What it is
An act carries a name, its parts carry labels, and its preamble opens with a run of set formulae. Every one of those positions raises the same small question: does the word begin with a capital. The answer is a property of the language version rather than of the act.
Nothing in these languages compels an answer. A community may capitalize the generic noun of an instrument whenever a particular act is meant, reserve the capital for the exact title, or decline it outright, and it may open a preamble's citation formulae with a capital or with a small letter. What varies is not what the grammar permits but what a community, or a body drafting in its language, has settled.
The wording of the formulae belongs to the phraseology section, and the same division runs to the parts: subdivision-numbering owns the designator and its punctuation. This record owns the capital on both.
Where the expectation comes from
Three authorities of three kinds rule this class, and only two speak for a language community.
- The English Style Guide of the Directorate-General for Translation writes Regulation, Decision and Directive with a capital where they are followed by a number or refer to specific acts, at 4.9, and capitalizes Annex, Appendix and Article on the same condition while sending generalized references such as "draft regulation" to lower case. At 4.6 the nouns and adjectives of an agreement's full title take a capital. It binds that institution's drafters and translators and nobody else.
- Türk Dil Kurumu's Yazım Kuralları capitalize every word of the name of a kanun, tüzük, yönetmelik, yönerge or genelge, in "Medeni Kanun" and "Türk Bayrağı Tüzüğü", and every word of a newspaper's name, in "Resmî Gazete". That is a language community's orthography rather than one body's practice.
- The Office québécois de la langue française rules the French case in its Banque de dépannage linguistique: charte, loi, règlement, décret and code take an initial capital when a legislative text's exact title is cited, keep it in an abridged title immediately preceded by a definite determiner, and lose it otherwise. The noun article never takes one, "Le nom article s'écrit toujours avec une minuscule initiale."
The tier is House because the record's examples are EU texts, whose capitals follow the institution's guide, while the Turkish half of the class is Codified. The French case shows why the distinction earns its keep. The Quebec rule capitalizes règlement wherever an exact title is cited; the French version of the act cited below writes "modifiant le règlement (UE) no 1024/2012" in lower case. One language, two authorities, opposite outputs, and the one governing an EU text is the one that can revise its own guidance.
Consequences for translation
The conversion is determinate once the authority is known, but the evidence that would let a translator infer it is scarcer than it looks.
- A heading proves nothing. Enacting formulae and chapter headings stand in full capitals in every language version of an EU act, so a pair drawn from one cannot show an asymmetry. Only running-case positions carry the question.
- A German version proves nothing either, on the instrument noun. German capitalizes every noun, so "zur Änderung der Verordnung (EU) Nr. 1024/2012" is silent on whether the noun is being treated as part of a name. Checking a third version only helps if its orthography leaves the question open.
- The capital and the wording separate. A reviser may find the formula right and its opening letter wrong, and the two findings answer to different authorities.
- A deviation is a finding inside the commissioning body's work and a preference outside it, except in Turkish, where the writing rules make it an error.
Examples
EN>FR
- Source: Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,
- Target: vu la proposition de la Commission européenne,
- Comment: Regulation (EU) 2016/1191, preamble, English and French official versions. English capitalizes every citation opener and French capitalizes none, and the recital opener follows suit, "Whereas:" against "considérant ce qui suit:". Nothing in the source predicts it.
FR>EN
- Source: modifiant le règlement (UE) no 1024/2012
- Target: amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012
- Comment: Words of the same act's own title. English Style Guide 4.9 supplies the capital, the noun being followed by a number. A translator reasoning from the French form would carry the small letter across.
EN>DE
- Source: Article 21(2)
- Target: Artikel 21 Absatz 2
- Comment: The Treaty citation of the same preamble. Both nouns are capitalized in German because German capitalizes nouns, not because the designator is treated as a name, while the French version writes "son article 21, paragraphe 2" and the Quebec rule expressly requires that small letter. The German output is right and its reasoning is unavailable.
References
- English Style Guide. Directorate-General for Translation, European Commission, eighth edition January 2016, file consulted 3 August 2026. Chapter 4, spelled "Capitalisation" in the guide's own contents, beginning at page 25. Sections 4.6 (Full titles of international agreements, conferences, conventions, etc.), 4.9 (References to EU legislation) and 4.12 (Headings and subheadings).
- Türk Dil Kurumu, Yazım Kuralları, "Büyük harflerin kullanıldığı yerler", read on the institution's own page at tdk.gov.tr. The rules on the names of kanun, tüzük, yönetmelik, yönerge and genelge and on the names of books, journals, newspapers and works of art, cited here by their wording, the page numbering its rules within a lettered part.
- Banque de dépannage linguistique, "Majuscule aux noms de textes législatifs", Office québécois de la langue française, last updated 2018.
- Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2016 on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012, English, French and German language versions, title and preamble.