An
interpunct —also called an
interpoint—is a small dot used for
interword separationIn punctuation, a word divider is a glyph that separates written words. In languages which use the Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic alphabets, as well as other languages of Europe and the Mideast, the word divider is a blank space, or whitespace, a convention which is spreading, along with other aspects...
in ancient
Latin scriptThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, which also appears in some modern languages as a stand-alone sign inside a word. It is present in
UnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
as code point .
The dot is vertically centered, e.g. "
DONA·EIS·REQVIEMA Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...
", and is therefore also called a
middle dot or
centered dot (Commonwealth:
centred 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 GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, by contrast, had not developed interpuncts; all the letters ran together. The use of
spacesIn writing, a space is a blank area devoid of content, serving to separate words, letters, numbers, and punctuation. Conventions for interword and intersentence spaces vary among languages, and in some cases the spacing rules are quite complex....
for word separation did not appear until much later, some time between 600 and 800
AD and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
.
The
dot operator (also called
middle dot and visually similar or identical to the interpunct) is a multiplication sign (instead of the × used in English-speaking countries): “
a multiplied by
b” is written either explicitly as
a·b or implicitly as
ab, depending on context.
English
In
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
typographyTypography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
, an interpunct · is sometimes called a
space dot. Dictionaries often use the interpunct or hyphenation point to indicate syllabification.
In some
word processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
s, interpuncts are used to denote either
hard spaceIn typesetting and text editors, the term hard space has several meanings, all related to a special way of representing the space between characters....
or space characters. In others, it is used to indicate a space when put in paragraph format to show indentations and spaces.
In British English, it is often used as the decimal point, e.g. 3·14 as opposed to the American 3.14, but this usage is less common in typography than in handwritten text, as a full stop (period) is easier to type.
Shavian
In the
Shavian alphabetThe Shavian alphabet is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonetic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of the conventional spelling. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw...
of English, the middle dot is used before a word to denote it as a proper noun.
Catalan
In
CatalanCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, the (literally, "flown dot") is used between two ⟨
l⟩ (thus: ⟨
l·l⟩) in cases where each belongs to a separate syllable (e.g. , 'cell'). This is to distinguish the true "double-l" pronunciation [
{{punctuation marks|·}}
An
interpunct (
· ) —also called an
interpoint—is a small dot used for
interword separationIn punctuation, a word divider is a glyph that separates written words. In languages which use the Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic alphabets, as well as other languages of Europe and the Mideast, the word divider is a blank space, or whitespace, a convention which is spreading, along with other aspects...
in ancient
Latin scriptThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, which also appears in some modern languages as a stand-alone sign inside a word. It is present in
UnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
as code point {{unichar|00B7|Middle dot|dec=|html=}}.
The dot is vertically centered, e.g. "
DONA·EIS·REQVIEMA Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...
", and is therefore also called a
middle dot or
centered dot (Commonwealth:
centred 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 GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, by contrast, had not developed interpuncts; all the letters ran together. The use of
spacesIn writing, a space is a blank area devoid of content, serving to separate words, letters, numbers, and punctuation. Conventions for interword and intersentence spaces vary among languages, and in some cases the spacing rules are quite complex....
for word separation did not appear until much later, some time between 600 and 800
AD and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
.
The
dot operator (also called
middle dot and visually similar or identical to the interpunct) is a multiplication sign (instead of the × used in English-speaking countries): “
a multiplied by
b” is written either explicitly as
a·b or implicitly as
ab, depending on context.
English
In
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
typographyTypography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
, an interpunct · is sometimes called a
space dot. Dictionaries often use the interpunct or hyphenation point to indicate syllabification.
In some
word processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
s, interpuncts are used to denote either
hard spaceIn typesetting and text editors, the term hard space has several meanings, all related to a special way of representing the space between characters....
or space characters. In others, it is used to indicate a space when put in paragraph format to show indentations and spaces.
In British English, it is often used as the decimal point, e.g. 3·14 as opposed to the American 3.14, but this usage is less common in typography than in handwritten text, as a full stop (period) is easier to type.
