punctuation
Sign in to savePunctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, consisting of points between the words and horizontal strokes between sections. The alphabet-based writing began with no spaces, no capitalization, no vowels (see abjad), and with only a few punctuation marks, as it was mostly aimed at recording business transactions. Only with the Greek playwrights (such as Euripides and Aristophanes) did the ends of sentences b
AI overview
Punctuation marks are symbols used in writing to show readers how text should be read and understood. They help clarify meaning by indicating pauses, stops, and the structure of ideas within written language.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
20 sectionsContents
- History
- Western antiquity
- Medieval
- Medieval China
- Printing-press era
- Typewriters and electronic communication
- In English
- Other languages
- Novel punctuation marks
- Interrobang
- Predecessors of emoticons and emojis
- "Question comma", "exclamation comma"
- Others
- Punctuation marks in Unicode
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Citations
- Further reading
- External links
Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, consisting of points between the words and horizontal strokes between sections. The alphabet-based writing began with no spaces, no capitalization, no vowels (see abjad), and with only a few punctuation marks, as it was mostly aimed at recording business transactions. Only with the Greek playwrights (such as Euripides and Aristophanes) did the ends of sentences begin to be marked to help actors know when to make a pause during performances. Punctuation includes space between words and both obsolete and modern signs.
By the 19th century, grammarians explained the difference between the punctuation marks by means of a hierarchy that ascribed different weight to them. Six marks, proposed in 1966 by the French author Hervé Bazin, could be seen as predecessors of emoticons and emojis.