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EnglishClub


Listen&Learn: Letter Cases

22nd November 2023 by Jaksyn Peacock
Typesetter's upper and lowercase trays

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

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:

Listen&Learn: Esperanto

26th January 2022 by Jaksyn Peacock

Pre-listening vocabulary

  • construct: to build or create something
  • invent: to develop something new
  • universal: available to everyone
  • phonetic: relating to the way words sound
  • succeed: to achieve a goal

Listening activity

Gapfill exercise

Esperanto is a constructed . It was invented in 1887 by a Polish doctor named L. L. Zamenhof. Zamenhof’s goal was to create a universal second language so that people around the world could with each other. Esperanto does not belong to any country or , but like many languages in Europe, it uses the Latin and Latin root words. It was designed to be easy to learn, with simple grammatical rules and phonetic spelling. Although Esperanto did not succeed as a universal language, it is still used today. Over 100,000 people around the world can Esperanto. Some people have even raised children to speak Esperanto as a native language.

Comprehension questions

[wp_quiz id=”20795″]

Discussion/essay questions

  1. One problem with Esperanto is that it is more difficult to learn for people whose native languages don’t use the Latin alphabet. Do you think it is possible to create a language that is equally accessible to everyone?

Transcript

Esperanto is a constructed language. It was invented in 1887 by a Polish doctor named L. L. Zamenhof. Zamenhof’s goal was to create a universal second language so that people around the world could communicate with each other. Esperanto does not belong to any country or culture, but like many languages in Europe, it uses the Latin alphabet and Latin root words. It was designed to be easy to learn, with simple grammatical rules and phonetic spelling. Although Esperanto did not succeed as a universal language, it is still used today. Over 100,000 people around the world can speak Esperanto. Some people have even raised children to speak Esperanto as a native language.