View source for Social:Hypodiastole

{{Short description|Former Greek inter-word punctuation marker}}
{{Multiple image
 | footer = Hypodiastole (left). Note the difference from a comma (right).
 | image1 = Hypodiastole.svg
 | alt1   = Greek hypodiastole, resembling a squat semicircle
 | width1 = 100
 | image2 = Virgola.svg
 | alt2   = Latin comma, resembling a filled-in, curved numeral 9
 | width2 =  60
}}
The '''hypodiastole''' (Greek:&nbsp;{{wikt-lang|grc|ὑποδιαστολή}}, {{transl|grc|hypodiastolḗ}}, {{literally|lower separation [mark]}}), also known as a '''diastole''',<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'', {{nowrap|1st ed.}} "diastole, ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1895.</ref> was an interpunct developed in late [[Social:Ancient Greek|Ancient]] and Byzantine Greek texts before the separation of words by spaces was common. In the {{lang|la|[[Social:Scriptio continua|scriptio continua]]}} then used, a group of letters might have separate meanings as a single word or as a pair of words. The papyrological hyphen ({{lang|grc-Latn|enotikon}}) showed a group of letters should be read together as a single word, and the hypodiastole showed that they should be taken separately. Compare "{{lang|grc|ὅ,τι}}" ("whatever") to "{{lang|grc|ὅτι}}" ("...that...").<ref name=nicky/>

The hypodiastole was similar in appearance to the comma and was eventually entirely conflated with it. In Modern Greek, {{lang|el-Latn|ypodiastolī́}} ({{lang|el|υποδιαστολή}}) refers to the comma in its role as a decimal point, and words such as {{lang|el|ό,τι}} are written with standard commas. A separate [[Unicode]] point, ISO/IEC 10646 standard (U+2E12) (⸒), exists for the hypodiastole but is intended only to reproduce its historical occurrence in Greek texts.<ref name=nicky>Nicolas, Nick. "[http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/punctuation.html Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141120120157/http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/punctuation.html |date=November 20, 2014}}". 2005. Accessed 7 October 2014.</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==See also==
* Interpunct
* [[Social:Obelism|Obelos]]
* [[Social:Coronis (textual symbol)|Coronis]]
* Paragraphos

[[Category:Palaeography]]



{{Sourceattribution|Hypodiastole}}