Shavian
In the
Shavian alphabetThe Shavian alphabet is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonetic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of the conventional spelling. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw...
of English, the middle dot is used before a word to denote it as a proper noun.
Catalan
In
CatalanCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, the {{lang|ca|
punt volat}} (literally, "flown dot") is used between two ⟨
l⟩ (thus: ⟨
l·l⟩) in cases where each belongs to a separate syllable (e.g. {{lang|ca|
cel·la}}, 'cell'). This is to distinguish the true "double-l" pronunciation [
{{punctuation marks|·}}
An
interpunct (
· ) —also called an
interpoint—is a small dot used for
interword separationIn punctuation, a word divider is a glyph that separates written words. In languages which use the Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic alphabets, as well as other languages of Europe and the Mideast, the word divider is a blank space, or whitespace, a convention which is spreading, along with other aspects...
in ancient
Latin scriptThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, which also appears in some modern languages as a stand-alone sign inside a word. It is present in
UnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
as code point {{unichar|00B7|Middle dot|dec=|html=}}.
The dot is vertically centered, e.g. "
DONA·EIS·REQVIEMA Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...
", and is therefore also called a
middle dot or
centered dot (Commonwealth:
centred 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 GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, by contrast, had not developed interpuncts; all the letters ran together. The use of
spacesIn writing, a space is a blank area devoid of content, serving to separate words, letters, numbers, and punctuation. Conventions for interword and intersentence spaces vary among languages, and in some cases the spacing rules are quite complex....
for word separation did not appear until much later, some time between 600 and 800
AD and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
.
The
dot operator (also called
middle dot and visually similar or identical to the interpunct) is a multiplication sign (instead of the × used in English-speaking countries): “
a multiplied by
b” is written either explicitly as
a·b or implicitly as
ab, depending on context.
English
In
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
typographyTypography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
, an interpunct · is sometimes called a
space dot. Dictionaries often use the interpunct or hyphenation point to indicate syllabification.
In some
word processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
s, interpuncts are used to denote either
hard spaceIn typesetting and text editors, the term hard space has several meanings, all related to a special way of representing the space between characters....
or space characters. In others, it is used to indicate a space when put in paragraph format to show indentations and spaces.
In British English, it is often used as the decimal point, e.g. 3·14 as opposed to the American 3.14, but this usage is less common in typography than in handwritten text, as a full stop (period) is easier to type.
Shavian
In the
Shavian alphabetThe Shavian alphabet is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonetic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of the conventional spelling. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw...
of English, the middle dot is used before a word to denote it as a proper noun.
Catalan
In
CatalanCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, the {{lang|ca|
punt volat}} (literally, "flown dot") is used between two ⟨
l⟩ (thus: ⟨
l·l⟩) in cases where each belongs to a separate syllable (e.g. {{lang|ca|
cel·la}}, 'cell'). This is to distinguish the true "double-l" pronunciation [{{IPAlink from that of the letter-combination ⟨
llLl/ll is a digraph which occurs in several natural languages.-In English:In English, ll represents the same sound as single l:...
⟩ (without a dot) which in Catalan stands for ʎ (e.g.
cella, 'eyebrow').
In orthographic descriptions, ⟨
l·l⟩ is called {{lang|ca|
ela geminada}} ("geminate l") and ⟨
ll⟩ {{lang|ca|
doble ela}}. Although considered as a spelling mistake, a
periodA full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...
or a
hyphenThe hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...
is frequently used when a middle dot is unavailable: {{lang|ca|
col.lecció}} or {{lang|ca|
col-lecció}}.
UnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
has unique code points for the letters ⟨
Ŀ⟩ (U+013F) and ⟨
ŀ⟩ (U+0140), but they are
compatibility charactersIn discussing Unicode and the UCS, many often refer to compatibility characters. Compatibility characters are graphical characters that are discouraged by the Unicode Consortium...
and are not frequently used nor recommended. The preferred Unicode representation is ⟨
l·⟩ (U+006C + U+00B7). The use of ⟨
•⟩ bullet (U+2022,
•) is strongly discouraged on aesthetic grounds.
