Word divider
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Word divider | |||||||
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In
In character encoding, word segmentation depends on which characters are defined as word dividers.
History
In
As the alphabet spread throughout the ancient world, words were often run together without division, and this practice remains or remained until recently in much of South and Southeast Asia. However, not infrequently in inscriptions a vertical line, and in manuscripts a single (·), double (:), or triple (⫶)
Scriptio continua
The early
Types
None
Alphabetic writing without inter-word separation, known as scriptio continua, was used in Ancient Egyptian. It appeared in Post-classical Latin after several centuries of the use of the interpunct.
Traditionally, scriptio continua was used for the Indic alphabets of South and Southeast Asia and hangul of Korea, but spacing is now used with hangul and increasingly with the Indic alphabets.
Today
Space
Space is the most common word divider, especially in Latin script.
Vertical lines
Ancient inscribed and cuneiform scripts such as Anatolian hieroglyphs frequently used short vertical lines to separate words, as did Linear B. In manuscripts, vertical lines were more commonly used for larger breaks, equivalent to the Latin comma and period. This was the case for Biblical Hebrew (the paseq) and continues with many Indic scripts today (the danda).
Interpunct, multiple dots, and hypodiastole
arma·virvmqve·cano·troiae·qvi·primvs·ab·oris italiam·fato·profvgvs·laviniaqve·venit litora·mvltvm·ille·et·terris·iactatvs·et·alto vi·svpervm·saevae·memorem·ivnonis·ob·iram |
The Latin interpunct |
As noted above, the single and double interpunct were used in manuscripts (on paper) throughout the ancient world. For example, Ethiopic inscriptions used a vertical line, whereas manuscripts used double dots (፡) resembling a colon. The latter practice continues today, though the space is making inroads. Classical Latin used the interpunct in both paper manuscripts and stone inscriptions.[5] Ancient Greek orthography used between two and five dots as word separators, as well as the hypodiastole.
Different letter forms
In the modern Hebrew and Arabic alphabets, some letters have distinct forms at the ends and/or beginnings of words. This demarcation is used in addition to spacing.
Vertical arrangement
The
Pause
In
Unicode
For use with computers, these marks have
- U+007C | VERTICAL LINE (|, |, |)
- U+00B7 · MIDDLE DOT (·, ·, ·)
- U+1361 ፡ ETHIOPIC WORDSPACE
See also
- Whitespace
- Sentence spacing
- Speech segmentation
- Zero-width non-joiner
- Zero-width space
- Substitute blank
- Underscore
References
- ^ (Saenger 2000)
- ^ "Determinatives are a most significant aid to legibility, being readily identifiable word dividers." (Ritner 1996:77)
- ^ King, Leonard William (1901). Assyrian Cuneiform. New York: AMS Press. p. 42.
- ^ University of Chicago Press (1911). Manual of Style: A Compilation of Typographical Rules Governing the Publications of The University of Chicago, with Specimens of Types Used at the University Press (Third ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago. p. 101.
this line is spaced.
- ^ (Wingo 1972:16)
Further reading
- Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press.
- Knight, Stan (1996). "The Roman Alphabet". In Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (eds.). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press.
- Ritner, Robert (1996). "Egyptian Writing". In Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (eds.). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press.
- Saenger, Paul (2000). Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading. ISBN 0-8047-4016-X.
- Wingo, E. Otha (1972). Latin Punctuation in the Classical Age. Mouton. p. 16.