Why is the Pronoun “I” Capitalized in English?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you?

My name is Nathan.

I’m calling from Dallas.

Well, I had a specific question about the word I.

It’s one of the only two single-letter words in English I can think of, the other being just A.

But we capitalize it.

And as far as I can tell, grammatically, it’s the first-person singular pronoun.

And I know in Spanish and in Russian, they don’t capitalize that pronoun.

So I’m wondering why English does.

So the pronoun I, just the letter I, not the E-Y-E, not the part of your body.

Right, right.

Well, first of all, you’re right, Nathan, that the capitalized first-person pronoun apparently appears only in English.

As you noted, romance languages like French, for example, they leave all the personal pronouns lowercase.

And then there are other languages that don’t even use capitalized letters like Hebrew and Arabic.

So English pretty much stands alone.

And the reason, as far as we can tell, is simply that that eye is so thin, so skinny, that it’s easy to confuse it.

It’s a matter of visual clarity why we capitalize the eye.

It wasn’t always the case.

In Old English, the word for I was spelled I-C and pronounced itch or each.

And then eventually the C fell off.

You still see it in German, of course, ich.

But by the 13th century, people started capitalizing that I when they were using the first person pronoun.

And then that got codified later with the printing press, of course.

So it’s really a matter of just not confusing that with, you know, a smear on the page or something.

The other thing that happened with the letter I, the little I, you know, the small I,

We added a little dot on the top called a tittle, that little dot on the top of the I.

Yeah, so it’s really a matter of just being able to see it and distinguish it from other letters or other things on the page.

There was even a period in there where, in some words, the lowercase i was replaced with a lowercase y,

Just to make it clear what was meant and how it was to be pronounced.

Of course, a lot of this was before spelling was regularized.

You wouldn’t cause anyone anger because you misspelled the word.

They’d be like, okay, that makes a lot of sense.

I now know what you meant.

It’s just so easy for the lowercase i just to get lost.

It looks like an upstroke or a downstroke of so many other letters.

If you’re writing, you know, with a pen or calligraphy.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, well, that makes a lot of sense, I suppose.

Well, Nathan, you raise a really good question.

It is really weird that English is pretty much the only language that capitalizes its first-person pronoun.

And it’s nothing to do with ego, by the way.

Some people like to say, oh, it’s just because Anglophones are very egotistical, not in the least.

I mean, we might be, but the I isn’t the evidence of that.

Okay, good to know.

Take care. Thanks for calling, Nathan.

Have a good day.

Bye-bye.

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