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Questions on capitalization, punctuation

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Ubutumwa 5

ururimi: English

Jonatano (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 2 Ruheshi 2016 09:35:34

I have a few questions. In Esperanto, is there a universally accepted, or "proper", . . .

1. capitalization method for book titles?

2. capitalization method for months and days?

3. form of quotation marks?

Dankon!

erinja (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 2 Ruheshi 2016 11:12:19

People seem to use the capitalization and quoting systems used in their native languages.

In early Esperanto, months were generally capitalized. Now they are frequently if not usually not capitalized. You can choose what you prefer. I think that English speakers are more likely to capitalize because we do in English, non-native-English Europeans less likely to capitalize because you don't necessarily capitalize in their languages.

Mustelvulpo (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 2 Ruheshi 2016 20:05:48

1. It seems like most listings of book titles capitalize every word but I've seen some that are similar to English in which small words such as "de" and "da" are not capitalized.

2. Again, I sometimes see the names of days and months capitalized and sometimes not. Most likely, this is related to whether or not those words are capitalized in the writer's native language. I suppose this is optional and would be understood either way. There's no major difference between "lundo" and "Lundo."

3. You're free to use whatever quotation marks are familiar to you. For English speakers, this is usually "______". However, you'll see other formats used and they are acceptable.

bartlett22183 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 2 Ruheshi 2016 20:19:51

I think the matter is clarity and lack of ambiguity. Consider what are the symbols for the decimal point and the separation for thousands of units in large numbers. European and American usages are almost exact opposites, but intelligent persons can read each others' uses without problems. Just make it clear and unambiguous, and you should have no difficulties.

eriksangel15 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 3 Ruheshi 2016 14:47:39

I think it should be whatever you're more comfortable with. Even after being exposed to Spanish, being a native English speaker, I automatically capitalize proper nouns, simply from habit and is what I'm used to. it's what makes sense to me, but might not make sense to a native Spanish speaker, as they don't capitalize as much as English speakers do. And I know in the German language, they capitalize even more than the English language.

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