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{{Short description|Marks to indicate  pacing of written text}}
{{Redirect2|Punctuating|General punctuation|the Unicode block|General Punctuation|other uses|Punctuating (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}

'''Punctuation marks''' are marks indicating how a piece of [[writing|written]] text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood.<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica'': [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/483473/punctuation "Punctuation].</ref> The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the [[Mesha Stele]] from the 9th century BC, consisting of points between the words and horizontal strokes between sections.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Byrne|first1=Eugene|title=Q&A: When were punctuation marks first used?|url=http://www.historyextra.com/article/premium/qa-when-were-punctuation-marks-first-used|website=History Extra|publisher=BBC|access-date=14 February 2017}}</ref> The [[alphabet]]-based writing began with no spaces, no [[capitalization]], no vowels (see [[abjad]]), and with only a few punctuation marks, as it was mostly aimed at recording business transactions. Only with the Greek playwrights (such as [[Euripides]] and [[Aristophanes]]) did the ends of sentences begin to be marked to help actors know when to make a pause during performances. Punctuation includes [[Space (punctuation)|space]] between words and both obsolete and modern signs.

By the 19th century, grammarians explained the difference between the punctuation marks by means of a hierarchy that ascribed different weight to them.<ref name="eatsshootsleave00trus112">{{cite book |title=Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation |url=https://archive.org/details/eatsshootsleave00trus |url-access=limited |last=Truss |first=Lynn |year=2004 |publisher=Gotham Books |location=New York |isbn=1-59240-087-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/eatsshootsleave00trus/page/112 112] }}</ref> Six marks, proposed in 1966 by the French author [[Hervé Bazin]], could be seen as predecessors of [[emoticon]]s and [[emoji]]s.<ref>{{Citation|last=Bazin|first=Hervé|title=Plumons l'oiseau|publisher=Éditions Bernard Grasset|location=Paris (France)|year=1966|page=142}}</ref> 

In rare cases, the meaning of a text can be changed substantially by using different punctuation, such as in "woman, without her man, is nothing" (emphasizing the importance of men to women), contrasted  with "woman: without her, man is nothing" (emphasizing the importance of women to men).<ref name=Truss>[[Lynne Truss|Truss, Lynne]] (2003). ''[[Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation]]''. Profile Books. {{ISBN|1-86197-612-7}}.</ref> Similar changes in meaning can be achieved in spoken forms of most languages by using elements of speech such as [[suprasegmentals]]. The rules of punctuation vary with the language, [[location]], [[register (sociolinguistics)|register]], and [[time]]. In [[online chat]] and [[Text messaging|text messages]], punctuation is used [[Tachygraphy|tachygraphically]], especially among younger users.

==History==

===Western antiquity===
During antiquity, most scribes in the West wrote in {{lang|la|[[scriptio continua]]}}, i.e., without punctuation delimiting [[Word#Word boundaries|word boundaries]]. Around the 5th century&nbsp;BC, the Greeks began using punctuation consisting of vertically arranged dots—usually a dicolon or tricolon—as an aid in the oral delivery of texts. After 200&nbsp;BC, Greek scribes adopted the {{tlit|grc|théseis}} system invented by [[Aristophanes of Byzantium]], where a single dot called a {{tlit|grc|punctus}} was placed at one of several heights to denote rhetorical divisions in speech:
* {{tlit|grc|hypostigmḗ}}{{snd}}a low {{tlit|grc|punctus}} on the baseline to mark off a {{tlit|grc|komma}} (a unit smaller than a [[clause]])
* {{tlit|grc|stigmḕ mésē}}{{snd}}a {{tlit|grc|punctus}} at midheight to mark off a clause ({{tlit|grc|kōlon}})
* {{tlit|grc|stigmḕ teleía}}{{snd}}a high {{tlit|grc|punctus}} to mark off a sentence ({{tlit|grc|periodos}})<ref>E. Otha Wingo, ''Latin Punctuation in the Classical Age'' (The Hague, Netherlands: De Gruyter, 1972), 22.</ref>
In addition, the Greeks used the [[paragraphos]] (or [[gamma]]) to mark the beginning of sentences, marginal [[Diple (textual symbol)|diple]]s to mark quotations, and a [[Coronis (textual symbol)|koronis]] to indicate the end of major sections.

