7. Capital letters

Speakers of Dutch are sometimes uncertain about the Dutch spelling of words relating to countries, languages and nationalities, hesitating about whether Nederlands in de Nederlandse inzending should be written with a capital or not. In fact, all words in Dutch relating to the categories of country, language and nationality always have a capital, and the situation in English is exactly the same: words like Latvia, Czech, and Portuguese are always capitalized.
     However, there are areas where English and Dutch differ. The well-known areas are the days of the week and the months of the year, all of which are spelled with a small letter in Dutch and a capital letter in English, as in Monday, December etc. By contrast, religious feasts and public holidays are capitalized in both languages. But then another difference arises with compound expressions: while Dutch compounds relating to days, months, feasts and holidays do not receive a capital in Dutch, the capitals remain in English:

English and Dutch conventions also differ with regard to titles. While in Dutch it is customary to write titles, including abbreviated forms, with a small letter, in English a capital letter is essential.

Note also that prepositions and articles in Dutch names are spelled in English according to the same conventions that apply in Dutch. This means that if the preposition or article is preceded by a first name or by an initial, then it is not written with a capital letter. However, if it is the first part of the name to be given, or if it is immediately preceded by a title, such as Mr or Mrs, then a capital letter is necessary. In the case of a preposition followed by an article, as in van der, it is only the preposition that is capitalized.

A final question relating to capitals is what to do after a colon: do you need a capital letter or not? The basic convention is that no capital is required. However, in American texts one often finds a capital letter if what comes after the colon is a full independent clause. Our advice here is to follow the basic convention and not use capitals.