Why are some upper and lower case letters different? (Nn, Ee, Dd, Aa)

Mrs. Clardy's kindergarten class
Lee-Scott Academy, Auburn

Dear Mrs. Clardy's class,

This is a good question and one I'd not heard before. It took me a while to find the answer. According to www.answers.com/topic/latin-alphabet, "the alphabet used by the Romans [which was adopted from the Greeks who adapted it from Semitic-rs] consisted only of capital (upper case or majuscule) letters. The lower case (minuscule) letters developed in the Middle Ages from cursive writing, first as the uncial script, and later as minuscule script. The old Roman letters were retained for formal inscriptions and for emphasis in written documents. The languages that use the Latin alphabet generally use capital letters to begin paragraphs and sentences and for proper nouns. The rules for capitalization have changed over time, and different languages vary in their rules for capitalization. Old English, for example, used to capitalize all nouns, in the same way that Modern German does today."

Our modern alphabet is based on an alphabet created many years ago by the ancient Romans. Did you know that developing an alphabet is a process that spanned thousands of years? It began in the early days of civilization. The first people to write things down carved symbols onto rocks or shells. These symbols represented people or things. For instance, a drawing of a person might mean a person. Put a hat on that person and it meant someone different. However, these symbols represented entire words unlike today's alphabet where one letter - or symbol - represents one sound. Recent research suggests that the idea of an alphabet (in which one symbol stands for only one sound) was first used in Egypt about 1900 B.C. Civilizations that traded with or fought against Egypt were exposed to this alphabet, and the idea spread.

There are lots of different alphabets. For a very different way of writing, you can look at the Cherokee syllabary from the Cherokee Indians at www.powersource.com/cocinc/language/syllab.htm. A syllabary is an alphabet in which each letter in a word stands for a whole syllable (such as "ga") instead of a single letter (such as "g").

Thanks for your question,
Aubie and Dr. Sabino