# . (dot, point, full stop, period)



## Youngfun

Problably the shortest topic title ever in WR 

In English the symbol "*.*" is called _dot_ (as symbol name, in websites or abbreviations), _point_ (decimal point), and when ending sentence it's called _full stop_ in BrE and _period_ in AmE.
Is that right?
Why does English distinguish so many names for the "."? Where do all these names come from?

This confuses very much the Italians, that have only one name for all the 3 cases: _punto_.
It's not rare to meet Italians that says: _double U double U double U point_; or even _double U double U double U full stop_! Or _seven dot five_ for "7.5".

In Chinese we use *点* for both _dot_ and _decimal point_, while the _full stop_ is *句号*, called differently simply because it's not a dot but a small circle: "*。*"

What about other languages? Do you have a unique name for the "." or many names?

(Don't know if this thread should stay here or be moved to "All languages")


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## atcheque

Bonjour,

In French like in Italian : _point_, but for decimal we use a comma ",".


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## Montesacro

atcheque said:


> Bonjour,
> 
> In French like in Italian : _point_, but for decimal we use a comma ",".



In Italy (as in all Europe bar the British Isles) we also use a comma (_virgola_)  as a decimal mark.
But when we see real numbers written "the English way", we pronounce this symbol "." as _punto_.


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## atcheque

We could pronounce  the "English point" as a comma if we don't take attention or if it is not important to make the difference.
We will pronounce it _point (in French)_ to make the difference, or because it is just written like this


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## ilocas2

In Czech it's called *tečka*, but we use comma as decimal mark (*desetinná čárka*)


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## darush

Hi Youngfun,
in Persian we use "."/noghte/ at the end of sentences and slash(a short slash) for decimals. its name is /momayyez/.


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## rusita preciosa

darush said:


> Hi Youngfun,
> in Persian we use "."/noghte/ at the end of sentences and slash(a short slash) for decimals. its name is /momayyez/.


That is so interesting! How would you write numerically twenty three and 45 hundreths? 23/45??


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## rusita preciosa

Russian:
period/full stop: *точка* /totchka/
In websites: also *точка, *e.g. the Russian Internet domain is *точка ру */totchka ru/
In decimals: we just use* и* meaning “and”, e.g. normal body temperature 36,6 (we use European designation for decimals) would be “thirty six and six”.


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## Perseas

Greek:
τελεία  /te'lia/ = full stop --> it is used to mark the end of the sentences or in emails and website addresses. It is read "telia".
κόμμα /'koma/ = comma  --> it is used in decimals, for ex. 35,6 . It is read "koma" (it is also read "και" /ce/ meaning "and" - as in Russian).


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## mataripis

Filipinos use english  and spanish terms. But there is " Tuldok" for "dot" and  "kudlit" for coma in Tagalog.


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## darush

rusita preciosa said:


> That is so interesting! How would you write numerically twenty three and 45 hundreths? 23/45??


Hi rusita

yes, that's right.


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## origumi

Hebrew: one name for all "." types, נקודה nekuda.

The decimal point is a point, nekuda. _Thirty thousands forty five and eleven hundredths_ is written as 30,045.11 .


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## ahmedcowon

In Arabic:
"."means _noqtah _نقطة used as dot and full stop


for decimal point, we can't use "." because it is very similar to digit "0" in Arabic, we use comma "," which means _faslah _فاصلة

3.002 = *٣٫٠٠٢*


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## fdb

To the last three contributions: this is all modern usage, borrowed from European languages. You will never find the comma (or slash) used in this way in classical Arabic, Hebrew or Persian texts.


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## darush

fdb said:


> To the last three contributions: this is all modern usage, borrowed from European languages. You will never find the comma (or slash) used in this way in classical Arabic, Hebrew or Persian texts.


Hello,
in following link it is mentioned that, the usage of decimal marker dates back to Arabs(in fact to Persians and Indians).
here, Iran has categorized in red, but Persian digits slightly differs from Arabic ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark


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## ThomasK

Dutch: 
-* punt, stip *(not a punctuation mark, just a little dot somewhere)
- *komma* for decimals...


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## origumi

fdb said:


> To the last three contributions: this is all modern usage, borrowed from European languages. You will never find the comma (or slash) used in this way in classical Arabic, Hebrew or Persian texts.


Would you find them in Old English or Latin or the Ionic Greek dialect? This thread is about modern usage I believe.


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## fdb

No, but you will find sexagesimal fractions in mediaeval Arabic and Hebrew texts. I thought these might be more interesting for this topic than mere replicas of English and French usage.


