Why uppercase and lowercase letters

You provide a thorough explanation! But to clarify, we never said that every writing system is an alphabet, or that Chinese and Japanese languages use alphabets. We just pointed out that those languages do not distinguish between upper and lower case letters in writing, which is technically true. You have explained why, while we kept our explanation simple to introduce the idea to readers that there is variation out there.

You certainly have a wealth of information to share! Hi, Pickachu! We do not have a Wonder about smores Will you submit it to our Wonder Bank? That is a great one that we would like to answer some day. Hi, donna! Scroll up to the images for this Wonder and take a look at the image that shows the alphabet. You'll see, for every letter, the uppercase version and the lowercase version side by side. We hope that helps clear up the difference between the two!

Hi, Arslan! We hope this Wonder was helpful. Hi, Ellie! We hope this Wonder was helpful! You can also keep researching at your library and online!

Welcome back, MrsUttersClass! Uppercase letters help us identify the beginning of a sentence and proper nouns. Why do you think we need uppercase and lowercase letters? We would love to hear from you! Check out Wonder Who Invented the Alphabet? Hello, kimjopop! Check out Wonder Where Is Wonderland? Great to hear, duhjuphee! Do you think fortune cookies can predict the future? Hola, MooCookie! Welcome, Comari Smith! Hey, Cameron! Great question, Mrs. Elson's class! A scribe is a person who copies out documents , especially one employed to do this before printing was invented.

Hi, allie! There is also a new Wonder of the Day every day! Great to hear, Luis! We are undergoing some spring clearing site maintenance and need to temporarily disable the commenting feature. Thanks for your patience. Drag a word to its definition. You have answered 0 of 3 questions correctly and your score is:.

Want to add a little wonder to your website? Help spread the wonder of families learning together. We sent you SMS, for complete subscription please reply. Follow Twitter Instagram Facebook. Why are there uppercase and lowercase letters? Did uppercase or lowercase letters come first? Do all languages have both uppercase and lowercase letters? Tags: See All Tags alphabet , Asian , capitalization , case , Chinese , communication , English , form , Indian , Japanese , language , language arts , letter , lowercase , majuscule , miniscule , readability , scribe , sentence , technology , type , uppercase , writing.

Wonder What's Next? Try It Out Did you enjoy learning more about uppercase and lowercase letters today? Learn even more when you explore the following activities with a friend or family member: Write your name in a new and interesting way today! Have you ever tried writing your name in all uppercase letters? What about all lowercase letters? How about all lowercase letters until the end and then a capital letter at the very end?

Come up with some fun and crazy ways to write your name. For example, a beginning writer might want to know how the letter W developed why is it called double-U?

Why do we learn both uppercase and lowercase? And where do they come from? Though you might not want to lead with that in your explanation to kids.

Capitalization rules tend to vary by language and can be quite complicated. It is widely understood that the first word of a sentence and all proper nouns are always capitalized. However, what is not so clear is the origin of the uppercase distinction that has become common practice, especially in regards to Modern English. To unmask the origin of the capital letter, we need to refer to a script derived from the Old Roman cursive called uncial.

Uncial used only uppercase letters. It was commonly used by Latin and Greek scribes around the years — Without lowercase letters, punctuation, or spaces between words, some of these texts look downright weird now. Medieval scribes spent all day, every day transcribing text. As they were going along, writing perfectly and quickly, the shape of the letters slowly changed to be more efficient. Writing was not an everyday thing just yet, and at the time, writers were transitioning from the rough writing surface of papyrus to the smoother parchment and vellum.

Uppercase letter definition: Uppercase letters are letters that represent the beginning of a sentence or a proper noun. In writing, most letters are lowercase. Lowercase letters are all letters that do not begin a sentence or refer to a proper noun. Uppercase letters are also known as capital letters. Uppercase letters signal to the reader that something is important or significant. In English, the first letter of every sentence is capitalized.