The origin of punctuation lies in classical rhetoric. When orators prepared speeches in ancient Rome and Greece, symbols were used to mark where and for how long a speaker should pause. However, modern day punctuation has evolved past the use for spoken language only, and the uses of various punctuation in other languages have as well…
The Origin of Punctuation in Modern Languages
In classical rhetoric, punctuation was used to indicate where, and for how long, a speaker would pause during his or her speech. The length of the pause for particular punctuation marks varied, and the list in order of shortest to longest goes as such: a comma, a colon, and a period. Aside from rhetoric, the origin of punctuation can be attributed to drama, as famous Greek playwright Aristophanes is often credited with this development. In both rhetoric and drama, punctuation was an aid for reading out loud rather than the writing aid and stylistic element it has become today. In fact, punctuation was often not included by the writer, but left up to the reader’s discretion. Although modern day punctuation was more or less standardized across different languages around the 20th century, many languages have also kept their older, traditional punctuation.
Initially, all writing systems were devoid of separation between words. The Chinese developed punctuation marks which are now foreign to us in the Warring States period (475 BC – 221 BC), and those were used to indicate either the end of a chapter or a full stop. However, Chinese is a language which does not necessarily require punctuation by its nature. The Greeks first used punctuation marks around the 5th century BC. In addition, the Romans occasionally used symbols to indicate pauses in the 1st century BC, and by the AD 4th century, punctuation became prevalent. Later on, other languages continued to develop their own forms of punctuation as well.
The Origin of Punctuation in Western Civilization
The propagation of punctuation in the Western world came with the mass production of the Bible during Medieval times, when copyists began to include marks to aid in reading out loud. Later, with the invention of movable type came a standard system of punctuation. The use of punctuation was further refined with the development of the typewriter. People began to use punctuation more sparingly for the sake of frugality, as typewriters functioned with expensive carbon-film ribbons, and punctuation marks required the same length of ribbon as a regular letter.
As previously mentioned, many languages maintained their own punctuation even after the propagation of modern day Western punctuation.
Punctuation in Other Languages Besides English
A great example is Spanish, which has an “upside down” question mark or exclamation point before the start of a question or exclamation.
In Modern Greek, the question mark looks like what English speakers consider to be a semi-colon. In turn, the semi-colon is noted as a raised dot in the text.
In Japanese, periods are open circles rather than a solid dot, commas are slanted the opposite way from English, and quotations are enclosed in corner-brackets. In addition, there are no spaces in written Japanese. As for question marks, these are not used outside of informal text messages, the internet, or letter writing between friends. While Chinese, Japanese, and Korean all use Western punctuation, it was only adopted by all three countries in the early 20th century.
As for Korean, different symbols are used for quotes based on the country in which something is written. In the North, guillemets <> are the symbols used for quotes. In the South, quotation marks are equivalent to the ones used in English.
Armenian Punctuation
Following the trend of unique question marks, in Armenian, the question mark takes the form of an open circle placed on the upper right corner of the last vowel of the question word. The full stop is represented by a colon and vice versa.
Due to its right to left writing nature, in Arabic (as well as languages that use Arabic script such as Farsi or Urdu) the question mark is written as a mirror image of the English question mark – so it looks backwards to native English speakers. The same also applies for commas. In general, the use of any punctuation in these languages is a modern innovation. Hebrew and Yiddish are also written right to left, but distinguish themselves from Arabic by maintaining the Roman-alphabet (standard Western) direction of the question mark.
In Russian, punctuation symbols remain the same as in English. However, their meaning and use is more complex, and in practice resemble German. This is because Russian does not have a fixed subject-verb-object order. As a result, sentences can be longer in comparison to other languages. Thus obligatory comma use is heavier. In addition, letter spacing is often used as a tool for emphasis. Direct speech is indicated in three ways – regular quotation marks, guillemots, and dashes.
Finally, and perhaps most peculiarly, in Old Turkish : meant a space. For example – “My:name:is:Joe” would be equivalent to how we understand “My name is Joe”.
The Implication of Punctuation in Other Languages and Translation
While these variances in punctuation may not be something that everyday readers of content think about, they are certainly important for professional translation services providers. In order to accurately convey the meaning and tone of a translated text, a translator must be aware of how punctuation plays into that. For example, if a document was undergoing Armenian translations from English to Armenian, the translator would need to be sure they accurately indicated the end of a sentence using a colon, instead of the western period, or else risk confusing any native Armenian readers.
As the role of punctuation has evolved outside of spoken rhetoric, improper use of the symbols can potentially end in disaster if not used correctly. By now we are probably all familiar with the joke where a Panda walks into a cafe, and immediately upon finishing his sandwich shoots a gun and leaves. On his way out, the bear justifies his actions to the server by showing him a sentence describing his species that goes something like: “Pandas – large black-and-white mammals, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
In this instance, the improper use of a comma after eats had the Panda going from a cute mammal to a potential fire arms offender. It also made him the poster child for professional translators everywhere (and English grammar students) to pay attention to their punctuation use, and the potential change in meaning that can arise from using it incorrectly.
Do you know of any interesting or different punctuation marks that have been left out? Please let us know in the comments!
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