During the 1st century&nbsp;BC, [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] also made occasional use of symbols to indicate pauses, but by the 4th century&nbsp;AD the Greek {{tlit|grc|théseis}}—called {{lang|la|distinctiones}} in Latin{{efn|The Latin names for the marks are {{lang|la|subdistinctio}}, {{lang|la|media distinctio}}, and {{lang|la|distinctio}}.}}—prevailed, as reported by [[Aelius Donatus]] and [[Isidore of Seville]] (7th century). Latin texts were sometimes laid out {{lang|la|per capitula}}, where each sentence was placed on its own line. Diples were used, but by the late period, these often degenerated into comma-shaped marks.

===Medieval===
Punctuation developed dramatically when large numbers of copies of the [[Bible]] started to be produced. These were designed to be read aloud, so the [[copyist]]s began to introduce a range of marks to aid the reader, including [[Indentation (typesetting)|indentation]], various punctuation marks ([[diple (textual symbol)|diple]], {{lang|grc-Latn|[[paragraphos]]}}, {{lang|la|simplex ductus}}), and an early version of initial capitals ({{lang|la|litterae notabiliores}}). [[Jerome]] and his colleagues, who translated the Bible into [[Latin]], the [[Vulgate]] ({{circa|AD 400}}), employed a layout system based on established practices for teaching the speeches of [[Demosthenes]] and [[Cicero]]. Under his layout {{lang|la|per cola et commata}} every sense-unit was indented and given its own line. This layout was solely used for biblical manuscripts during the 5th–9th centuries, but was abandoned in favor of punctuation.

In the 7th–8th centuries [[Irish people|Irish]] and [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] scribes, whose [[native language]]s were not derived from [[Latin]], added more visual cues to render texts more intelligible. Irish scribes introduced the practice of [[space (punctuation)|word separation]].<ref>{{cite book |first=M. B. |last=Parkes |chapter=The Contribution of Insular Scribes of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries to the 'Grammar of Legibility' |title=Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts |location=London |publisher=Hambledon Press |date=1991 |pages=1–18}}</ref> Likewise, insular scribes adopted the {{lang|grc-Latn|[[distinctiones]]}} system while adapting it for minuscule script (so as to be more prominent) by using not differing height but rather a differing number of marks—aligned horizontally (or sometimes triangularly)—to signify a pause's duration: one mark for a minor pause, two for a medium one, and three for a major one. Most common were the {{lang|la|punctus}}, a comma-shaped mark, and a 7-shaped mark ({{lang|la|comma positura}}), often used in combination. The same marks could be used in the margin to mark off quotations.

In the late 8th century, a different system emerged in [[Francia|France]] under the [[Carolingian dynasty]]. Originally indicating how the voice should be [[modulation (music)|modulated]] when chanting the [[liturgy]], the {{lang|la|positurae}} migrated into any text meant to be read aloud, and then to all manuscripts. {{lang|la|[[Positurae]]}} first reached [[England]] in the late 10th century, probably during the Benedictine reform movement, but was not adopted until after the [[Norman conquest of England|Norman conquest]]. The original {{lang|la|positurae}} were the {{lang|la|punctus}}, marking a minor pause within the sentence, {{lang|la|punctus elevatus}}, marking a major pause within the sentence, {{lang|la|punctus versus}}, marking the end of a declarative sentence, and {{lang|la|punctus interrogativus}}, marking the end of an interrogative sentence. A fifth symbol, the {{lang|la|punctus flexus}} was added in the 10th century to indicate a pause of a value between the {{lang|la|punctus}} and {{lang|la|punctus elevatus}}. In the late 11th/early 12th century, the {{lang|la|punctus versus}} disappeared and was taken over by the simple {{lang|la|punctus}} (now with two distinct values).<ref>Raymond Clemens & Timothy Graham, ''Introduction to Manuscript Studies'' (Ithaca–London: Cornell UP, 2007), 84–6.</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Paleography: How to Read Medieval Handwriting |publisher=[[Harvard University]] |url=http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic453618.files/Central/editions/paleo.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208074905/http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic453618.files/Central/editions/paleo.html |archive-date= 8 December 2015 |access-date=13 November 2017}}</ref>

