Why is "I" always capitalized?

The world is a storm, fast and undiscriminating. None of us want to be the one who is blown away, the one who is lost--blended or stranded.

"I" seems strudier, safer than "i". As for you, him, her, and them. Well, save yourselves. I'm barely keeping "I" afloat.

Here's to the fools who capitalize "We". :-)

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"Capital Letters Were Always The Best Way Of Dealing With Things You Didn't Have A Good Answer To."

— Douglas Adams

Just have to say I thoroughly enjoyed all the choices! I believe that they all contain a truth, so I'm going with all 25!

I think you have done an admirable job covering all the plausible explanations, but in the spirit of the question all attempt to add to the list...

There may be something in the "ho-hum" visual impact of the small "i"- just not very exciting! Certainly not much of an affirmation of our existence. Perhaps that is because it is the nothing more than an antithetical, upside down exclamation point! And instead of shouting our existence, it muffles it!

I believe when the original caveman were given the job of inventing our language (when life began on earth over 6000 years ago *), they must have realized this fact. Knowing that we would be in competition with a lot of other species and extinction was the rule, rather than the exception, I'm sure they felt they needed to provide a symbolic understanding of our worth.

Now a traditional capitalized "I" has an extension at the top and the bottom, as if acknowledging our humble beginnings "rooted" to the earth (lest we forget our beginnings) and yet as our eyes travel up the column we see that we are actually reaching out to heaven or to the stars.

I'm sure the cavemen felt that such a symbol would convince the dinosaurs, giant marsupials and other species that our destiny

is obvious: To Connect Heaven And Earth.

now nobody is going to believe that can be accomplished with an upside down exclamation point!

* some will dispute this

Umm, I am sorry to admit I haven't read all the choices, so maybe mine's already up there.

I believe that English speakers have an over-inflated sense of self-worth. I cannot think of another language with which I have any familiarity where the singular personal pronoun is capitalized other than at the beginning of a sentence. The French say "je", the Germans say, "ich", and the Spanish say, "yo" (so do teenagers, but that's a different area of grammar). I know what the Arabs say, but I don't know how to spell it, so I'll pass on that, but I am pretty sure it's not capitalized.

Amazing that we're able to drag our egos around, isn't it?

**EDIT**

Can I go with #19?

Wow!! You've really thought about this haven't you?

I (!) will have to have a think myself and come back later. Great question!!

After much pondering......... 28).............ok, just kidding!!! :^) I think your first reason was your best. I also think it's because it's often the first word of a sentence, and names are also often at the beginning of sentences, so they have to be capitalized anyway and so it's convenient for them to have a uniform spelling wherever they appear.

But then why not the same for You, He, She, We, They, etc. ?

And I guess that's where 1) comes in... all the above mean different things according to context, but the meaning of "I" is always unambiguous except for schizophrenics, so

I guess that must be the reason why some people who think they're cool use small "i"s. It's because you have to work out which of their "i"s they refer to from the context.

29) You know, I actually think I knew the answer to this once.. my english teacher told me something about it, but he might have been just telling a story to keep us quiet, who knows :p Anyway, he said 'I' used to be spelled differently (a verry long time ago). When language changed (here's the part I forgot: don't know what the word used to be and why it changed) only the 'i' remained of what used to be the full word for 'I'. And because people thought a little 'i' might be read over and just wouldn't do for us individuals :P, the rule became that 'i' should be spelled 'I'... I hope it's true and if it is, I hope I explained it correctly (ironically a lot of 'I's in this sentence ;) )

It isn't always. The first three pages of the material of a book before the good stuff starts are i, ii, and iii.

The answer to questions about a language that starts with "Why" is always: "Because the people who speak it do it that way."

The Tetragrammaton occurs 6,823 times in the Hebrew text of both the Biblia Hebraica and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.[2] It does not appear in the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, or Esther. It first appears in the Hebrew text in Genesis 2:4.[2][3] The letters, properly read from right to left (in Biblical Hebrew), are: Hebrew Letter name Pronunciation י Yodh "Y" ה He "H" ו Waw "W" or placeholder for "O"/"U" vowel (see mater lectionis) ה He "H" (or often a silent letter at the end of a word) The Tetragrammaton as represented in stained glass in an 1868 Episcopal Church in IowaThese four letters are usually transliterated from Hebrew as IHVH in Latin, JHWH in German, French and Dutch, and JHVH/YHWH in English. This has been variously rendered as "Yahweh" or as "Jehovah", based on the Latin form of the term,[4] while the Hebrew text does not clearly indicate the omitted vowels. In English translations, it is often rendered in capital and small capital letters as "the Lord", following Jewish tradition which reads the word as "Adonai" ("Lord") out of respect for the name of God and the interpretation of the commandment not to take the name of God in vain. The word "haŠem", 'the Name' is also used in Jewish contexts; in Samaritan, "Šemå" is the normal substitution

Understandable English language convention -- as opposed to the French "je" convention, for instance, and harmless. Trouble is when it evolves into the royal "We" (which my sister and Rush Limbaugh occasionally use when making a point), or people (sports stars for instance, or Richard Nixon in using 'The President') who refer to themselves by their own name in third person.

Then it's #1 all the way.

It's first person

19 is as close as I can find. There are languages out there that have a different symbol for "I" and it is no different in size than the rest of their symbols. "I" represents the person speaking or writing and therefore extends importance of that person to respectfully pay attention to the person speaking at the time.