Interpunct

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·NOBIS·REQVIEM," and is therefore also called a middle dot or centered dot. In addition to the round dot form, inscriptions 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, sometime between 600 and 800 AD.

The Chinese language sometimes uses the interpunct (called the partition sign) to separate words, as the Chinese script has no word spacing; in certain times ambiguities may exist, the interpunct then comes handy. The partition sign is also used to separate the given name and the family name of Westerners, or unsinicized or desinicized minority Chinese ethnic peoples, 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 of "William" and those of "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).

The Japanese language, like Chinese, also has no word spacing, and uses the interpunct (partition sign) in a similar manner as the Chinese. Grammar lessons in Japanese sometimes also use a similar symbol to separate a verb suffix from its root.

In Unicode, the interpunct is code point 0183, or 00B7 in hexadecimal. The HTML entity for an interpunct is ·.

In British typography, an interpunct is sometimes called a space dot.

In some word processors, interpuncts are used to denote either hard space or space characters.

In formal logic, the interpunct indicates the "AND" relationship.

A punctuation mark resembling the interpunct is used in the characteristically Catalan grapheme "ŀl" (called ele geminada, "geminate l"). It is used to distinguish a lengthened "l" from a palatized "l", written "ll".

In the Shavian alphabet, the interpunct is used before a word to denote it as a proper noun.

See also