The [[late Middle Ages]] saw the addition of the {{lang|la|virgula suspensiva}} (slash or slash with a midpoint dot), which was often used in conjunction with the {{lang|la|punctus}} for different types of pauses. Direct quotations were marked with marginal diples, as in Antiquity, but from at least the 12th century, scribes also began entering diples (sometimes double) within the column of text.

===Medieval China===
Punctuation marks, especially [[Space (punctuation)|spacing]], were not needed in [[Logogram|logographic]] or [[Syllabary|syllabic]] (such as [[Written Chinese|Chinese]] and [[Mayan script]]) texts because disambiguation and emphasis could be communicated by employing a separate written form distinct from the spoken form of the language.{{clarify|date=July 2025}}<!--It's unclear what this means in practice.-->{{fact|date=July 2025}} Ancient Chinese classical texts were transmitted without punctuation. However, many [[Warring States period]] bamboo texts contain the symbols {{angbr|└}} and {{angbr|▄}} indicating the end of a chapter and [[full stop]], respectively.<ref name="Warring States">林清源，《簡牘帛書標題格式研究》台北： 藝文印書館，2006。(Lin Qingyuan, ''Study of Title Formatting in Bamboo and Silk Texts'' Taipei: Yiwen Publishing, 2006.) {{ISBN|957-520-111-6}}.</ref> By the [[Song dynasty]], the addition of punctuation to texts by scholars to aid comprehension became common.<ref name="History of the Song Dynasty">The ''[[History of Song (Yuan dynasty)|History of the Song Dynasty]]'' (1346) states 「凡所讀書，無不加標點。」 (Among those who read texts, there are none who do not add punctuation).</ref>

===Printing-press era===
{{anchor|Later developments|reason=Old section name; might be linked-to.}}
The amount of printed material and its readership began to increase after the invention of moveable type in Europe in the 1450s. [[Martin Luther]]'s German Bible translation was one of the first mass-printed works; he used only [[Slash (punctuation)#Line breaks|virgule]], [[full stop]], and less than one percent [[question mark]]s as punctuation. The focus of punctuation still was rhetorical, to aid reading aloud.<ref>[https://ufg.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/fileadmin/phil-fak/aktuelles/2010/fakultaetspreise/slotta.pdf Historische Kommasetzung bei Luther, en: historical use of comma by Luther], Frank Slotta, for Prof Beatrice Primus, Landesprüfungsamt I NRW, 2010.</ref> As explained by writer and editor [[Lynne Truss]], "The rise of printing in the 14th and 15th centuries meant that a standard system of punctuation was urgently required."<ref>{{cite book |title=Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation |url=https://archive.org/details/eatsshootsleave00trus |url-access=limited |last=Truss |first=Lynne |year=2004 |publisher=Gotham Books |location=New York |isbn=1-59240-087-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/eatsshootsleave00trus/page/77 77] }}</ref> Printed books, whose letters were uniform, could be read much more rapidly than manuscripts. Rapid reading, or reading aloud, did not allow time to analyze sentence structures. This increased speed led to the greater use and finally standardization of punctuation, which showed the relationships of words with each other: where one sentence ends and another begins, for example.

