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Ancient Romans, not Greeks, used interpuncts.

Ducky— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ducky~enwiki (talk • contribs) 21:30, 10 November 2002 (UTC)[reply]

Re: The suggestion to merge this entry with middle dot. If the merger is undertaken, the heading should be "Interpunct", not "Middle dot", because, even if the less common term, "Interpunct" is a far more pleasingly interesting word.

User:thrash Re: I support the merger, but I think the new article should be called "Middle dot", as it is the common term used in typography, and also coincides with its character entity; the name "Interpunct" should only be cited inside the article as an alternate name, and "Interpunct" should indeed redirect to "Middle dot".

I agree. --Joanberenguer 19:15, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the title should be Interpunct, since that's its formal name. There should be a redirect from Middle dot. --Dakart 23:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Google yields 300,000 hits for "middle dot", 15,000 for "centered dot", and only 11,000 for interpunct. Pleasing interestingness isn't reason enough to keep the least common name, and how exactly is interpunct this mark's "formal name"? This should be moved to middle dot.--Severinus 08:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This usage has its own designated code point in Unicode, U+2219 (∙), called the "bullet operator".

Shouldn't that be the dot operator U+22C5 (⋅), or ⋅? — Omegatron 00:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to be a compatibility character for Windows-1252. See http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/maths.htm for more information. —Tokek 12:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. http://web.archive.org/web/20061207072801/https://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/maths.htm is one of the few mentions I've found on the internet about what the bullet operator is supposed to be, but I don't find its description particularly compelling.

(Personally, I sort of suspect it was a duplicate of the dot operator that was mistakenly not unified by Unicode.) Dingolover6969 (talk) 09:45, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For convenience & reference, here is a link to the Middle dot talk page: Talk:Middle dot —Tokek 12:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How is it typed on a computer keyboard?

I am studying Catalan and i want to type it. I can't find it on keyboards. I tried it on Windows and on Fedora. I couldn't find a "Catalan" layout in either of them, they only have "Spain".

Any help? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think i found it - Shift-3, right? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was able to use it in a Spanish (Latin American) layout using AltGr + 3. I haven't been able to use it in English (US, international with deady keys) --Stuardo str (talk) 21:09, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The symbol is also used to fill the space where an expression would go, when that expression cannot or shouldn't be specified. Eg., the norm function is often written ||•||. Anyone have a good wording of this to put in the article? --Kvaks (talk) 11:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there are 3 symbols used in "mathematical" math: bullet (as in unnumbered lists; a VERY rare usage); a centered dot (as used for scalar product etc), and "a fat centered dot" (as used in the example ||•|| for an "unnamed variable"). Typographically, I observe the fat dot to be smaller than the bullet, but larger than the centered dot; about the same size as ∘. In TeX it is tricky to typeset; in Unicode it is • vs ∙ vs ⋅ (BULLET vs BULLET OPERATOR vs DOT OPERATOR) — but what you see is probably not what I mean because fonts did not necessarily catch up with the intent of Unicode...

--76.218.120.86 (talk) 22:02, 3 March 2012 (UTC)ilyaz[reply]

The sentence "Such triangles can be found on inscriptions on buildings in the twentieth century." is rather ambiguous. This could either imply that such inscriptions are (were) still extant in the present (20^th century), or that the "triangular-interpunct" is still being used in the production of modern inscriptions. While I assume the former is nevertheless true, I would think that the original intent of the sentence was to imply that the triangular-form is still being used. Could someone who knows possibly rephrase to avoid the ambiguity?

