Capitalize Nations, Nationalities, Races, and Languages
Capitalization
Rulebase Summary
Capitalize the names of nations, nationalities, races, and languages — France, American, Hispanic, Spanish, Mandarin. These are proper nouns or proper adjectives and always take capitals.
Examples
A. He speaks fluent spanish and portuguese.
A. He speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese.
Language names are always capitalized.
A. The defendant is a White male, approximately 40 years old.
A. The defendant is a white male, approximately 40 years old.
The general terms black and white as racial descriptions are not capitalized.
Transcript Notes
Do not capitalize the general terms black and white when used as racial descriptions. Capitalize names of nationalities, languages, and races, plus adjectives from them (German, Austrian, Spanish, Latin, Danish, Belgian). Some proper place-names in combination with common nouns have become so commonly used that they are no longer capitalized (bone china, venetian blinds, manila folders, french fries) — check a current dictionary.
Style Guide References (2)
Morson's
BGGP