IFYOUWERELIVINGINROMANTIMESYOUDHAVETOWRITELIKETHISALLTHETIME
Imagine having to read the text above. This is what you'd be facing if you were reading Latin text back in ancient Rome. The Romans wrote in all capital letters with no spaces between words and no punctuation. No wonder, then, that it was common to read aloud instead of silently during the Roman era. It was the only way readers could tease out the meaning of the text. Supposedly Julius Caesar amazed his aides and officers by reading silently. St. Ambrose and St. Augustine were also able to read silently. It was that rare!
Although some Roman-era Latin text did use a bit of spacing and mid-height dots between words, it's actually the Christians who sped us toward using spaces between words and punctuation. With their reliance on written scripture to transmit their religious message, it wasn't long before monasteries, beginning with Irish scribes in the 8th century, began inserting spaces between words. During Charlemagne's time, Western Civilization achieved upper- and lower-case letters. But it was after the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century that things really took off, because increasing numbers of readers needed to have punctuation to make texts intelligible. During that time we finally gained the same punctuation we still use today: the period or full stop, comma, slash, hyphen, apostrophe (oh, the ill-used apostrophe!), exclamation mark, question mark, semicolon, and colon.
Punctuation has remained fixed for the last six centuries, imprisoned in the rigid convention of the printer's press. Not until the arrival of this century's emoji--but that's another story.
Roman-era Latin text at top courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain.
Roman-era Latin inscription at a latrine courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain.
Bình luận