In Medieval
CatalanCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
the symbol ⟨
·⟩ was sometimes used to note certain
elisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
s, much like the modern apostrophe (see Occitan below).
There is no separate keyboard layout for Catalan;
punt volat can be typed using Shift-3 in the Spanish (Spain) layout.
Chinese
The
Chinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
sometimes uses the interpunct (called the partition sign) to separate the given name and the family name of non-Chinese, or unsinicized or desinicized minority ethnic groups in China, for example, {{lang|zh|威廉·莎士比亚}} (
Wēilián·Shāshìbǐyǎ) is the transliteration of "
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
", 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).
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.
Swedish sinologist
Bernhard KarlgrenKlas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren was a Swedish sinologist and linguist who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods...
used a middle dot to represent the
glottal stopThe glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
in his reconstruction of medieval
ChineseThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
.
See also
proper name markIn Chinese writing, a proper name mark is an underline used to mark proper names, such as the names of people, places, dynasties, organizations...
.
Taiwanese Minnan
In Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Taiwanese Hokkien, middle dot is often used as a workaround for
dot above right diacriticA diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
because most early encoding systems did not support this diacritic. This is now encoded as {{unichar|0358|COMBINING DOT ABOVE RIGHT}} (see o͘). 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.
Franco-Provençal
In
Franco-ProvençalFranco-Provençal , Arpitan, or Romand is a Romance language with several distinct dialects that form a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue d'Oïl and Langue d'Oc. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G.I...
(or Arpitan), the interpunct is used in order to distinguish the following graphemes:
- 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]
Greek
The
GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
{{transl|el|
ánō stigmē}} or {{transl|el|
ánō teleía}} ({{lang|el|άνω στιγμή}}/{{lang|el|άνω τελεία}}, lit. "upper dot") is a punctuation mark equivalent to the
semicolonThe semicolon is a punctuation mark with several uses. The Italian printer Aldus Manutius the Elder established the practice of using the semicolon to separate words of opposed meaning and to indicate interdependent statements. "The first printed semicolon was the work of ... Aldus Manutius"...
and is often incorrectly expressed as a middle dot; Unicode provides a unique code point: {{unichar|0387|Greek ano teleia}}.
Japanese
{{Main|Japanese punctuation}}
Interpuncts are often used to separate transcribed foreign words written in
katakanais a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
. For example, "
Can't Buy Me Love"Can't Buy Me Love" is a song composed by Paul McCartney and released by The Beatles on the A-side of their sixth British single, "Can't Buy Me Love"/"You Can't Do That".-Interpretation:...
" 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). Dictionaries and
grammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
lessons in Japanese sometimes also use a similar symbol to separate a
verbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
suffixAn affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
from its root.
However, the Japanese writing system usually does not use space or punctuations to separate words (however, the mixing of
katakanais a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
,
kanjiKanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
, and
hiraganais a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...
gives some indication of word boundary).
In Japanese
typographyTypography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
, there exist two Unicode code points:, with a fixed width that is the same as most kana characters, known as
fullwidth.
The interpunct also has a number of other uses in Japanese, including the following: to separate titles, names and positions: 課長補佐・鈴木 (Assistant Section Head Suzuki); as a decimal point when writing numbers in kanji: 三・一四一五九二 (3.141 592); and in place of hyphens, dashes and colons when writing vertically.
Korean
Interpuncts are used in written Korean to denote a list of two or more words, more or less in the same way a
slash (/)The slash is a sign used as a punctuation mark and for various other purposes. It is now often called a forward slash , and many other alternative names.-History:...
is used to juxtapose words in many other languages. The use of interpuncts has declined in years of digital typography and especially in place of slashes, but in the strictest sense, a slash cannot replace a middle dot in Korean typography.
Latin
The dot called interpunct was used regularly in early
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
to separate words, but has long been replaced by space.
