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, 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, some time between 600 and 800 AD. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz redirects here. ... The Requiem (from the Latin requiés, rest) or Requiem Mass, also known formally (in Latin) as the Missa pro defunctis or Missa defunctorum, is a liturgical service of the Roman Catholic Church as well as the Anglican High Church and certain Lutheran Churches in the United States. ... Inscriptions are words or letters written, engraved, painted, or otherwise traced on a surface and can appear in contexts both small and monumental. ... For alternate meanings, such as the musical instrument, see triangle (disambiguation). ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ... Beginning of Homers Odyssey The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage of the Greek language[1] as it existed during the Archaic (9th–6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) periods in Ancient Greece. ... Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. ... A space is a punctuation convention for providing interword separation in some scripts, including the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Arabic. ... The population of the Earth rises to about 208 million people. ... Events December 25, Rome, coronation of Charles the Great (Charlemagne) as emperor by Pope Leo III. Celtic monks begin work on the Book of Kells on the Island of Iona. ... AD redirects here. ...

In Unicode, the interpunct is code point 0183, or 00B7 in hexadecimal. The HTML entity for an interpunct is · (introduced in HTML 3.2). See also "Similar symbols", below. The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... In mathematics and computer science, hexadecimal, base-16, or simply hex, is a numeral system with a radix, or base, of 16, usually written using the symbols 0–9 and A–F, or a–f. ... HTML has been in use since 1991 (note that the W3C international standard is now XHTML), but the first standardized version with a reasonably complete treatment of international characters was version 4. ...

In written language

English

In British typography, an interpunct · is sometimes called a space dot. A specimen of roman typefaces by William Caslon Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. ...

In some word processors, interpuncts are used to denote either hard space or space characters. A word processor (also more formally known as a document preparation system) is a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of viewable or printed material. ... In computing, the term hard space has several meanings, all related to a special way of representing the whitespace between characters. ...

It is also often used as a separation between pounds sterling and pence, e.g. £7·85. For details of notes and coins, see British coinage and British banknotes. ... Above: A variety of coins considered to be lower-value, including an Irish 2p piece and many US pennies. ...

Shavian

In the Shavian alphabet of English, the middle dot is used before a word to denote it as a proper noun. Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Catalan

The combination of two l's and a raised dot is typical of Catalan texts.

In Catalan, the punt volat (literally, "flown dot") is used between two l's (thus: l·l) in cases where each belongs to a separate syllable (e.g. col·lecció, 'collection'). This is to distinguish the true "double-l" pronunciation from that of the letter-combination ll (without a dot) which in Catalan stands for palatal lateral IPA: /ʎ/ (e.g. castellà, 'Castilian'). In orthographic descriptions, l·l is called ela geminada ("geminate l") and ll doble ela. Although considered as a spelling mistake, a period or a hyphen is frequently used when a middle dot is unavailable: col.lecció or col-lecció. Unicode has unique code points for the letters Ŀ (U+013F) and ŀ (U+0140), but they are compatibility characters and are not frequently used nor recommended.^[1] The preferred Unicode representation is l· (U+006C + U+00B7). The use of • bullet (•) is considered inaesthetic. Catalan IPA: (català IPA: or []) is a Romance language, the national language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia, and in the city of LAlguer in the Italian island of Sardinia. ... LL may stand for: LL is the IATA code for Lineas Aeras Allegro airline LL is the production code for the Doctor Who serial The Evil of the Daleks. ... In phonetics, gemination is when a spoken consonant is doubled, so that it is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a single consonant. ... A full stop or period (sometimes stop, full point, decimal point, or dot), is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of several different types of sentences in English and many other languages. ... This article is about the punctuation mark. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ...

In Medieval Catalan the symbol '·' was sometimes used to note certain elisions, much like the modern apostrophe. Catalan IPA: (català IPA: or []) is a Romance language, the national language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia, and in the city of LAlguer in the Italian island of Sardinia. ... In music, see elision (music). ...

There is no separate keyboard layout for Catalan; punt volat can be typed using Shift-3 in the Spanish (Spain) layout. A standard Hebrew keyboard showing both Hebrew and English (QWERTY) letters. ...

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·莎士比亚 (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). Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

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. Bernhard Karlgren (1889 - 1978) was a Swedish sinologist and eminent philologist, and the founder of Swedish sinology as a scholarly discipline. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

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. For other uses, see Formosan languages, Taiwanese Mandarin, and Languages of Taiwan. ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... Example of a letter with a diacritic A diacritic or diacritical mark, also called an accent, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ...

Franco-Provençal

In Franco-Provençal (or Arpitan), the interpunct is used in order to distinguish the following graphemes: Franco-Provençal (Francoprovençal) or Arpitan (in vernacular: patouès) (in Italian: francoprovenzale, provenzale alpina, arpitano, patois; French: francoprovençal, arpitan, patois) is a Romance language with several dialects in a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue dOïl and Langue dOc. ...

• ch· (pronounced /ʃ/) versus ch (pronounced /ts/).
• j· (pronounced /ʒ/) versus j (pronounced /dz/).
• g· before e, i (pronounced /ʒ/) versus g before e, i (pronounced /dz/).

Georgian language

The Georgian language uses · (middot) as a comma. Georgian (, kartuli ena) is the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus. ... For other uses, see Comma. ...

