The Investigation of Punctuation in Photographic Copies of Persian Writing

Abstract

In spoken language, body language is used to show the intention of the speaker. Written language lacks such capacity and that is why punctuation, as a tool, is used to clarify spoken language features in written language and help the readers get the hidden meaning. Analyzing the punctuation used in Persian written language in photographic copies of five to eight centuries with different subjects revealed that in spite of Iranian point of view \\"believed the punctuation marks entered in Persian language from other languages and are imported\\", they exist some signs in these copies from ancient times. The data were gathered through taking photos from the original copies. Investigating the signs in these copies reveals that they have seven features of showing pause, decorating, making gap between verses, separating Arabic text from Persian, making some parts of the text prominent and showing the end of a subject. In comparison to recent texts, it is evident that nowadays authors use different tools and signs for showing the same cases. It should be taken into consideration that comma is the only sign which was present in Persian language, but nowadays is used with a different function.