The introduction of a standard system of punctuation has also been attributed to the Venetian printers [[Aldus Manutius]] and his grandson. They have been credited with popularizing the practice of ending sentences with the [[colon (punctuation)|colon]] or [[full stop]] (period), inventing the [[semicolon]], making occasional use of [[bracket#Parentheses|parentheses]], and creating the modern [[comma (punctuation)|comma]] by lowering the virgule. By 1566, Aldus Manutius the Younger was able to state that the main object of punctuation was the clarification of [[syntax]].<ref>{{cite book |title= Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation|url= https://archive.org/details/eatsshootsleave00trus|url-access= limited|last= Truss|first= Lynn|year= 2004|publisher= Gotham Books|location= New York|isbn= 1-59240-087-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/eatsshootsleave00trus/page/77 77]–78}}</ref>

By the 19th century, punctuation in the Western world had evolved "to classify the marks hierarchically, in terms of weight".<ref name="eatsshootsleave00trus112"/> Cecil Hartley's poem identifies their relative values:
<poem style="margin:1.2em 0 1.5em 3em;">
The stop point out, with truth, the time of pause
A sentence doth require at ev'ry clause.
At ev'ry comma, stop while ''one'' you count;
At semicolon, ''two'' is the amount;
A colon doth require the time of ''three'';
The period ''four'', as learned men agree.<ref>{{cite book |title=Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation |url=https://archive.org/details/eatsshootsleave00trus |url-access=limited |last=Truss |first=Lynn |year=2004 |publisher=Gotham Books |location=New York |isbn=1-59240-087-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/eatsshootsleave00trus/page/112 112]–113 }}</ref>
</poem>
The use of punctuation was not standardised until after the invention of printing. According to the 1885 edition of ''The American Printer'', the importance of punctuation was noted in various sayings by children, such as:
<poem style="margin:1.2em 0 1.5em 3em;">
[[Charles I of England|Charles the First]] walked and talked
Half an hour after [[Execution of Charles I|his head was cut off]].
</poem>
With a semicolon and a comma added, it reads as follows:
<poem style="margin:1.2em 0 1.5em 3em;">
Charles the First walked and talked;
Half an hour after, his head was cut off.<ref>[[Iona and Peter Opie]] (1943) ''I Saw Esau''.</ref>
</poem>
In a 19th-century manual of [[typography]], Thomas MacKellar writes:
{{Blockquote|Shortly after the invention of printing, the necessity of stops or pauses in sentences for the guidance of the reader produced the colon and full point. In the process of time, the comma was added, which was then merely a perpendicular line, proportioned to the body of the letter. These three points were the only ones used until the close of the fifteenth century, when Aldo Manuccio gave a better shape to the comma, and added the semicolon; the comma denoting the shortest pause, the semicolon next, then the colon, and the full point terminating the sentence. The marks of interrogation and admiration were introduced many years later.<ref>{{cite book |title= The American Printer: A Manual of Typography, Containing Practical Directions for Managing all Departments of a Printing Office, As Well as Complete Instructions for Apprentices: With Several Useful Tables, Numerous Schemes for Imposing Forms in Every Variety, Hints to Authors, Etc.|edition= Fifteenth – Revised and Enlarged|last= MacKellar|first= Thomas|year= 1885|publisher= MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan|location= Philadelphia|page=63}}
</ref>}}

===Typewriters and electronic communication===
The introduction of [[electrical telegraphy]] with a limited set of transmission codes<ref>See e.g. [[Morse code]]</ref> and [[typewriter]]s with a limited set of keys influenced punctuation subtly.  For example, [[curved quotes]] and [[apostrophe]]s were all collapsed into two characters (' and ").  The [[hyphen]], [[minus sign]], and dashes of various widths have been collapsed into a single character (-), sometimes repeated to represent a long dash.  The [[space (punctuation)|spaces]] of different widths available to professional typesetters were generally replaced by a single full-character-width space, with typefaces [[monospace]]d.  In some cases, a typewriter keyboard did not include an exclamation point (!), which could otherwise be constructed by the [[overstrike]] of an apostrophe and a period; the original [[Morse code]] did not have an exclamation point.

