Listen&Learn: Letter cases

Learn why English uses two types of letters

Pre-listening vocabulary

• derive: to come from something else
• alphabet: a system of letters used in written language
• scribe: someone whose job was to handwrite copies of books
• emperor: someone who rules over many countries
• store: to keep something in a certain place
• vary: to change over time
• universal: used by everyone

Listening activity

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:47 — 1.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS | More

Gapfill exercise

The English alphabet derives from the Latin alphabet, which was first used in ancient Rome. The original Latin alphabet only had capital . Lowercase letters evolved as scribes found faster ways to write by hand. Around 800 A.D., the emperor Charlemagne created a standard lowercase Latin alphabet. The two types of letters gained the names “uppercase” and “lowercase” after the of the Gutenberg press. Early newspaper offices stored letters in wooden cases. They kept the letters in the lower cases because they used them more often. English capitalization rules varied throughout history. From the 16th to the 18th century, it was popular to capitalize all words in a sentence, including most nouns. This ended around the beginning of the 19th century, when English developed more universal rules.

Comprehension questions

See answers below

1. The original Latin alphabet had
   a. capital letters only
   b. lowercase letters only
   c. both capital and lowercase letters
   
2. The word “lowercase” comes from
   a. the emperor Charlemagne
   b. medieval English scribes
   c. early newspaper offices
   
3. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, it was popular to capitalize
   a. words at the end of a sentence as well as the beginning
   b. all important words, including most nouns
   c. all verbs and adjectives

Discussion/essay questions

1. In German, the capitalization of nouns is still a common practice. In some alphabets, like Arabic, there are no capital letters. Does your native language have capital and lowercase letters? What are the basic rules for using them?
2. Can you write a comment using 16th-century English capitalization?

Transcript

The English alphabet derives from the Latin alphabet, which was first used in ancient Rome. The original Latin alphabet only had capital letters. Lowercase letters evolved as scribes found faster ways to write by hand. Around 800 A.D., the emperor Charlemagne created a standard lowercase Latin alphabet. The two types of letters gained the names “uppercase” and “lowercase” after the invention of the Gutenberg press. Early newspaper offices stored letters in wooden cases. They kept the smaller letters in the lower cases because they used them more often. English capitalization rules varied throughout history. From the 16th to the 18th century, it was popular to capitalize all important words in a sentence, including most nouns. This ended around the beginning of the 19th century, when English grammar developed more universal rules.

Answers to comprehension questions

1a 2c 3b

See also:

• Uppercase and lowercase