Jìniàn Jùhuì

SB,

Thank you for making the excellent point that different writing systems that use the Latin alphabet have different styles of capitalization. That reminds us that the Mandarin field is worldwide in scope, reflecting how Mandarin-speaking people can now be found all over the world, including places where the local publishers who would be calling on them have a mother tongue that is not English.

And since Pīnyīn, being written Mandarin, is also not English, even if it is also written using the Latin alphabet, it cannot be said that Pīnyīn must be capitalized in the same style in which English is capitalized. Things like a writing system’s capitalization style continue to develop over time, with use, as has indeed been the case for the capitalization style of written English. However, since Pīnyīn is generally not recognized as a full writing system, it has not been used much as one—even one who recognizes against all prevailing wisdom that Pīnyīn is a full writing system must admit that at this time Pīnyīn is a young writing system. Thus, overall there has simply not been much thought or consideration put into how things like capitalization should work in Pīnyīn, historically and relatively speaking, compared to established and commonly used alphabetic writing systems like those of English, Spanish, German, etc.

That said, if we were to apply some relatively early thought and consideration to such matters, what are some factors that we should consider? Here are some factors that experience in and research into things like writing system design and user interface/user experience design suggest are important to consider:

• What official standards/recommendations exist?
• What precedents exist, that potential users are already familiar with and used to?
• What can be determined to be practically, objectively better?

I think it is apparent that consideration of especially the second of the above factors, at least, points to a conclusion that, at least in material meant to be used by Mandarin field language learners worldwide, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to model Pīnyīn capitalization after English capitalization, at least generally. One big reason is that among all the wonderful brothers and sisters worldwide who have put in the hard work and sacrifice required to learn Mandarin and help in the Mandarin field, it is pretty much a certainty that at this time English is the mother tongue of more of them than is any other language, by a significant margin. (Indeed, the analytics I have seen for websites hosting Pīnyīn Plus, 3-line, etc. material tend to confirm that.)

Another factor to consider re people’s mother tongues is that with the outsized worldwide influence of English these days, people whose mother tongue is not English are more likely to be familiar with English than vice versa.

It is especially true that material like Pīnyīn Plus, 3-line, etc. material that contains English meanings should probably have Pīnyīn that is capitalized in the English style. If someone were to put in the time and work needed to produce, say, Pīnyīn Plus material with German meanings and Pīnyīn capitalized in the German style, I would say, “Jiā yóu! Schnell!” Although it may be a stretch to make this comparison, maybe an alternative German-like style of Pīnyīn capitalization could be like alternative British or American styles of spelling.

Just to be clear, though, the respect spoken of in the MEotW post above primarily refers to the respect that Pīnyīn itself deserves as a full writing system in its own right, whether it is used together with Chinese characters, English, German, etc., or completely on its own.

As a full writing system in its own right, it deserves respect of its own, as well as a capitalization style of its own. And as a relatively “young” alphabetical writing system that is still in the process of living through its own “coming of age” story, so many possibilities lie before it.

Now, proud lovers of Chinese culture may insist that, as a Chinese writing system, Pīnyīn should purposely distance itself from existing “foreign” alphabetical writing systems in the way it does things like capitalizing words. However, if proudly and purposely perverse cultural independence is not the priority (it shouldn’t be), then perhaps it would be reasonable to conclude that the practicality and pragmatism that inspired the choice of Latin alphabet letters for Pīnyīn also naturally points to the “young” Pīnyīn writing system learning from and often following the example of the most “experienced”—the most-used, that is, not necessarily the oldest—writing system that uses the Latin alphabet—the English writing system. If using English as the main template is good enough for different language translations of the New World Translation, then perhaps it’s also good enough for the Pīnyīn writing system.

Of course, the preceding only needs to be applicable in this old system—in the new system, new system rules will apply. For now, though, whether Chinese, German, etc. people like it or not, at this time in this existing old system, it seems reasonable to conclude that English is currently the most used, most “experienced”, most battle-tested writing system that uses the Latin alphabet, especially if we include Internet usage along with print usage.

That’s not to say, of course, that everything about the English writing system is ideal, since it’s still just a product of divided, imperfect, old-system humans. For example, various factors such as a variety of source cultures has resulted in modern English being full of inconsistent and sometimes strange spellings. Pīnyīn, with its relatively consistent phonetically determined spellings, has largely dodged that particular bullet at least! Although, what should be spelled with a neutral tone? Speaking of various source cultures, how much should Beijing, Taiwanese, etc. pronunciations affect Pīnyīn spellings? What morphemes should be joined to form a word rather than separated with a space? When should hyphens be used? Alas, a few questions remain, but hopefully considering the factors mentioned above will help us to reach beneficial conclusions in particular cases.

Re the curious case of the English first person pronoun “I” typically always being capitalized, an Internet search—BTW, different people have different viewpoints about whether “Internet” should be capitalized—led to this interesting article:

• Why Do We Capitalize The Pronoun “I”?

It points out that English is the only language that typically always capitalizes the personal pronoun, and that historians now believe that one of the reasons for that is that there is only a single letter in the English “I”:

According to Charles Bigelow, who designed the Lucida and Wingdings fonts, “Graphically, single letters are a problem. They look like they broke off from a word or got lost or had some other accident.” Capitalization is one way to denote that a letter is intended to stand alone.

Note that like “me” and “we”, the Mandarin personal pronoun “wǒ” has two letters, which may contribute to why there doesn’t seem to be any general feeling that it should typically always be capitalized like the single-letter English “I” is.

I suspect that 7-year-old you would have been fine with that. 😁