Greek

The Greek ano teleia (άνω τελεία, a semicolon-like punctuation mark, lit. "upper dot") is often expressed as a middle dot. Although Unicode provides a unique code point for it (U+0387), U+00B7 is preferred.^[2]

Japanese

Main article: Japanese punctuation

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·mī·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. Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ... Cant Buy Me Love is the name of a song written by Paul McCartney (although credited to Lennon-McCartney) and released by The Beatles on the A side of their fifth British single, Cant Buy Me Love/You Cant Do That. ... For the rules of English grammar, see English grammar and Disputes in English grammar. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ... Look up affix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

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. Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji   ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Arabic numerals. ... Hiragana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana and kanji; the Latin alphabet is also used in some cases. ...

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. A specimen of roman typefaces by William Caslon Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. ...

Latin

The dot called interpunct was used regularly in early Latin, but has long been replaced by space. For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ...

Occitan

In Occitan, especially in the Gascon dialect, the punt interior (literally, "interior dot") is used in order to distinguish the following graphemes: Occitan (IPA AmE: ), known also as Lenga dòc or Langue doc (native name: occitan [1], lenga dòc [2]; native nickname: la lenga nòstra [3] i. ... Gascon (Gascon, ; French, ) is a dialect of the Occitan language. ...

• s·h (pronounced /s/ + /h/) versus sh (pronounced /ʃ/), for example: des·har ('to undo') / deishar ('to leave').
• n·h (pronounced /n/ + /h/) versus nh (pronounced /ɲ/), for example: in·hèrn ('hell') / vinha ('vineyard').

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 unaesthetic. A full stop or period (sometimes stop, full point, decimal point, or dot), is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of several different types of sentences in English and many other languages. ...

In Medieval Occitan the symbol '·' was sometimes used to note certain elisions, much like the modern apostrophe. Occitan (IPA AmE: ), known also as Lenga dòc or Langue doc (native name: occitan [1], lenga dòc [2]; native nickname: la lenga nòstra [3] i. ... In music, see elision (music). ...

Runes

Runic texts use a semicolon-like punctuation mark to separate words. Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...

In mathematics and science

In British publications up to the mid-1970s, especially scientific and mathematical texts, the decimal point was commonly typeset as a middle dot. When the British currency was decimalised in 1971, the official advice issued was to write decimal amounts with a raised point (thus: £21·48) and to use a decimal point "on the line" only when typesetting constraints made it unavoidable. The widespread introduction of electronic typewriters and calculators 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. The decimal separator is used to mark the boundary between the integer and the fractional parts of a decimal numeral. ... For the system of library classification, see Dewey Decimal Classification. ... For other uses, see Calculator (disambiguation). ...

In mathematics, a small middle dot can be used to represent the product; for example, x ∙ y for the product of x and y. When dealing with scalars, it is interchangeable with the times symbol: x ⋅ y means the same thing as x × y, but × is easily confused with the letter x. However, when dealing with vectors, the dot product is distinct from the cross product. This usage has its own designated code point in Unicode, U+2219 (∙), called the "bullet operator". It is also sometimes used to denote the "AND" relationship in formal logic, due to the relationship between these two operations. In situations where the interpunct is used as a decimal point (as noted above, by many mathematics teachers in some countries), then the multiplication sign used is usually a period, not an interpunct. For other meanings of mathematics or uses of math and maths, see Mathematics (disambiguation) and Math (disambiguation). ... In linear algebra, real numbers are called scalars and relate to vectors in a vector space through the operation of scalar multiplication, in which a vector can be multiplied by a number to produce another vector. ... For other uses, see X (disambiguation). ... This article is about vectors that have a particular relation to the spatial coordinates. ... In mathematics, the dot product, also known as the scalar product, is a binary operation which takes two vectors over the real numbers R and returns a real-valued scalar quantity. ... For the cross product in algebraic topology, see Künneth theorem. ... AND Logic Gate In logic and mathematics, logical conjunction (usual symbol and) is a two-place logical operation that results in a value of true if both of its operands are true, otherwise a value of false. ... Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ...

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. The tower of a personal computer. ... Look up white space, whitespace in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Word processing, in its now-usual meaning, is the use of a word processor to create documents using computers. ... Graphics are often utilitarian and anonymous,[1] as these pictographs from the US National Park Service illustrate. ... Adobe InDesign CS2, one of many popular desktop publishing applications. ... “Software development” redirects here. ...

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. For other uses, see Chemistry (disambiguation). ... Flash point non flammable Related Compounds Other cations Nickel(II) sulfate Zinc sulfate Except where noted otherwise, data are given for materials in their standard state (at 25 Â°C, 100 kPa) Infobox disclaimer and references Copper(II) sulfate (sulphate in most Commonwealth nations) is the chemical compound with the formula...

Similar symbols

Characters in the Symbol column, above, may not render correctly, if at all, in all browsers. The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... In typography, a bullet is a typographical symbol or glyph used to introduce items in a list, like below, also known as the point of a bullet: This is the text of a list item. ... A hyphen ( - ) is a punctuation mark. ... Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ... The dagesh (דגש) is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. ... The dagesh (דגש) is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. ...

For most North American Microsoft operating systems using OEM Code page 437, the Alt Code is 250 IBM PC or MS-DOS code page 437, often abbreviated CP437 and also known as DOS-US or OEM-US, is the original character set of the IBM PC, circa 1981. ... In PCs running the Microsoft Windows operating system, additional characters to those available by the current keyboard layout may be typed using the Alt key in conjunction with the keyboards numeric pad. ...

See also

• Punctuation

The term punctuation has two different linguistic meanings: in general, the act and the effect of punctuating, i. ...

References