[Wikipedia-l] About language names

Mon Jan 31 15:00:36 UTC 2005

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> You find "Italiano" not "italiano" in the interwiki links. That is different.
> If you are in a primary school in Italy, your teacher will make you learn the
> difference :) .

If at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language
you click the "Français" interwiki link, you will arrive at a page
where "Français" is spelled with a capital F because it is a title.  
The first words of that article is "Le français est une langue
romane...".  In the fact box to the right, the "Organigramme
classification" begins with "Indo-européen" and ends with
"Français", once again with a capital "F", because it is an element
in a list. Clearly, the name of the language *can* be written with a
capital F, when it is a title or an element in a list.

If at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_language
you click the "Italiano" interwiki link, you will arrive at a page 
where the title is "Lingua italiano", but where the first words of the 
article is "L'Italiano è una lingua...".  In the fact box to the 
right, there is a "Famiglie linguistiche" list that begins with 
"Lingue indoeuropee" and ends with "Italiano".  Clearly, Italiano can 
be spelled with a capital I if it begins a sentence or if it is a 
member of a list.

If you try to deny this, I think your primary school teacher will 
correct you.

-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se