User:BrighamMcDuck/Usage des majuscules en français

The use of capital letters in French is governed by orthographic and typographical conventions. It follows that the non-respect of these, by the incorrect use of a lower case or a capital letter, can be a spelling error. For some authors, who make the difference between uppercase and capital, the latter is not governed by these conventions. In French, a capital letter is a visual cue that makes it easier to read a text.

Principles
Traditionally, the capital letter can only be the first letter of a word, except in the case of compound nouns (Netherlands, the Most High).

Also, if the first letter is beamed, then the entire beam is capitalized (Work).

Whether the first letter of a word is uppercase or lowercase depends on the nature of the word and its place in the sentence or in the text.

Capital and uppercase accentuation
In French, according to the opinion of the French Academy, "the accent has full orthographic value". This therefore recommends the use of an accent or umlaut on a capital letter, as well as the use of the cedilla and the ligature. While many publications write capitals (just like capitals) with accents and other diacritics, just like lowercase letters, many publishers (Grasset, Actes Sud, etc.), press organs (see Le World, Liberation, etc.) or official services (see the Official Journal of the French Republic) dispense with it by following the typographical tradition (see below).


 * For example, one generally finds writing State, but State in other French publications.

In Quebec, "We must put all accents and all diacritics on capitals, except on initials and acronyms when they are written in capitals". According to the 2015 edition of the Guide du typographer: "Traditionally, in French-speaking Switzerland in particular, the capital initial of a word composed in lowercase was not accented (Emile). So was an isolated capital letter (At that time)."

Diacritics and ligatures remain reproduced by publishers of academic publications and dictionaries.

The practice of accentuation has evolved in the French language. It exists at the end of the Middle Ages and normalizes late. From the beginnings of printing, printers endeavored to engrave and reproduce diacritics as they appear in manuscripts. The Gutenberg Bible already reproduces them and the question is settled from the 1470s for more complicated alphabets like the Greek alphabet.

The practice of not indicating accents on capital letters and capitals has its source in the use of fixed-size lead type in printing. The height of an accented capital being higher, the solution was then either to engrave special characters for the accented capitals by decreasing the height of the letter, or to put the accent after the letter, or simply not to put the accent. The typesetting machines being of Anglo-Saxon origin (Monotype, Linotype), it was not planned to put accents on the capitals. In contrast, in manual typesetting, there were accented capitals with a kerning accent overflowing from the body of the typeface. There were also - in large bodies - "faux accents" which could be placed, in the line spacing, above the capitals.