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 18:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is the symbol used to separate units such as kg•K or m•K, but this use it not mentioned. According to Unicode explained by Jukka K. Korpela [1], page 399, this is called the "half-high dot" or "raised dot" and the example given (like mine) does not allow a space before or after the middle dot. That citation also has no space before or after the dot in chemistry examples, contradicting this article. Wakablogger2 (talk) 06:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't that be kg·K rather than kg•K? What I don't understand about your source is why it lists multiplication (of units, scalars, vectors) as a typical use of the middle dot, but then says that it is distinct from the dot operator and the bullet operator. In the maths section of this article it's also unclear which codepoint should be used: In mathematics, a small middle dot can be used to represent the product; for example, x ∙ y for the product of x and y. When dealing with scalars, it is interchangeable with the times symbol: x ⋅ y means the same thing as x × y, but × is easily confused with the letter x. However, when dealing with vectors, the dot product is distinct from the cross product. This usage has its own designated code point in Unicode, U+2219 (∙), called the "bullet operator". So the article uses a bullet in the first example (but calls it a dot), a dot in the second, then says a bullet should be used. Is it really good to use a bullet in lieu of a dot? It doesn't look right. What is the proper usage of the bullet operator vs the dot operator?--87.162.45.117 (talk) 09:44, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is a colon-like interpunct I've seen used in hebrew mysticism (hermetic-qabalah), the 'occult'-genre writings of Aleister Crowley (his book 777 for example), where there are two diamond shapes (I mean diamond as the red suit that is not hearts in common card decks; such a shape as that) that are as small as dots, and closer together (in a verticle sense) than the colon, and it is used as an interpunct very widely throughout this work and others. Does anyone know anything of this? I have seen it elsewhere too. 4.242.174.243 (talk) 12:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that an engraver would find it easier to render the interpunct as a triangle, using a common tool. Trying to carve a small circle with a straight-edged tool seems like a lot more work than it's worth. — Nahum Reduta [talk|contribs] 04:41, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to what the article claims, Unicode 6.1 says: 00B7 MIDDLE DOT is the preferred character for ano teleia. --76.218.120.86 (talk) 22:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC)ilyaz[reply]

Well, read this about the Unicode 6.1.0 and see if it helps us: "Compatibility Punctuation: Two specific modern Greek punctuation marks are encoded in the Greek and Coptic block: U+037E “;” greek question mark and U+0387 “·” greek ano teleia. The Greek question mark (or erotimatiko) has the shape of a semicolon, but functions as a question mark in the Greek script. The ano teleia has the shape of a middle dot, but functions as a semicolon in the Greek script. These two compatibility punctuation characters have canonical equivalences to U+003B semicolon and U+00B7 middle dot, respectively; as a result, normalized Greek text will lose any distinctions between the Greek compatibility punctuation characters and the common punctuation marks. Furthermore, ISO/IEC 8859-7 and most vendor code pages for Greek simply make use of semicolon and middle dot for the punctuation in question. Therefore, use of U+037E and U+0387 is not necessary for interoperating with legacy Greek data, and their use is not generally encouraged for representation of Greek punctuation." ^[1] Reference in PDF from Unicode's official site. I ask for the operator to see if it is valuable to insert in the article. All moderators, thank you for making Wikipedia for us, simple readers! I love it! :-) 189.25.38.32 (talk) 20:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, will include. Dingolover6969 (talk) 13:18, 26 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Since this may be a little too specific for this article, I thought I'd mention it here since I've seen many people go desperate with the interpunct on GT, i. e. not finding it for the life of them. It's pretty well hidden, since it's on the slash key. This is especially difficult if you're on a non-US keyboard layout, and hence doomed to always having to type the SHIFT key for the slash. -andy 77.190.10.187 (talk) 16:42, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little surprised to read this section. Perhaps my use of the interpunct for a decimal point has been atypical, but I had lived all my life in the UK and had always used the interpunct as a decimal point; I never thought of it as a dying concept like the article indicates. In fact I only realized that not everyone did it (except when typing, of course) when I moved to the US and one of my students pointed out that I was writing it "the European way" - I'd had no idea. Is it really dying out in the UK? In which case, I'm kind of amazed that I didn't realize this before, but I guess I'll amend my view. :) 98.222.52.242 (talk) 22:38, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly I was taught to use this at school in the UK back in the sixties, and nobody told me stop using it. We just called it the decimal point. ~2026-13187-13 (talk) 16:07, 28 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

See Decimal separator for chapter and verse. (And "the European way" is to use a comma. As usual, the entire platoon is out of step except the UK.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:00, 28 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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In French, the interpunct is now used for gender-neutral writing, e.g. "les client·e·s" instead of "les clients et les clientes".

This is well explained on French Wikipedia. Are external references needed, or is the French Wikipedia sufficient? Are references in English needed?