These simplifications have been carried forward into digital writing, with [[teleprinter]]s and the [[ASCII]] character set essentially supporting the same characters as typewriters. Treatment of whitespace in [[HTML]] discouraged the practice (in English prose) of putting two full spaces after a full stop, since a single or double space would appear the same on the screen. (Most style guides now discourage double spaces, and some electronic writing tools, including Wikipedia's software, automatically collapse double spaces to single.) The full traditional set of typesetting tools became available with the advent of [[desktop publishing]] and more sophisticated [[word processor]]s. Despite the widespread adoption of character sets like [[Unicode]] that support the punctuation of traditional typesetting, writing forms like [[text messages]] tend to use the simplified ASCII style of punctuation, with the addition of new non-text characters like [[emoji]]. Informal [[text speak]] tends to drop punctuation when not needed, including some ways that would be considered errors in more formal writing.

In the computer era, punctuation characters were recycled for use in [[programming languages]] and [[URL]]s. Due to its use in [[email]] and [[Twitter]] handles, the [[at sign]] (@) has gone from an obscure character mostly used by sellers of bulk commodities (10 pounds @$2.00 per pound), to a very common character in common use for both technical routing and an abbreviation for "at". The [[tilde]] (~), in moveable type only used in combination with vowels, for mechanical reasons ended up as a [[Tilde#Role of mechanical typewriters|separate key on mechanical typewriters]], and like @ it has been put to completely new uses.

==In English==
{{Main|English punctuation|Quotation mark|Comma}}
There are two major styles of punctuation in English: British or American. These two styles differ mainly in the way in which they handle quotation marks, particularly in conjunction with other punctuation marks. In British English, punctuation marks such as full stops and commas are placed inside the quotation mark only if they are part of what is being quoted, and placed outside the closing quotation mark if part of the containing sentence.  In American English, however, such punctuation is generally placed inside the closing quotation mark regardless. This rule varies for other punctuation marks; for example, American English follows the British English rule when it comes to semicolons, colons, question marks, and exclamation points.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Chelsea|first1=Lee|title=Punctuating Around Quotation Marks|url=http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-quotation-marks.html|website=APA Style|publisher=American Psychological Association|access-date=16 February 2017}}</ref>{{explain|date=October 2019}} The [[serial comma]] is used much more often in the United States than in the UK.

==Other languages==
{{Hatnote|"Punctuation in French" redirects here. See also {{section link|French orthography|Punctuation}}.}}
{{Further|Armenian alphabet#Punctuation|Chinese punctuation|Hebrew punctuation|Japanese punctuation|Korean punctuation}}
{{more citations needed|section|date=November 2020}}

Other [[languages of Europe]] use much the same punctuation as English. The similarity is so strong that the few variations may confuse a native English reader. [[Quotation mark]]s are particularly variable across European languages. For example, in [[French language|French]] and [[Russian language|Russian]], quotes would appear as: {{lang|fr|«&thinsp;Je suis fatigué.&thinsp;»}} (In French, the quotation marks are spaced from the enclosed material; in Russian, they are not.)

In the [[French language|French]] of [[France]] and [[Belgium]], the marks {{angbr|:}}, {{angbr|;}}, {{angbr|?}} and {{angbr|!}} are preceded by a thin space. In [[Canadian French]], this is only the case for {{angbr|:}}.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bryan |first1=Chloe |title=Why people leave a space before punctuation in texts |url=https://mashable.com/article/leaving-space-before-end-punctuation-texting |website=Mashable |date=12 March 2019 |access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Tetteroo |first1=Jeroen |title=Designer's Style Guide to French Translation for Canada |url=https://langsolinc.com/designers-guide-to-french-translation-for-canada/ |website=LanguageSolutions |date=19 August 2015 |access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref>

In [[Greek language|Greek]], the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point {{angbr|·}}, known as the {{lang|el-Latn|[[interpunct#Ano teleia|ano teleia]]}} ({{lang|grc|άνω τελεία}}).

