Of all the pronoun in English language, why is only the first person singular "I" always capitalized?

Question

What is the reason?

What does that tell about the social culture and psychology of the English and people of the English speaking countries?

Is "I" more important than you, than he, than she, than they, than we?

Is "I" the subject and higher above than every other "object?"

I am just curious.

Answer 1

You know, I've never thought of that, but you make a good point. I don't know the "real" answer, but my first thought was b/c it's a one letter pronoun.
Maybe that has something to do with it.

Answer 2

Why is "I" capitalized?

(Spelling)



The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (Wilson, 1988, ISBN
0-8242-0745-9) says: "~I~ _pron._ 1137 _i;_ later _I_ (about 1250,
in _The Story of Genesis and Exodus_); developed from the unstressed
form of Old English (about 725) _ic_ singular pronoun of the first
person (nominative case). Modern and Middle English _I_ developed
from earlier _i_ in the stressed position. _I_ came to be written
with a capital letter thereby making it a distinct word and avoiding
misreading handwritten manuscripts. In the northern and midland
dialects of England the capitalized form _I_ appeared about 1250.
In the south of England, where Old English _ic_ early shifted in
pronunciation to _ich_ (by palatalization), the form _I_ did not
become established until the 1700's (although it appears
sporadically before that time)."

And there you have it. I am not more important, just easier to misread.

Answer 3

In English, the word I (spelled with a capital "I") is the nominative case of the pronoun denoting the first person singular.
The nominative case (also called the first case) is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments.

The nominative case is the usual, natural form (more technically, the least marked) of certain parts of speech, such as nouns, adjectives, pronouns and less frequently numerals and participles, and sometimes does not indicate any special relationship with other parts of speech. Therefore, in some languages the nominative case is unmarked, that is, the nominative word is the base form or stem, with no inflection; alternatively, it may said to be marked by a null morpheme. Moreover, in most languages with a nominative case, the nominative form is the lemma; that is, it is the one used to cite a word, to list it as a dictionary entry, etc.

Answer 4

"~I~ pron. 1137 i; later I (about 1250, in The Story of Genesis and Exodus); developed from the unstressed form of Old English (about 725) singular pronoun of the first person (nominative case). Modern and Middle English developed from earlier in the stressed position. came to be written with a capital letter thereby making it a distinct word and avoiding misreading handwritten manuscripts. In the northern and midland dialects of England the capitalized form appeared about 1250.
In the south of England, where Old English early shifted in
pronunciation to (by palatalization), the form did not
become established until the 1700's (although it appears
sporadically before that time)."

In other words, to make manuscripts easier to read.

Answer 5

The subject pronoun “i” is always capitalized, regardless of its
position in the sentence. If we go deeper into history it could be read as a capital Roman "I," designating a number ("one"), or as the first person singular pronoun. It gives significance to one's self. This significance is emphasized by it being capitalized. The letter I replaces your name.

It is an extremely effective way to deal with the ego of a person or strength of character of a person speaking to a great public audience as in the past. Powerful people in the past used it to show their strength and great importance or status i.e. " I, Caesar..." Narrators use this effectively in their works.

Answer 6

Because I deserve respect. I guess the English felt they were SOOOO SUPERIOR that whenever they referred to themselves they had to distinguish it from referring to anyone else. After all, I am sooo much better than you, he, she, him, her, them, they, it but I still kinda wonder why I left out we. After all I am part of we but you know I guess I am diminished by common folk included in we so that sort of explains it, I hope.

Now pick my answer as best and move on. Because it is what it is, it doesn't really matter. ee cummings proved it

Answer 7

why not? maybe english-speaking people are just super egocentric haha