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## OneStroke

Youngfun said:


> Problably the shortest topic title ever in WR
> 
> In English the symbol "*.*" is called _dot_ (as symbol name, in websites or abbreviations), _point_ (decimal point), and when ending sentence it's called _full stop_ in BrE and _period_ in AmE.
> Is that right?
> Why does English distinguish so many names for the "."? Where do all these names come from?
> 
> This confuses very much the Italians, that have only one name for all the 3 cases: _punto_.
> It's not rare to meet Italians that says: _double U double U double U point_; or even _double U double U double U full stop_! Or _seven dot five_ for "7.5".
> 
> In Chinese we use *点* for both _dot_ and _decimal point_, while the _full stop_ is *句号*, called differently simply because it's not a dot but a small circle: "*。*"
> 
> What about other languages? Do you have a unique name for the "." or many names?
> 
> (Don't know if this thread should stay here or be moved to "All languages")



If I remember correctly, the。 and 、have been around for a longer time, so I don't think it was 'imported' into Chinese the way commas, ellipses, semicolons, etc., were. The name probably arose before 4 May.


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## Youngfun

Hi OneStroke! 
I think you are right.
But I don't know exactly when they were introduced. Probably ancient texts didn't have any punctuation like the Ancient Romans. Then later there were introduced only 、and 。but not commas, and no other symbols, so when we read ancient Chinese texts we have to 断句, i.e. breaking the sentences into parts putting commas, semicolons, quotation marks and so on.

According to dictionaries, in China the Western style dot "." is used as full stop instead of the "。" in scientific and maths texts, in order to avoid confusion with the letter O and the digit 0.  
The western style full stop is called 句点 in Chinese.

According to the replies, it seems that only English distinguishes different names for the *same symbol* "."
Chinese full stop doesn't count because it's not a "." , so decimal commas don't count either because they aren't "." either.
I know that half of the world uses decimal comma instead of the decimal point, but as Montesacro stated, if you see a number written in English style 10.5 you read it "point" in your language, right? Especially computer programmers have to pay attention, most programming languages only allow point, not the comma as decimal mark.

Actually, in Italy it's spreading the habit of reading numbers with decimal parts with "punto" instead of "virgola", especially those in the technical field, due to the influence of computers and calculators probably.



darush said:


> Hi Youngfun,
> in Persian we use "."/noghte/ at the end of sentences and slash(a short slash) for decimals. its name is /momayyez/.


Hi darush! Don't you confuse with fractions?


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## darush

Youngfun said:


> Hi darush! Don't you confuse with fractions?


Hi Youngfun,
No I'm not wrong(or at least I think so!). when we are writing a real number(in Persian digits) by hand, we use a short slash as a seperator, but it seems Unicode standar suggests comma like Arabic(there may be some sotwares with short slash ability).
and we wrigh fractional(rational) numbers in this form: for exaple, 5 devided by two would be a short horizental line above it 5 and two under the line.


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## Youngfun

According to the Wikipedia this is the symbol: ٫
It looks more similar to a comma than to a slash, and can't be confused with the slash.

And the horizontal line is the standard way of writing in maths.
But because it's difficult to type on the computer, we use the slash instead.
And measure units are usually written with slash instead of horizontal line, e.g. km/h, m/s, $1/kg ecc. But my physics teacher insisted we write those measure units with horizontal line in her class, to stress the division.


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## ger4

atcheque said:


> Bonjour,
> 
> In French like in Italian : _point_, but for decimal we use a comma ",".





ilocas2 said:


> In Czech it's called *tečka*, but we use comma as decimal mark (*desetinná čárka*)





rusita preciosa said:


> Russian:
> period/full stop: *точка* /totchka/
> In websites: also *точка, *e.g. the Russian Internet domain is *точка ру */totchka ru/
> In decimals: we just use* и* meaning “and”, e.g. normal body temperature 36,6 (we use European designation for decimals) would be “thirty six and six”.





Perseas said:


> Greek:
> τελεία  /te'lia/ = full stop --> it is used to mark the end of the sentences or in emails and website addresses. It is read "telia".
> κόμμα /'koma/ = comma  --> it is used in decimals, for ex. 35,6 . It is read "koma" (it is also read "και" /ce/ meaning "and" - as in Russian).


German:
_Punkt_ - full stop, period [end of a sentence]; dot [internet addresses]
_Komma_ - decimals [example: 35,6]


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## ThomasK

Youngfun said:


> *Why does English distinguish so many names for the "."? Where do all these names come from?*
> 
> In Chinese we use *点* for both _dot_ and _decimal point_, while the _full stop_ is *句号*, called differently simply because it's not a dot but a small circle: "*。*"





Youngfun said:


> Hi OneStroke!
> I think you are right.
> But I don't know exactly when they were introduced. Probably ancient texts didn't have any punctuation like the Ancient Romans. Then later there were introduced only 、and 。but not commas, and no other symbols, so when we read ancient Chinese texts we have to 断句, i.e. breaking the sentences into parts putting commas, semicolons, quotation marks and so on.