In [[Georgian language|Georgian]], three dots {{angbr|[[wikt:჻|჻]]}} were formerly used as a sentence or paragraph divider. It is still sometimes used in calligraphy.

[[Spanish language|Spanish]] and [[Asturian language|Asturian]] (both of them [[Romance languages]] used in [[Spain]]) use an inverted question mark {{angbr|[[¿]]}} at the beginning of a question and the normal question mark at the end, as well as an inverted exclamation mark {{angbr|[[¡]]}} at the beginning of an exclamation and the normal exclamation mark at the end.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Put |first1=Olga |title=What Is the Upside-Down Question Mark in Spanish? |url=https://www.spanish.academy/blog/what-is-the-upside-down-question-mark-in-spanish/ |website=Spanish Academy |date=26 February 2022 |access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref>

[[Armenian language|Armenian]] uses several punctuation marks of its own. The full stop is represented by a colon, and vice versa; the exclamation mark is represented by a diagonal similar to a tilde {{angbr|~}}, while the question mark {{angbr|՞}} resembles an unclosed circle placed after the last vowel of the word.

[[Arabic]], [[Urdu]], and [[Persian language|Persian]]—written from right to left—use a reversed question mark: {{angbr|؟}}, and a reversed comma: {{angbr|،}}. This is a modern innovation; pre-modern Arabic did not use punctuation. [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], which is also written from right to left, uses the same characters as in English, {{angbr|,}} and {{angbr|?}}.<ref>{{cite web |title=Punctuation in Different Languages |url=https://www.translatemedia.com/translation-blog/punctuation-in-different-languages |website=TranslateMedia |date=11 July 2013 |access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref>

Originally, [[Sanskrit]] had no punctuation. In the 17th century, Sanskrit and [[Marathi language|Marathi]], both written using [[Devanagari]], started using the vertical bar {{angbr|[[Danda|।]]}} to end a line of prose and double vertical bars {{angbr|॥}} in verse.

Punctuation was not used in [[Chinese language|Chinese]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Korean language|Korean]], and [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] [[chữ Nôm]] writing until the adoption of punctuation from the West in the late 19th and early 20th century. In unpunctuated texts, the grammatical structure of sentences in classical writing is inferred from context.<ref>{{Cite book |title=English Grammar and Usage |last=Prasoon |first=Shrikant |publisher=V & S Publishers |year=2015 |isbn=978-93-505742-6-3 |location=New Delhi |pages=Chapter 6 }}</ref> Most punctuation marks in modern Chinese, Japanese, and Korean have similar functions to their English counterparts; however, they often look different and have different customary rules.

In the [[Indian subcontinent]], {{angbr|[[Compound_point#The_colon_dash_(:—)|:-]]}} is sometimes used in place of colon or after a subheading. Its origin is unclear, but it could be a remnant of the [[British Raj]]. Another punctuation practice common in the Indian Subcontinent for writing monetary amounts is the use of {{angbr|/-}} or {{angbr|/=|1=/=}} after the number. For example, Rs. 20/- or Rs. 20/= implies 20 whole rupees.

[[Thai language|Thai]], [[Khmer language|Khmer]], [[Lao language|Lao]], and [[Burmese language|Burmese]] did not use punctuation until the adoption of punctuation from the West in the 20th century. Blank spaces are more frequent than full stops or commas.

==Novel punctuation marks==
===Interrobang===
{{Main|Interrobang}}
In 1962, American advertising executive Martin K. Speckter proposed the interrobang (‽), a combination of the question mark and exclamation point, to mark rhetorical questions or questions stated in a tone of disbelief. Although the new punctuation mark was widely discussed in the 1960s, it failed to achieve widespread use.<ref name=fonthaus>{{cite web
| first = Allan
| last = Haley
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080507055249/http://www.fonthaus.com/xheight/interrobang.cfm
| title = The Interrobang Is Back
| url = http://www.fonthaus.com/xheight/interrobang.cfm
| date = June 2001
| publisher = fonthaus.com
| archive-date = 7 May 2008
| access-date = 3 December 2010
}}</ref> Nevertheless, both it and its inverted form were given code points in Unicode: {{unichar|203D|Interrobang}}, {{unichar|2E18|Inverted interrobang}}.

