Is "I" a proper noun? Why is it always capitalized when "he" and "she" are not?

Question

Ezra Allen · Accepted Answer

'I' is not a proper noun, and the reasoning behind the rule for capitalizing it is likely for aesthetics.

As you suspect, 'I' is no more a proper noun than 'he' or 'she.' Unlike those words, however, a lowercase 'I' simply doesn't look good on its own, and may be less legible than its uppercase counterpart. There isn't a complete consensus as to why the switch was made, but as 'I' developed from the German 'ich,' people wrote their single 'i's larger than in other words, and eventually switched to the capitalized version. https://tutor.hix.ai https://tutor.hix.ai https://tutor.hix.ai

Kennedy Andrews · Answer

undefined "I" is a pronoun, not a proper noun. It is always capitalized regardless of its position in a sentence because it represents the first person singular subject, and this convention helps distinguish it from other pronouns like "he" and "she." Capitalizing "I" dates back to Old English and Middle English, where it was written as "ic" or "ich." Over time, the lowercase form "i" became indistinguishable from the other letters in words, leading to the convention of capitalizing it for clarity.