I had read this before but the apparent evidence of the difference is new to me: *point vs. small circle*. I had never looked at a point like that, and I wonder if anyone has the same feeling with regard to this (essential) difference.

 It might perhaps help if we had a look at derivations based on those different words (like our 'stip' is to be found in 'stipt', punctual, as well - which is the case with lots of European languages, I believe. Etymonline.com refers to pricking as the origin of 'punct-' and states that 'punctual' referred to having a sharp point, but that does not explain the link with punctuality, as being on time. 

The evolution of interpunction would be another interesting topic, but AL is probably not the right place for that...


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## sound shift

Youngfun said:


> Why does English distinguish so many names for the "."?


I'd say that's an unanswerable question. In other areas of vocabulary, the reverse situation applies: English has one word where a certain language has several. I don't think it's possible to say _why _in that situation, either.


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## 810senior

In Japanese
Full stop, period: 終止符_shuushifu_(a mark for ending) or ピリオド_piriodo_(period).
Comma: コンマ_komma_, カンマ_kamma_(both mean comma)

On top of that, we have other unique marks replaced with period and comma, which are in particular used in vertical writings.
(。):句点_kuten _= a mark serving as period.
(、)：読点_touten _= a mark serving as comma.

E.g. 学校に行くと*、*友達にたくさん会える*。* compared to When I head off to school*,* I can see a lot of friends*.*


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## Dymn

In *Catalan* and *Spanish* the symbol "." is, as in French and Italian, always called _punt/punto. _And as many other cultures, we don't use the decimal point but the decimal comma, and thus, we call it _coma _in both languages.


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## ThomasK

sound shift said:


> I'd say that's an unanswerable question. In other areas of vocabulary, the reverse situation applies: English has one word where a certain language has several. I don't think it's possible to say _why _in that situation, either.


 Could you not say that cultures view things differently simply? They make distinctions where we don't, they see connections where we don't, etc. The same thing with mental pictures, I suppose: when I asked for a visualisation of 'distance', a Lithuanian and a Canadian showed a distance between them and me (_dis_-); the Fin showed an interval (their word has a _vali_-prefix meaning something like 'between'-). So the same word, it seems, but different connotations. 

I realize you might make a distinction exactly as a result of learning the language. I suppose that is why people argue about Sapir/Whorf... At least there are different worldviews, aren't there?


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## sound shift

I agree with you, Thomas.


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## marco_2

ilocas2 said:


> In Czech it's called *tečka*, but we use comma as decimal mark (*desetinná čárka*)



In Polish full stop / period is *kropka*, and for decimals we use comma (*przecinek)*, though we often say *i *(and) instead.


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## ThomasK

If anyone can comment on the root of the _dot/point _word (like _*kropka*_, and _t*ečka*_, and many others) please do. Thanks in advance!


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## marco_2

ThomasK said:


> If anyone can comment on the root of the _dot/point _word (like _*kropka*_, and _t*ečka*_, and many others) please do. Thanks in advance!



The verb *kropić *means: _to drip, _so *kropka *was primarily _a trace of a drop _(BTW, the same is in Ukrainian: *крапати *_(krapaty) = to drip, _*крапка *_(krapka) = dot; full stop._


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## ThomasK

Wow, a drop... Interesting, fun to know...


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## bibax

ThomasK said:


> If anyone can comment on the root of the _dot/point _word (like _*kropka*_, and _t*ečka*_, and many others) please do. Thanks in advance!


Czech *teč-*ka has the root **-tъk-* = to touch, tangere. Only one touch with a pen/brush.

tečna = tangens (a line);
sedmitečný = septempunctatus;
etc.

Latin: *punctum* from the verb pungo, pungere = to sting;
(acu punctura = sting with a needle)

Slovak: *bodka < *root* bod-* = to sting;

(in Czech we have also *bod* = point; kritický bod = critical point)


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## Gavril

Armenian:

- a "full-stop"/"period" is called *Վերջակետ *(pronounced _verčagéd_ or _verjakét_), literally "end-dot". (The full stop in Armenian writing is not a single dot, but two dots. For example, "Hello." = "Բարեւ:")

- "dot" is *կետ *(ged / ket)

- "comma" is *ստորակէտ* (_sdoragéd_ / _storakét_), literally "lower-dot"; Armenia uses the decimal comma rather than the decimal point


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## Armas

Finnish

piste = point, dot, from pistää = to stick, prick, sting
pilkku = comma, we use decimal comma. It also means spot in skin, fur, it comes from pilkka = marking made in a tree trunk by removing bark.


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