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As far as I'm aware, English is the only language that uses title case for capitalizing titles of media, article headlines, buttons in computer interfaces and more. However, I could find little on the origins of it.

The first edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (1906) already mentions it on page 15 under the "Capitalization" section:

Capitalize—

[...]

  1. All the principal words (i. e., nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, first and last words) in English titles of publications (books, pamphlets, documents, periodicals, reports, proceedings, etc.), and their divisions (parts, chapters, sections, poems, articles, etc.); in subjects of lectures, papers, toasts, etc.; [...]

so by that time it will have already been used. Another answer here to a related question, Why Was Title Case Invented?, mentions

The use of title case may feasibly have been influenced by the German orthographic rule of capitalizing nouns. However I am unaware of any evidence for that.

which is what I was initially thinking of as well, especially because the way nouns are capitalized in normal text in German was done in English as well, for example in the original US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, though apparently this was only around the 17th and 18th century and from what that answer says doesn't really seem to be influenced by German spelling rules.

So my question is: What are the origins of title case, if they are known?

2xsaiko
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  • The 17c book with which I am most familiar is the 1662 Prayer Book. This is full of examples of, by modern standards, strange punctuation and what seems to be almost random capitalisation. As this was a book produced by academics, or at least senior clergy, containing official forms of divine service this orthography must have been acceptable to most, if not all, educated people at the time. If there were accepted rules regarding punctuation and capitalisation at that time they must have been either very complex or very slack. – BoldBen Aug 09 '21 at 02:01
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    What you're calling title case is really about capitalization conventions for titles in English. It isn't like the typesetter has a third case to hold special "title case" letters the way he did to hold each of the capitals in his upper case and the small letters in his lower case. :) – tchrist Aug 09 '21 at 03:10
  • @tchrist Yes, that's what I mean, and I've only ever heard it called that. The APA at least does as well (https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case), and the Wikipedia article on it is also called "Title case". – 2xsaiko Aug 09 '21 at 12:01
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    Why was this closed? The answer that this redirects to now answers a completely different question that I even referenced one of the answers from but doesn't answer my main question. This question is about how the capitalization rules for headlines in e.g. the AP Stylebook and Chicago Manual of Style originated. – 2xsaiko Aug 09 '21 at 12:04

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