It is difficult to imagine written speech without punctuation, which indicates intonation, pauses and allows you to quickly understand the essence of the text. Despite the variety of languages, punctuation in them, if not the same, then has much in common.
Punctuation Mark History
The system of punctuation marks dates back to the 2nd-1st centuries BC. We are talking about the languages of the Indo-European group. This was the era of Alexandrian grammar, which is associated with famous ancient Greek personalities. Among them, one can single out Aristophanes of Byzantium, Dionysius of Thrace, Aristarchus and others. They were respected philologists, grammars, had extensive knowledge in philosophy and other sciences.
For a long time punctuation marks were absent in writing at all. Then elementary characters appeared that had nothing to do with the modern punctuation system. It is believed that she acquired a modern look closer to the end of the 15th century. This happened with the development of printing under the influence of Alda Manucius the Younger, a well-known Italian publisher (Alda publishing house has existed for about 100 years).
It is worth noting that the whole family of Manutius (or Manucio) was engaged in publishing. Ald became famous all over the world by introducing a standard for the punctuation system, which, accordingly, was used in books. Europe had a serious cultural influence, books distributed around the world.This was the reason that other nations chose to borrow uniform punctuation marks and used them in their writing. However, at present there are still languages in which another punctuation system is used.
Punctuation differences in different languages
The first thing worth mentioning is the peoples and languages in which the punctuation marks are only partially changed. For example, in Greece they use the generally accepted punctuation system with the exception of one character - “; ". In the original, it looks almost the same as a semicolon, but the comma has a less rounded shape. In Greek, such a symbol denotes a question. There is also an analogue of the semicolon in the system, but it is represented by the symbol of the dot, which is located in the middle of the line.
Punctuation in Armenian
In the Armenian language, the situation with punctuation marks is more complicated. There is an ordinary comma, as well as the symbol "̀", which is called "but". It is used to show a pause, which should be longer than after the usual comma. An ordinary dot is used as a colon, and the “:” sign, on the contrary, serves as a dot and is placed at the end of a sentence.
The intonation in the Armenian language is indicated by three characters: the interrogative “՞”, the exclamation “” and the accent “՛”. It is worth noting that the signs of intonation are not placed at the end of the sentence, but inside the word that you need to pay attention to. There are also other characters that write in the middle of words. For example, the hyphen “-”, the apostrophe “՚” to indicate a single sound, the title “՟” to abbreviate words and “-” - another hyphen that denotes syllables and carries words.
Punctuation in Spanish
In Spanish, two characters are most different from standard punctuation: interrogative and exclamatory. First of all, they are both written upside down - “¿” and “¡”. Also, these characters are put before the beginning of the sentence, and in the end the question and exclamation of the usual format are used. Two characters can be used together “¡¿”, then “?! ".
Interesting fact: There is a rare sign “‽” called interrobang (inconclusive). It was invented by Martin Specter in 1962 for the English language - the designation of a rhetorical question. But in most languages they prefer to use the combination “?! ".
Punctuation in Arabic
Arabic contains more or less similar to the European punctuation system, but there are some changes. They are caused by the fact that they write in this language in the opposite direction - from right to left. For instance, " ? "- a question mark and" ؛ "semicolon. There are no strict rules for writing, since punctuation in Arabic does not have a standard. The use of punctuation marks is similar to Russian and other languages.
Hebrew
However, in Hebrew they also write from right to left, however, punctuation has not received any changes. But the problem is that in this language there are no clear rules, as such. Many Jews place punctuation marks at their discretion. The influence of other languages, especially English, also affects.
Chinese punctuation marks
In the Chinese language there is a punctuation of the European type, but with amendments.For example, all characters are placed at the same distance from each other, and punctuation marks take up as much space as hieroglyphs. The dot looks like "̥", and to indicate the ellipsis, the Chinese put six ordinary dots ".......". There is an ordinary comma and in the form of a drop. The latter is put in the sentence, where there is a listing of homogeneous members. In Chinese, the short and double dashes “––” are used, as well as the dividing dot in the middle of the line. It is often written to share the name of a foreigner.
A similar punctuation system in different languages is explained by its origin. Actively use modern punctuation marks began at the end of the XV century. In Italy, typography gained popularity. In particular, this happened thanks to the famous publishing house Alda. A standardized punctuation system was proposed by the grandson of the publisher's founder, Ald Manutius the Younger. Other peoples began to borrow punctuation marks, so in most languages they are similar.