===Predecessors of emoticons and emojis===
The six additional punctuation marks proposed in 1966 by the French author [[Hervé Bazin]] in his book {{lang|fr|Plumons l'Oiseau|italic=yes}} ("Let's pluck the bird", 1966)<ref>{{Citation|last=Bazin|first=Hervé|title=Plumons l'oiseau|publisher=Éditions Bernard Grasset|location=Paris (France)|year=1966|page=142}}</ref> could be seen as predecessors of [[emoticon]]s and [[emoji]]s.

These were:<ref>[http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n4256.pdf Revised preliminary proposal to encode six punctuation characters introduced by Hervé Bazin in the UCS] by Mykyta Yevstifeyev and Karl Pentzlin, 28 Feb. 2012</ref>
* the "irony point" or "[[Irony punctuation#Irony mark|irony mark]]" ({{lang|fr|point d'ironie}}: [[File:point d'ironie (Hervé Bazin).svg|10px]])
* the "love point" ({{lang|fr|point d'amour}}: [[File:point d’amour (Hervé Bazin).svg|15px]]) [[File:Point d'amour (Hervé Bazin) – variant.svg|thumb|A point d'amour mark, or "love point"]]
* the "conviction point" ({{lang|fr|point de conviction}}: [[File:point de conviction (Hervé Bazin).svg|8px]])                                                                                                                                   
* the "authority point" ({{lang|fr|point d'autorité}}: [[File:point d'autorité (Hervé Bazin).svg|8px]])
* the "acclamation point" ({{lang|fr|point d'acclamation}}: [[File:point d'acclamation (Hervé Bazin).svg|11px]])
* the "doubt point" ({{lang|fr|point de doute}}: [[File:point de doute (Hervé Bazin).svg|7px]])

==="Question comma", "exclamation comma"===
[[File:Exclamation comma 3.png|thumb|left|upright|An exclamation comma]]
An international [[patent application]] was filed, and published in 1992 under World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) number WO9219458,<ref>{{cite web| url = http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=WO9219458| title = European Patent Office publication}}</ref> for two new punctuation marks: the "question comma" and the "exclamation comma". The ''question comma'' has a comma instead of the dot at the bottom of a question mark, while the ''exclamation comma'' has a comma in place of the point at the bottom of an exclamation mark. These were intended for use as question and exclamation marks within a sentence, a function for which normal question and exclamation marks can also be used, but which may be considered obsolescent. The patent application entered the national phase only in Canada. It was advertised as lapsing in Australia on 27 January 1994<ref>Australian Official Journal of Patents, 27 January 1994</ref> and in Canada on 6 November 1995.<ref>[http://patents.ic.gc.ca/cipo/cpd/en/patent/2102803/financial_transactions.html CIPO – Patent – 2102803 – Financial Transactions<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081002113219/http://patents.ic.gc.ca/cipo/cpd/en/patent/2102803/financial_transactions.html |date=2 October 2008 }}</ref>

===Others===
Other proposed punctuation marks include:<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.readersdigest.ca/culture/little-known-punctuation-marks/ |title=11 Little-Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using |author1=Brandon Specktor |author2=Samantha Rideout |publisher=Reader's Digest Canada |date=March 20, 2019}}</ref>
* [[Snark mark]], indicating an ironic statement by putting a tilde next to terminal punctuation: {{char|.~}} for dry sarcasm, {{char|!~}} for enthusiastic sarcasm, and {{char|?~}} for sarcastic questions
* [[Rhetorical question mark]]: [[File:Irony mark full.svg|8px]]
* [[SarcMark]] for sarcasm

