Information AboutInterpunct |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT INTERPUNCT | |
| punctuation | |
| typography | |
| diacritics | |
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An interpunct · is a small dot used for Interword Separation in ancient Latin Script , being perhaps the first consistent visual representation of word boundaries in written language. The dot is vertically centered, e.g. " DONA·EIS·REQUIEM ", and is therefore also called a '''middle dot''' or '''centered dot'''. In addition to the round dot form, Inscription s sometimes use a small Equilateral Triangle for the interpunct, pointing either up or down. Such triangles can be found on inscriptions on buildings in the Twentieth Century . Ancient Greek , by contrast, had not developed interpuncts; all the letters ran together. When a wave of enthusiasm for all things Greek swept Ancient Rome , the use of interpuncts disappeared, presumably being inadequately fashionable. The use of Spaces for word separation didn't appear until much later, some time between 600 and 800 AD . In Unicode , the interpunct is code point 0183, or 00B7 in Hexadecimal . The HTML Entity for an interpunct is ·. See also " Similar Symbols ", below. IN WRITTEN LANGUAGE English In British Typography , an interpunct · is sometimes called a space dot. In some Word Processor s, interpuncts are used to denote either Hard Space or space characters. Latin The dot called interpunct was used regularly in early Latin , but has long been replaced by space. Georgian language The Georgian Language uses · (middot) as a Comma . Taiwanese In Taiwanese Pe̍h-ōe-jī , middle dot is often used as a workaround for ''dot above right'' Diacritic because most early encoding systems did not support this diacritic. Unicode did not support this diacritic until June 2004. Newer fonts often support it natively; however, the practice of using middle dot still exists. Historically, it was derived in the late 19th century from an older barred-o with curly tail as an adaptation to the typewriter. Chinese The Chinese Language sometimes uses the interpunct (called the partition sign) to separate words; since Chinese script has no word spacing, the interpunct is used in cases which might otherwise be ambiguous. The partition sign is more frequently used to separate the given name and the family name of non-Chinese, or unsinicized or desinicized minority ethnic groups in China, for example, 威廉·莎士比亞 (Weilian·Shashibiya) is the transliteration of "William Shakespeare", and the partition sign is inserted in between the characters signifying the sound of "William" and those for "Shakespeare". The Chinese partition sign is also used to separate book title and chapter title when they are mentioned consecutively (with book title first, then chapter). In Chinese, the middle dot is also fullwidth in printed matter, but the regular middle dot (·) is used in computer input, which is then rendered as fullwidth in Chinese-language fonts. Note that while some fonts may render the Japanese katakana middle dot as a square under great magnification, this is not a defining property of the middle dot that is used in China or Japan. Bernhard Karlgren used a middle dot to represent the Glottal Stop in his reconstruction of medieval Chinese . Greek The Greek '' Ano Teleia '' (a semicolon-like punctuation mark, lit. "upper dot") is often expressed as a middle dot, although Unicode provides for a unique U+0387. http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/ Japanese Interpuncts are often used to separate transcribed foreign words written in Katakana . For example, " Can't Buy Me Love " becomes 「キャント・バイ・ミー・ラヴ」 ("Kyanto·bai·mii·ravu"). A middle dot is also sometimes used to separate lists in Japanese instead of the Japanese comma ("、" known as ''tōten''). Grammar lessons in Japanese sometimes also use a similar symbol to separate a Verb Suffix from its root. However, the Japanese writing system usually does not use space or punctuations to separate words; instead, the mixture of Katakana , Kanji , and Hiragana gives some indication of word boundary. In Japanese Typography , the "katakana middle dot" (as the Unicode consortium calls it) has a fixed width that is the same as most kana characters, known as ''fullwidth''. Catalan In has unique code points for the letters Ŀ (U+013F) and '''ŀ''' (U+0140), but they are not frequently used. The use of '''•''' bullet ( •) is considered inaesthetic.In Medieval Catalan the symbol '·' was sometimes used to note certain Elision s, much like the modern apostrophe. Occitan In Occitan , especially in the Gascon dialect, the ''punt interior'' (literally, "interior dot") is used in order to distinguish the following graphemes:
Although being considered as a spelling mistake, a Period is frequently used when a middle dot is unavailable: ''des.har, in.hèrn''. The use of • bullet ( •) is considered inaesthetic.
In Medieval Occitan the symbol '·' was sometimes used to note certain Elision s, much like the modern apostrophe. Shavian In the Shavian Alphabet , the middle dot is used before a word to denote it as a proper noun. Runes Runic texts use a semicolon-like punctuation mark to separate words. IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE In s soon afterwards was probably a major factor contributing to the decline of the raised decimal point, although it can still sometimes be encountered in academic circles (e.g., Cambridge University 2006 ) and is fairly commonly used by mathematics teachers in schools.
In Computers , the middle dot is usually used to indicate White Space in various software applications such as Word Processing , Graphic Design , web layout, Desktop Publishing , or Software Development programs. It allows the user to see where white space is located in the document, and what sizes of white space are used, since normally white space is invisible so tabs, spaces, non-breaking spaces, and such are indistinguishable from one another. In Chemistry , the middle dot is used to separate the parts of formulas of addition compounds, mixture salts or solvates (mostly hydrates), such as of Copper(II) Sulfate Pentahydrate , CuSO4 · 5H2O. SIMILAR SYMBOLS ''Characters in the Symbol column, above, may not render correctly, if at all, in all browsers.'' REFERENCES SEE ALSO |
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