In this context, the German use of caps is interesting. They capitalize every noun, and I believe that such a use has been proven to allow for speedier reading than the capital use in other Western languages (i.e. English).
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It was common until the 19th century to capitalize all nouns in English as well.
I've found in reading older text that it doesn't noticeably affect the speed of comprehension, but the capitalization of nouns does seem to subtly shift the emphasis away from the action being described by the sentence and toward the things taking part in it.
It still does not prevent the possibility of coming across an unfamiliar word that ends up being a person or place's name.