{{clear}}

==Punctuation marks in Unicode==
{{Punctuation marks in Unicode|tableTOC=yes}}
==See also==
* [[Diacritic]]
* [[James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher]], a word puzzle
* [[Obelism]], the practice of annotating manuscripts with marks set in the margins
* [[Orthography]], the category of written conventions that includes punctuation as well as spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, and emphasis
* [[Scribal abbreviation]]s, abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in Latin
* [[Terminal punctuation]]
* [[History of sentence spacing]] for typographical details
* [[Tironian notes]], a system of shorthand that consisted of about 4,000 signs
* [[Usage]]

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Further reading===
*{{cite book
 | last = Allen | first = Robert | author-link = Robert Allen (lexicographer) | date = 25 July 2002 | title = Punctuation | publisher = [[Oxford University Press]]
 | isbn = 0-19-860439-4}}
*{{cite book
 | last = Amis | first = Kingsley | author-link = Kingsley Amis | date = 2 March 1998
 | title = The King's English: A Guide to Modern Usage | publisher = HarperCollins
 | isbn = 0-00-638746-2}}
*{{cite book
 | last = Fowler | first = Henry Watson | author-link = Henry Watson Fowler
 |author2=Francis George Fowler  | orig-year = 1906 |date=June 2002
 | title = The King's English | publisher = Oxford University Press 
 | isbn = 0-19-860507-2| author2-link = Francis George Fowler | title-link = The King's English }}
*{{cite book
 | last = Gowers | first = Ernest | author-link = Ernest Gowers | year = 1948
 | title = Plain Words: a guide to the use of English
 | publisher = [[Her Majesty's Stationery Office]] | location = London | title-link = Plain Words }}
*{{cite book
 | last = Houston | first = Keith | year = 2013
 | title = Shady Characters: Ampersands, Interrobangs and other Typographical Curiosities
 | publisher = Particular }}
*{{cite book
 | last = Parkes | first = Malcolm Beckwith | year = 1993 | title = Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West | publisher = University of California Press 
 | isbn = 0-520-07941-8}}
*{{cite book
 | last = Patt| first = Sebastian | year = 2013 | title = Punctuation as a Means of Medium-Dependent Presentation Structure in English: Exploring the Guide Functions of Punctuation | publisher = Narr Francke Attempto Verlag | location = Tübingen
 | isbn = 978-3-8233-6753-6}}

== External links ==
{{Wiktionary|punctuation}}
{{Wikibooks|English in Use/Punctuation}}
{{Wikibooks|English in Use/Other Common Punctuation Marks}}
* [http://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/ Larry Trask: Guide to Punctuation] – a helpful online resource
* [http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/le-point-sur-la-ponctuation_772026.html History of Punctuation] {{in lang|fr}} – helpful photographs of early punctuation
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100724165428/http://www.brighthub.com/education/languages/articles/15961.aspx Punctuation Marks in English: Clarity in Expression]
* Unicode reference tables:
** [http://www.unicode.org/charts/collation/ Unicode collation charts]—including punctuation marks, sorted by shape
** {{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2000.pdf |title=General punctuation U2000}}
** {{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3000.pdf |title=CJK Symbols and Punctuation U3000}}
** {{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFE30.pdf |title=CJK Compatibility Forms UFE30}}
** {{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFE50.pdf |title=Small Form Variants UFE50}}
** {{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFF00.pdf |title=Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms UFF00}}
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ethiopic.htm Ethiopic script]
* [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6135544&tag=1 Automatic Recovery of Capitalization and Punctuation of Automatic Speech Transcripts]
* [http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/566/02/ English Punctuation Rules]
* [http://www.englishgrammar.org/punctuation-marks-independent-clauses/ ''Punctuation marks with independent clauses''], by Jennifer Frost

{{Navbox punctuation}}
{{Latin alphabet}}
{{Unicode navigation}}
{{Typography terms}}
{{Nonverbal communication}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Punctuation| ]]
[[Category:Typography]]