Medieval & Middle Age Advances in Punctuation
With the increase in production of texts, both due to the copying of texts by scribes (religious and secular) and by the eventual introduction of the printing press with movable type to Europe in 1450, changes in written language were essentially inevitable. At this point though, punctuation was still utilized as a means to guide readers when reading texts aloud. The punctuation placed by scribes was intended to help readers know where pauses were meant to be placed when they read the text to others. To do this there was a need for a strong understanding of the language, most often Latin, which meant that religious texts were more carefully annotated since the monks who copied them had a better understanding of the language than their secular counterparts (Reimer, 1998).
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Site by Meggan Crawford
Created for ETEC 540, University of British Columbia
Continue to Pointing
Site by Meggan Crawford
Created for ETEC 540, University of British Columbia