Marcrr (talk) 15:25, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the essay WP:DCWOW which opines that you should not cite Wikipedia, including other-language wikipedias. It's fine to cite sources in non-English languages, however. Dingolover6969 (talk) 20:11, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Page title of this page, currently: Interpunct - Wikipedia would it not be more appropriate to use: Interpunct · Wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:D880:9C01:ED3F:7CE5:5EB7:F167 (talk) 16:47, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done. This presentation is controlled by your search engine, not Wikipedia. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:51, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Search engines generally use the Page Title hence the presentation is controlled by Wikipedia. The logic is sound - one wouldn't illustrate a page on hyphens using an interpunct... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.152.17 (talk) 16:12, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you are correct, my mistake, but it doesn't make any difference to the outcome. The title of all Wikimedia pages, as given to search engines, is [project name] - [page name], thus Wiktionary - Parenthesis or Wikisource - The Wealth of Nations or any Wikipedia article you care to choose. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:59, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The interpunct was also used in Ancient Hebrew (e.g. Siloam inscription - see § Translation and look at the actual inscription). It was probably used in Aramaic inscriptions from that era (c. 8th-9th C. BCE) as well. --Eliyahu S ^Talk 16:19, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, §English says: “In the early modern era, full stops (periods) were sometimes written as interpuncts (for example in the handwritten Mayflower Compact).” That may well be, but the illustration, showing Bradford's transcription, does not show them. Since there is no source for that claim and since the original has been lost, I suggest removing that sentence as well as the image. ◅ Sebastian 14:20, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I see all the periods in that document drawn at a raised level and looking like interpuncts. I agree this does not fully support any such interpretation however, as there are no "non-raised" periods which would be necessary for any proof that the symbols were considered different by the writer.Spitzak (talk) 16:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your kind reply. To be honest, it took me a second read to understand what i originally meant: The displayed picture does not show the original, but a transcription. I now see that a more cautious suggestion would have been to reword the text accordingly, and i shall do so now. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 10:55, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The interpunct was used as decimal marker not only in British but also in Austro-Hungarian and Ukrainian publications. 176.111.181.154 (talk) 20:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you dig out a citation (evidence) to support that please. It will certainly be added when you do. No need to make it look pretty, finding the source is 99% of the work and a regular editor will do the formatting task. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:22, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is very surprising to me, given how well-developed this wikipedia page is, but I don't see any actual evidence for the identification of the interpunct with U+00B7 · MIDDLE DOT. We don't seem to cite anything to that effect. Interpunct isn't listed in the code chart entry https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf#page=4 nor does the word "interpunct" appear anywhere in the unicode core spec. Nor do either mention the middle dot being used for latin(?!).

I'm not disputing that the interpunct exists, and the middle dot (unicode character) exists, but I don't see anything saying that the latter represents the former.

I'm not saying this identification is wrong, necessarily. It seems likely to me. But, to play devil's advocate, as an example alternative demonstrating that we can't just assume U+00B7=interpunct, maybe U+2E31 ⸱ WORD SEPARATOR MIDDLE DOT is what corresponds to the interpunct. There is also no particular evidence for the relationship between that and the interpunct.

I may have simply missed something. Dingolover6969 (talk) 21:52, 29 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Popping over to wiktionary, they have a source that says:

2017, Richard Poulin, ‎^[2], Rockport Publishers, page 152:

An interpunct is a typographic glyph consisting of a vertically centered dot and used to indicated syllabic separation of words. Also called interpoint, middle dot or raised dot.

Perhaps if we adopt that, that is something. Although it is funny how it implicates U+2E33 ⸳ RAISED DOT by the same logic (unicode name matching to other type of name). But we can probably just ignore that. Dingolover6969 (talk) 21:55, 29 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a complete minefield. I wondered had I missed an explicit code point called "interpunct" and a search of site:unicode.org came upon various ideas but this may be the authoritative decider: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS, which at page 6 (footnote) says

An interpunct is a word separator that can take many forms: triangle, wedge, x-shape, dot, slanted or curved line, etc. The Romans originally wrote with no separation between words, but beginning in the late Republic inscriptions often employ interpuncts (not spaces!) to distinguish individual words. See Figure 9, Figure 28 and Figure 29 for examples of interpuncts in various shapes. The UCS already contains characters such as U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT that can be used to encode the interpunct.

which I read as saying that "interpunct" is a classification not a single character and thus that there is no single codepoint for "the interpunct" because there is no single interpunct grapheme. See also Re: a character for an unknown character which gives just a few. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:16, 30 April 2026 (UTC) Which means that the infobox is wrong. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:17, 30 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That's very interesting! Thanks for looking into this.

