I took many classes on the history of writing, from the earliest evidence of human traces to the Roman alphabet we use today. In these classes, I learned how different alphabets succeeded one another and evolved, but I never learned anything about punctuation.
According to linguist Paolo Poccetti, the earliest traces of punctuation date back to the third and second millennia BCE. They took the form of vertical or horizontal dashes in cuneiform writing. Today, linguists debate this, preferring to agree that punctuation originated between the third and second centuries BCE in the Library of Alexandria. The purpose of punctuation was to organize writing. Texts were written in scriptio continua, i.e., without separating words and sentences, just lines of letters. Points were used, which were an evolution of the dash. There were three different types: the high point, the mid-point, and the low point, which today correspond to the full stop, semicolon, and comma. They were used to clarify texts but also to provide reading cues, allowing for spacing and pauses. Punctuation was thus separated from writing; it was not the author who formatted the text, but archivists or those who would read it aloud.
The use of punctuation spread with the production of the Vulgate in the 5th century. This is a copy of the Bible intended to be read aloud. It therefore requires the sentences and text to be structured, and in addition to periods, symbols were introduced to mark the importance of a word or the beginning of a section in the text. There was still no consensus on the use of punctuation, so each abbey had its own rules. Copyist monks introduced new symbols such as the comma, which was a slash, the comma, the ancestor of the colon, and the first question marks. They used the white space in the margins to comment on and embellish the texts they copied, which is known as glossing. It was also at this time that the distinction between upper and lower case letters appeared. It was Alcuin, a cleric of Charlemagne, who democratized the use of a capital letter to mark the beginning of a sentence. Gradually, a certain form of standardization of punctuation emerged, but this took place over several centuries. It was during the Renaissance and with the development of printing that rules were established.
In 1450, Gutenberg revolutionized printing in Europe by using movable metal type. This saved a huge amount of time in book production. For example, it took a monk three years to copy the Vulgate, whereas between 1452 and 1455 Gutenberg was able to produce around 180 copies of his famous Bible, the B42. This invention enabled the development of the book industry. The characters were standardized and had to be molded in advance, as did the punctuation. Venetian printers also contributed to the standardization of punctuation. Aldus Manutius popularized the use of periods and colons at the end of sentences and developed the use of semicolons, commas, and parentheses. In 1471, Jean Heynlin (philosopher and founder of the Sorbonne printing workshop) wrote the Compendiosus de arte punctandi dialogus, a fairly short treatise that explains, in the form of a dialogue between a master and his apprentice, how to use the virgula, the comma, the colon (full stop), the periodus (semicolon), and other signs that have since disappeared. The rise of writing also offered more freedom in layout, with more white space, resulting in better structured and organized texts.
Punctuation underwent a similar evolution, becoming more precise. At the end of the 16th century, the punctuation marks we still use today began to emerge: the question mark, the exclamation mark, the period, the comma, quotation marks, etc. In 1527, Geoffroy Tory published his own treatise on punctuation, Champ Fleury, in which he presented eleven punctuation marks and was the first to replace the full stop used since ancient times with a classic period to end a sentence. The most famous treatise on punctuation is Etienne Dolet's De la punctuation de la langue francoise (1540). Punctuation finally became universal, with a name, usage, and properties for each symbol. This code became a reference for typographers.
When punctuation first appeared, it was not managed by the author but was introduced retrospectively, and was used to make reading aloud easier. With movable type printing, it was publishers and typographers who punctuated texts. But with the popularization of reading and silent reading, punctuation also came to be used as a stylistic tool.
Some authors (poets) eliminate all traces of punctuation marks and create graphic compositions by playing with white space and line breaks. Like Apollinaire with his Calligrammes, and Mallarmé with Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard. Apollinaire gave shape to his text by breaking free from the rules of composition. There are examples of poems in the shape of a cat or a human silhouette. In this work by Mallarmé, he completely removed punctuation and created a more airy and graphic composition.
During my research, I came across an article by France Culture that discusses non-standard punctuation. In the 19th century, to counter the influence of rules imposed by printers, some authors invented new punctuation marks, new symbols that express emotions or moods. They tried to restore a more oral style, as they considered the punctuation system to be too limited.
They invented punctuation marks for irony, contempt, anger, love, hate, joy, pain, and more. These new symbols did not become part of everyday punctuation usage.
Today, punctuation still follows (very) strict rules, which vary from language to language. For example, French and English typographical rules use different symbols for quotation marks. Punctuation is no longer a point of contention between publishers and authors; it has become a playground for graphic designers and typographers. Thierry Fetiveau designed the Andersen typeface and introduced 13 new punctuation marks. This font is intended for reading children's stories.
We are also seeing the development of new characters, emoticons, and emojis, which are disrupting the rules of punctuation. We see that periods are disappearing in text messaging language, where it is necessary to be quick, efficient, and use as few characters as possible. A new syntax is developing, words are abbreviated, and punctuation is disappearing. In our digital writing, they replace full stops and give indications of the intonation or tone of the text. They appeared on online forums between 1980 and 1990. Scott Fahlman invented the smiley by combining several punctuation marks; it is used to indicate humor or seriousness in a conversation. The smiley expresses different emotions using different combinations of symbols to represent the mouth. In Japan, emotions are expressed through the eyes, which is reflected in kaomoji (Japanese emoticons), which I find more complex and interesting than smileys. They allow nonverbal expression and avoid misunderstandings. In 1999, again in Japan, emojis were invented, a graphic version of emoticons. Are they a new evolution in punctuation? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯¯ We don't know, but they allow us to express emotions or tones, although they are not yet at the point of completely replacing traditional symbols.
