The history of punctuation

[rastignak]

When did punctuation begin to be used in English language? Period must
have been the first form to come. Maybe then commas. Can some body
throw light on the history of punctuation?
Thanks
Rasta

[Donna Richoux]

rastignak <rast...@indiatimes.com> wrote:

I've looked before, and it's not easy to find. I finally bought a big
book on the subject, _Pause and Effect_, and I've leafed through it a
few times, but it looks almost as if I'd have to learn the entire
history of medieval manuscript making (which was mostly in Latin) to
make sense of what it shows there.

You should notice that your question assumes that the English people
invented periods, commas, etc. That's not the case.

I'll pass on one little thing I learned: "period" and "comma" used to
mean, not the little marks we know of, but the grammatical forms, the
entire phrases, clauses, or sentences, that were set off by various
marks. Eventually the marks themselves took on the names.

It's as if this symbol, "?", was not called "a question mark" but a
"question."

I'd like the excuse to tackle that book again. Perhaps you have a
specific question I could aim for? What would you like to know?

--
Best -- Donna Richoux

[Jouni Filip Maho]

Donna Richoux wrote:
>
> rastignak <rast...@indiatimes.com> wrote:
>
> > When did punctuation begin to be used in English language? Period must
> > have been the first form to come. Maybe then commas. Can some body
> > throw light on the history of punctuation?
>
> I've looked before, and it's not easy to find. I finally bought a big
> book on the subject, _Pause and Effect_, and I've leafed through it a
> few times, but it looks almost as if I'd have to learn the entire
> history of medieval manuscript making (which was mostly in Latin) to
> make sense of what it shows there.

This is better (and easier to understand):

Bischoff, Bernhard. 1990. Latin palaeography: antiquity and the middle
ages. Translated from German by Daíbhí Ó Cróinín & David Ganz. Cambridge
University Press & The Medieval Academy of Ireland.

I was looking for the origin of the question mark, and found that book
very illuminating.

---
jouni maho

[dcw]

In article <1g4qqbv.bfaisp1qq2lrdN%tr...@euronet.nl>,
Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote:

>I'll pass on one little thing I learned: "period" and "comma" used to
>mean, not the little marks we know of, but the grammatical forms, the
>entire phrases, clauses, or sentences, that were set off by various
>marks. Eventually the marks themselves took on the names.

That's still one meaning of "period". "Quotes" and "parentheses" can
mean either the punctuation marks or the stuff inside them.

David