I guess ideally we would figure out exactly what RSes claim an interpunct is, and then mutate this and any other pages based on that (eg, cover "Interpunct" as a subtopic on a "middle dot" page, or vice versa). I fear this topic may be ripe for citogenesis 😬 — although, on the other hand, if people actually do call the middle dot an interpunct now, even if it's some kind of Wikipedia-genic new sense of the word, then we'll just mention that in the course of things, I guess. Dingolover6969 (talk) 05:17, 9 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Our old friend pause and effect describes the interpunct in its glossary as a "point or symbol [used like that]" and has a real example of a middle dot being thus used and just a mention the "Hedera" (❧) being used thus in its glossary. One can find this book on archive.org but when one "searches inside" one has to use "punct" and "puncts" for the latter two due to linebreak hyphenation. "Interpunct" will get one to the interpunct glossary entry, though. Dingolover6969 (talk) 05:30, 9 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I bet Bringhurst has some comment on this term. [edit 2026-05-10: Eh, nothing much.] Dingolover6969 (talk) 00:38, 10 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This is kind of a broad-concept article about every mark in writing that looks like ·, which is fine — good, even. It's also a broad concept article covering examples of word separator, which is probably not so good...

(I suppose that is probably just a result of the double meaning of "interpunct", and thus unsurprising, genealogically) Dingolover6969 (talk) 08:50, 17 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We already have an article, Word divider, which does that. So two possibilities:

1. merge this article into that one and find a new home for the material that is about other uses
2. rename this article to middle dot (which currently redirects here) and restrict it to just that grapheme and its uses except as a word divider. Redirect interpunct to Word divider (since most uses of the term "interpunct" are about that usage.

IMO, #2 is the better option. Or is there a third? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:22, 17 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We should probably do something like #2. I have been trying to get as precise an understanding of the various terms involved as I can (stomach) before advocating for renaming, but eventually we should rename. And, orthogonally, moving all the coverage of the word dividers to word divider is a great move. Dingolover6969 (talk) 02:35, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It has been proposed in this section that Interpunct be renamed and moved to Medial point. A bot will list this discussion on the requested moves current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil. Please use {{subst:requested move}}. Do not use {{requested move/dated}} directly. Links: current log • target log • direct move

Interpunct → Medial point – This article would do best to be a broad-concept article about every use of every character that looks like ·, and not about the classical Latin word divider. It's already halfway towards this happier state: it already covers every use of every character that looks like ·. We just have to rename the page to something else, rewrite the lede (pending) and move all the sections that are actually about different word dividers that don't look like · into word dividers.

I will call "every use of every character that looks like ·" dotmarks for this post. (This can't be the Wikipedia article name, because I just made it up.)

So, what to name the article? I think there are a couple good candidates. From roughly worst to best in my opinion, the real contenders (leaving off the many many too bad to mention) are:

interpunct

this is both a name for the classical Latin word divider (which did not always look like ·) and also a name for dotmarks. While it's a pretty popular synonym for it, it's ambiguous and perhaps a bit colloquial in the latter usage, or at least fails WP:natural disambiguation

interpoint

this seems like a fine name for it as well, but I have not encountered people actually using this in the wild. Also, it might be a synonym for interpunct in the more specific sense?

middot

this seems like a fine name for it as well, but I have not encountered people actually using this in the wild. Note also that html · summons a U+00B7 · MIDDLE DOT, which means if we use the term we risk implying, confusingly, that our Wikipedia page is about U+00B7 in particular. (U+00B7 is one dotmark but not all of them, so our page on dotmarks is going to need a section discussing U+00B7 specifically and its many uses.)

raised dot

also a fine name, in the abstract, and descriptive, and I have seen people use it. The main problem with this name is that the Unicode character U+2E33 ⸳ RAISED DOT is slightly different — slightly lower than an interpunct, yet higher than a full stop. If we use this name, we're just asking for confusion about this.

middle dot

a fine name, in the abstract, and descriptive, and I have seen people use it. The main problem with this is that U+00B7 is called "middle dot" in Unicode, which means if we use the term we risk implying, confusingly, that our Wikipedia page is about U+00B7 in particular. (U+00B7 is one dotmark but not all of them, so our page on dotmarks is going to need a section discussing U+00B7 specifically and its many uses.)

centered dot

a fine name, in the abstract, and descriptive, and I have seen people use it. You could even say it's just a neutral description of the mark. Only problem with this is that · makes a U+00B7, see above for why that might be bad. Also, tex \cdot makes a "centered dot" ${\displaystyle \cdot }$... it's hard to say if that's good or bad or the same thing or different.

vertically centered dot

this is a bit too wordy but I like it as a neutral yet exact description and I have seen people identify the mark with this in the wild.

medial point

  This one is my favorite because it's not only a great description, but it's also found in two of our sources (academic ones) that need to discuss how the interpunct word divider wasn't always a dotmark, and they use this term. So this must be the term for the mark itself, in their eyes. This term is also used when discussing greek punctuation (cf [2], suggesting wide applicability to dotmarks found in every language. (Although, I can't rule out the possibility that they actually mean "medial" in some other way.)

