marble: http://codex99.com/typography/images/ancient/trajan_sm.jpg http://codex99.com/typography/images/ancient/trajan_sm.jpg

simias 6y ago

I don't understand your argument, are you saying that removing capital letters would improve legibility? Note that as far as I know during the antiquity there was no semantic meaning associated with font case, you could use full caps in some settings and full lowercase in others. The image in your linked wikipedia article uses full uppercase for instance. At any rate it's not at all obvious to me that removing case would improve things. I'm currently reading a book my Valter Hugo Mãe who's an author who (generally) only uses lowercase letters: https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20210402-153754_maquina.jpeg https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20210402-153754_maquina.jpeg I've also got a Latin grammar book that, for extra authenticity, only uses uppercase at the beginning of the paragraphs: https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20210402-154010_latin.jpeg https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20210402-154010_latin.jpeg In both cases I often find myself missing the end of a sentence, I think mainly because ',' and '.' are easy to mix up but normally you expect '.' to be followed by an uppercase. Of course part of the issue might just be lack of familiarity. I'm not arguing that capitals are vital and we couldn't read and write correctly without them, but as you point out we could say the same of spaces and general punctuation. I can read unaccented French just fine for example, but it does force me to slow down at times and to infer more from context. butanywaythatsjustmyopinion