It is difficult to imagine any text without punctuation marks. But who exactly can be considered its inventor?

First attempts to enter punctuation marks

The approximate date of occurrence of punctuation is considered to be the III century BC. The famous philologist from Ancient Greece named Aristophanes first tried to use them in writing. He is also known as the head of the Library of Alexandria. Until that time, the texts were missing not only punctuation marks, but capital letters. In addition, words could be written even together, without spaces. Because of this, it was difficult to understand their essence from the first try.

It is interesting that oratory for the first time became a profession in ancient Greece. An excellent performance was highly appreciated, but the speaker needed a lot of time to prepare for this. Such a simple action as reading speech from a sheet turned into a real feat due to the absence of any dividing signs.

Initially, Aristophanes proposed using only one sign - a period. But at the same time, he could have three values ​​at once, depending on the place of writing in the text. For example, if a dot was placed in the middle of a line (along with letters), it played the role of a comma. The point below, in the usual place for modern writing, served as a colon. The same sign located at the top was called the period. This innovation brought a little clarity to the texts of that time.However, they did not fulfill the function of punctuation marks, but served as a hint to the reader regarding the duration of the pauses between words and sentences.

When the Romans came to power in the Mediterranean, they quickly rejected Aristophanes' writing system. During this period, documents and other texts began to be written according to the old traditions - without spaces or signs. The famous Roman speaker Cicero insisted that only the rhythm should determine when the reader needs to pause his speech. The Romans later tried to invent their punctuation marks and put them into writing, but without much success. At this time, public speaking played a very important role in all aspects of life, but the speakers never read from the worksheet, but taught their speech by heart.

Interesting fact: there is another theory of the origin of punctuation, according to which it was known even earlier - in the 4th century BC Some works of the philosopher Aristotle may testify to this. But in this case, it is not clear why the authors did not use it in their texts.

The final formation of punctuation

Writing again found punctuation during the formation of Christianity - in the 4th-5th centuries A.D. Proponents of paganism transmitted their tradition orally, but Christians paid great attention to scripture. They tried to put the essence of the Christian faith in books and, thus, share it with the whole world. The Gospels, Psalms and other holy books were written especially painstakingly, the text was decorated with beautiful letters and punctuation marks.

It was the followers of Christian culture who began to use punctuation not only to indicate pauses, but also to convey to readers the correct meaning of the text. This happened around the 6th century. After another century, the authors returned to the Aristophanes system, having modified it a bit. This merit belongs to Isidore of Seville, archbishop and famous church writer.

Dots with different spellings began to perform certain functions. The classic dot at the bottom of the line took on the function of a comma in a grammatical sense. The end of the sentence was indicated by a dot in the middle of the line.

Only in the 18th century did gaps appear in writing again. The monks working on the Latin texts experienced great difficulty in trying to make out the words. Since that time, the Aristophanes system was recognized throughout medieval Europe. She began to actively improve, so soon new signs appeared in it, each of which had its own name:

• punctus versus - semicolon for a pause;
• punctus elevatus - an inverted semicolon, a modern colon to change the tone;
• punctus interrogatives is a symbol by which interrogative and exclamatory sentences were highlighted (the present exclamation point appeared only in the 15th century).

Gradually, points on the Aristophanes system disappeared from writing. The authors no longer needed them, since the difference between them was too small. But more diverse characters appeared, with the help of which it was possible to convey the tone of the narrative, pause and avoid ambiguity in the text.

It took quite a while before the punctuation took on a new look.This happened in the 12th century thanks to Boncompagno da Signa, a writer from Italy. There were two signs in his system - a horizontal line like a dash (-) and a line with a slope to the right (/). The first character signified the end of the sentence, the second signified a pause. The writers of that time met the new system with a bang, especially the oblique line. Using it was simple and convenient, unlike numerous points.

The modern appearance of the separation signs is associated with the first printed Bible. The oblique line turned into a comma, question marks, exclamations, a colon, a semicolon appeared. The ordinary point finally settled at the end of the sentence. The authors were more than happy with such a system. And since the press began to actively develop, punctuation became a generally accepted standard and practically did not change.

The first punctuation marks arose in the 3rd century BC thanks to the philologist Aristophanes, the manager of the Alexandria Library. He came up with three different points that indicated pauses depending on the location in the text. In ancient Rome, punctuation ceased to be relevant due to the influence of oratory. The return of punctuation marks is associated with the spread of Christianity, for which writing played a crucial role. For a long time, punctuation changed and resembled little of the modern system. Punctuation marks came to a certain standard with the advent of the printed Bible.