But, I would be happy with many of these. The defects I'm speculating about are minor. It's also been pretty hard for me to gauge which term is "most popular" for this mark. I also didn't try that hard, because I got tired after looking up "interpunct" extensively. I don't want to portray myself as a source of exhaustive expertise on this topic, although I guess I do know a lot more than average about it by now. CC User:JMF, who was discussing this topic on the article talk page with me earlier. Dingolover6969 (talk) 12:25, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing wrong with using a term that Unicode used to name one of the code points, in fact this is considered a positive for most characters. "Middle dot" is thus the best choice. Spitzak (talk) 15:38, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I was just about to agree with you, until I considered why Dingolover6969 is raising this question, which follows on from discussions above. Yes, it is beyond doubt that the representative glyph at 00B7 is called middot. But Dingolover6969 is coming at it from the other way: how do we write about the 'dotmarks' used in ancient and modern texts, in a variety of languages. So 00B7 is one output of that process, not an input (if that makes sense?). Or to put it another way, we should have an article about the medial point: is this it? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:01, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As I figure it, it's only a positive if the Unicode character is co-extensive with the subject of the article. For instance, there's one symbol that is the number sign, and the Unicode name for U+0023 # NUMBER SIGN is number sign, so that's a point in favor of calling that page "Number sign". In our present case, however, the dotmark maps to a number of different Unicode characters, such as U+00B7 · MIDDLE DOT, U+2E31 ⸱ WORD SEPARATOR MIDDLE DOT, U+2027 ‧ HYPHENATION POINT, and U+22C5 ⋅ DOT OPERATOR, which I think makes sharing a name with one of them not a positive anymore, even a bit of a negative. Of course, we could just use it anyway if it's still the best term for other reasons.

(You could also imagine, eg, shifting the page conceptually to be about U+00B7 primarily and just covering the other topics along the way, which would certainly justify coextensivity and wouldn't even be that big of a shift in how we write the article, although I do think it would lead us to some awkward circumlocutions to cover all the topics in the space.) Dingolover6969 (talk) 17:47, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"however, the dotmark maps to a number of different Unicode characters". Precisely. In my terminology, these are outputs, they are distinct encodings of the textual analysis. (It may be that there is something in the Unicode.org archives that explains why there are (at least) three codepoints. I will do some searching in the next few days,) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:08, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused. Would the name change also alter the scope of the article, so that it would be about any dotmark and explain the differences between them? or would it be about any word divider in Latin (or similar) inscriptions, whether it looks like a dot or an inverted triangle or a fleuron? Q·L·1968 ☿ 21:00, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the former!

Also, on one of these pages, we will have a section dealing with every Latin word divider. (And on the other of the two pages, we will surely cross link to that.)

There are enough various uses of the dotmark for an article, but there's only about a paragraph or two that can be said about all Latin word dividers, so that will just be a section on one of the two pages. Dingolover6969 (talk) 02:31, 29 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear: the current page Interpunct is already, as it is written today, about every dotmark. It is also, as written today, about every word divider, even though those should be moved to word divider instead. I want to shrink the scope of this article to just the first, and I think renaming it is also a good idea.

I intend that Word divider will be its own page, covering every word divider, and medial point (or whatever) will cover every dotmark. Naturally, to avoid WP:CFORK on the obvious overlap (dotmarks used as word dividers), one or the other of these pages will just have a short mention of this and link to the more expansive treatment on the other page. Dingolover6969 (talk) 12:07, 29 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• I support the proposed move (= name change) and the proposed change of scope to broad concept. "Medial point" works best because it provides a non-restrictive "basket" for all these marks and their originating cultures. Interpunct will continue to exist but as a redirect: it is just one the usages (albeit the best known to Latinists and maybe word divider is a better target for it?). Using one of the Unicode codepoint names as the primary name presents the same problem. There is no common name for the class of midline marks. Changing its scope resolves the CFORK issue, which needs to be addressed no matter what the outcome of this discussion is. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 07:53, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]