Occitan
In
Occitan, especially in the
GasconGascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
dialect, the interpunct (
punt interior, literally, "inner dot", or
ponch naut for "high/upper point") is used to distinguish the following graphemes:
- s·h, pronounced [s.h], versus sh, pronounced [ʃ], for example, in des·har 'to undo' vs. deishar 'to leave'
- n·h, pronounced [n.h], versus nh, pronounced [ɲ], for example in in·hèrn 'hell' vs. vinha 'vineyard'
Although it is considered to be a spelling error, a
periodA full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...
is frequently used when a middle dot is unavailable:
des.har, in.hèrn, which is the case for French keyboard layout.
In
Old Occitan, the symbol
· was sometimes used to denote certain
elisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
s, much like the modern apostrophe, the only difference being that the word that gets to be elided is always placed after the interpunct, the word before ending either in a vowel sound or the letter
n:
- que·l (que lo, that the) versus qu'el (that he)
- From Bertran de Born
Bertran de Born was a baron from the Limousin in France, and one of the major Occitan troubadours of the twelfth century.-Life and works:...
's Ab joi mou lo vers e·l comens (translated by James H. Donalson):
Bela Domna·l vostre cors gens
E·lh vostre bel olh m'an conquis,
E·l doutz esgartz e lo clars vis,
E·l vostre bels essenhamens,
Que, can be m'en pren esmansa,
De beutat no·us trob egansa:
La genser etz c'om posc'e·l mon chauzir,
O no·i vei clar dels olhs ab que·us remir. |
|
Domna·l ˈdonnal = Domna, lo ("Lady, the": singular definite article)
E·lh [eʎ] = E li ("And the": plural definite article)
E·l [el] = E lo ("And the")
E·l = E lo ("And the")
No·us [nows] = Non vos ("(do) not... you": direct object pronoun)
E·l = En lo ("in the")
No·i [noj] = Non i ("(do) not... there") // Que·us [kews] = Que vos ("that (I)... you") |
|
O pretty lady, all your grace
and eyes of beauty conquered me,
sweet glance and brightness of your face
and all your nature has to tell
so if I make an appraisal
I find no one like in beauty:
most pleasing to be found in all the world
or else the eyes I see you with have dimmed. |
Old Irish
In many linguistic works discussing Old Irish (but not in actual Old Irish manuscripts), the interpunct is used to separate a pretonic preverbal element from the stressed syllable of the verb, e.g. {{lang|sga|do·beir}} "says". It is also used in citing the verb forms used after such preverbal elements, e.g. {{lang|sga|·beir}} "carries", to distinguish them from forms used without preverbs, e.g. {{lang|sga|beirid}} "carries". In other works, the hyphenThe hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...
({{lang|sga|do-beir, -beir}}) or colonThe colon is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line.-Usage:A colon informs the reader that what follows the mark proves, explains, or lists elements of what preceded the mark....
({{lang|sga|do:beir, :beir}}) may be used for this purpose.
Runes
Runic texts use either an interpunct-like or a colon-like punctuation mark to separate words. There are two Unicode characters dedicated for this: {{unichar|16EB|Runic single punctuation}} and {{unichar|16EC|Runic multiple punctuation}}.
In mathematics and science
In BritishGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
publications up to the mid-1970s, especially scientific and mathematical texts, the decimal point was commonly typeset as a middle dot. When the British currencyIn economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
was decimalisedDecimal currency is the term used to describe any currency that is based on one basic unit of currency and a sub-unit which is a power of 10, most commonly 100....
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 calculatorAn electronic calculator is a small, portable, usually inexpensive electronic device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Modern calculators are more portable than most computers, though most PDAs are comparable in size to handheld calculators.The first solid-state electronic...
s 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 History Faculty Style Guide 2010) and its use is still enforced by some UK-based academic journals such as The LancetThe Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
.
In SIThe International System of Units is the modern form of the metric system and is generally a system of units of measurement devised around seven base units and the convenience of the number ten. The older metric system included several groups of units...
units the middle dot or NBSPIn computer-based text processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space or no-break space is a variant of the space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In certain formats , it also prevents the “collapsing” of multiple consecutive whitespace characters into a...
is used as a multiplication sign. Only a commaA comma is a type of punctuation mark . The word comes from the Greek komma , which means something cut off or a short clause.Comma may also refer to:* Comma , a type of interval in music theory...
or full stop (period)A full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...
may be used as a decimal marker.
In mathematicsMathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, a small middle dot can be used to represent productMultiplication is the mathematical operation of scaling one number by another. It is one of the four basic operations in elementary arithmetic ....
; for example, x ∙ y for the product of x and y. When dealing with scalarsIn 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....
, it is interchangeable with the multiplication sign: x ⋅ y means the same thing as x ×The multiplication sign is the symbol ×. The symbol is similar to the lowercase letter x but is a more symmetric saltire, and has different uses. It is also known as St...
y, but ×The multiplication sign is the symbol ×. The symbol is similar to the lowercase letter x but is a more symmetric saltire, and has different uses. It is also known as St...
is easily confused with the letter xX is the twenty-fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Uses:In mathematics, x is commonly used as the name for an independent variable or unknown value. The usage of x to represent an independent or unknown variable can be traced back to the Arabic word šay شيء = “thing,” used in Arabic...
. However, when dealing with vectors, the dot productIn mathematics, the dot product or scalar product is an algebraic operation that takes two equal-length sequences of numbers and returns a single number obtained by multiplying corresponding entries and then summing those products...
is distinct from the cross productIn mathematics, the cross product, vector product, or Gibbs vector product is a binary operation on two vectors in three-dimensional space. It results in a vector which is perpendicular to both of the vectors being multiplied and normal to the plane containing them...
. This usage has its own designated code point in Unicode, U+2219 (∙), called the "bullet operator".{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} It is also sometimes used to denote the “AND” relationshipIn logic and mathematics, a two-place logical operator and, also known as logical conjunction, results in true if both of its operands are true, otherwise the value of false....
in formal logicIn philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
, 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{{ww|date=November 2011}}), then the multiplication sign used is usually a full stop (period), not an interpunct.
In computingComputing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
, the middle dot is usually used to indicate white space in various software applications such as word processingWord processing is the creation of documents using a word processor. It can also refer to advanced shorthand techniques, sometimes used in specialized contexts with a specially modified typewriter.-External links:...
, graphic designGraphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
, web layout, desktop publishingDesktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...
or software developmentSoftware development is the development of a software product...
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.
In chemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, 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) sulphate pentahydrate, CuSO4 · 5H2O.
Keyboard input
On Mac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, an interpunct can be input pressing {{keypress|Option|Shift|9}}. In the X Window SystemThe X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
, it can be input by pressing {{keypress|AltGr|.}}.
Similar symbols
| Symbol | Character Entity | Numeric Entity | UnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
Code Point | Notes |
| · |
· |
· |
U+00B7 |
interpunct, middle dot |
| · |
|
· |
U+0387 |
Greek ánō stigmē |
| ᛫ |
|
᛫ |
U+16eb |
Runic punctuation |
| ⋅ |
⋅ |
⋅ |
U+22C5 |
dot operator (mathematics) |
| ∙ |
|
∙ |
U+2219 |
bullet operator (mathematics) |
| • |
• |
• |
U+2022 |
bullet In typography, a bullet is a typographical symbol or glyph used to introduce items in a list. For example:*Item 1*Item 2*Item 3...
, often used to mark list items |
| ‧ |
|
‧ |
U+2027 |
hyphenation point (dictionaries) |
| ・ |
|
・ |
U+30FB |
fullwidth katakanais a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
middle dot |
| ･ |
|
･ |
U+FF65 |
halfwidth katakana middle dot |
| ּ |
|
ּ |
U+05BC |
Hebrew point dagesh or mapiq |
Characters in the Symbol column above may not render correctly in all browsers.
For most North American Microsoft operating systems using OEM Code page 437IBM PC or MS-DOS code page 437 is the character set of the original IBM PC. It is also known as CP 437, OEM 437, PC-8, MS-DOS Latin US or sometimes misleadingly referred to as the OEM font, High ASCII or Extended ASCII....
, the Alt code is 250.