THE INVENTION OF PUNCTUATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 214, 1 June 1877, Page 3

THE INVENTION OF PUNCTUATION.

Punctuation is peculiar to the modern languages of Europe. It was wholly unknown to the Greeks and Romans ; and the languages of the Bast, although they have certain marks or sigri3 to indicate tones, have no regular system of punctuation. The Romans and the Greeks also, it is true, had certain points, which, like those of the languages of the East, were confined to the delivery and pronunciation of words j but the pauses were indicated by breaking up the written matter into lines or paragraphs, nob by marks resembling those iv the modern syatem of punctuation. Hence, in the responses of the ancient oracles, which were generally written down by the priests and delivered to the enquirers, the ambiguity, doubtless intentional, which the want of punctuation caused, saved the credit of the oracle, whether the expected c vent was favourable or unfavourable. As an instance of this kind, may be cited that remakable response which was given oil a well-known occasion, when the oracle was consulted with regard to the success of a certain military expedition : " Ibis et redibis nunquam peribis in bello." Written, as it was, without being pointed, it might be translated either, " Thou shalt go, and shale never return, thou shalt perish in battle ;" or, " Thou shalt go and return, thou shalt never perish in battle." The correct translation of it altogether depends on the placing of a comma after the word nunquam, or after redibis. The invention of the modern system of punctuation has been attributed to the Alexandrian grammarian Aristophanes, after whom it was improved by succeeding grammarians ; but it was so entirely lost in the time of Charlemagne, that he found it necessary to have it restored by Warnefried and Alcuin. It consisted at first of only one point, used in three ways, and sometimes of a stroke, formed in several waye. But as no more particular rules were followed in the use of these signs, punctuation was exceedingly uncertain until the end of the fifteenth century, when the learned Venetian printers, the Manutii, increased the number of the signs, and established some fixed rules for their application. These were so generally adopted that we may consider the Manutii as the inventors of the present method of punctuation; and although modern grammarians have introduced some improvements, nothing but a tew particular rule 3 have been added since their time.