How come we Captitalise the letter "I", but not the letter "a"?

Question

It's very egocentric to say "I am..." and then say "a [something else] is..." without giving a capital to the "a".

Answer 1

It has NOTHING to do with being a substitute for a proper noun -- ALL pronouns might be capitalized if that were the rule! And it has nothing at all to do with being egocentric.

Actually, the word was originally "ic" (compare German "ich") and was NOT capitalized. Only when it ended up reduced to a single letter did the practice of capitalizing develop. And there's the clue.

Note the following from The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology --
". . . 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."
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxwhyisi.html

Apparently (and not surprisingly) an "i" alone could end up being read as either a stray mark, or combined with the adjacent word. That makes all the more sense when we realize this all happened BEFORE the printing press, when a slight unevenness in spacing in handwriting could easily cause confusion.

O! about the "oh"/"O" thing... there actually IS a word "O" (used as an interjection, esp in forms of address, like "You, O king, know what is best!") that IS capitalized -- ALWAYS. (It is NOT the same as the word "oh", which should not be used to replace it -- "You, oh king..." is WRONG!) I suspect the reason for this practice is the same as with "i" becoming "I".

Why no "A"? Not sure, but I would suppose "a" was not found to cause the same confusion as "i" (certainly less likely to look like a stray mark).


By the way, if you want to know more about "O" vs. "oh", check here:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/O
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/oh

Answer 2

Ahh the mysteries of the English language. I also wondered why don't we just a U instead of writing "you". Why don't we have an O instead of "oh". As to the answers above about capitalizing Pronouns...well I don't by that because we don't capitalize the "me, she, he, etc." Sometimes I think the English language was made random.

Answer 3

because when you use the term "I" you are talking about yourself! when you use names like Jack or Sarah you capitalise the 1st letter the use a capital letter for I because you are talking about some one just like in names. with the letter A you are not

good luck:D
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Answer 4

Well I is referring to ourselves in a proper noun form.
We always capitalize proper nouns.

Answer 5

It's because 'I' is classed as a proper name being a substitute for your own name. If you were named John it would be clumsy you say 'John is going home' so he would say 'I am going home.'

Answer 6

I agree that 'I' is capitalised because it is a substitute for a name, but if this is the case why don't we capitalise 'you'?