4 ms·

> When we write, we leave spaces between words. Readingwordswithoutsuchspacesisdifficult. immediately losing credibility because quite a number of languages, s

by fhe 2y ago

> When we write, we leave spaces between words. Readingwordswithoutsuchspacesisdifficult. immediately losing credibility because quite a number of languages, such as Chinese and Japanese (and I think Korean too), are written without space between words or characters. In fact, until quite recently (last 100 years or so), written Chinese had no punctuations.

posterboy 2y ago
The characters aren't connected so the brush is lifted and a space left behind. Of course this also goes for the space between signs of a compound word, but this also holds for "compound word", which is itself a compound word. Also they had \n = EoL alright. Negative spaces are so important in *-graphy
csa 2y ago
Agree with your main sentiment. For accuracy: > quite a number of languages, such as Chinese and Japanese (and I think Korean too), are written without space between words or characters. Correct with Japanese and Chinese. Modern Korean (few or no hanzi/chinese characters) does use spaces. > In fact, until quite recently (last 100 years or so), written Chinese had no punctuations. Eh… ok, sure, I guess. Punctuation was formalized in the 20th century, yes. There are also lexical markers than can be (and often were) used to mark the beginning or end of certain ideas. While not punctuation, these characters serve a similar purpose in delineating linguistic chunks. The following page gives some simple examples: https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2021/09/how-china-adopted-western-punctuation/ https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2021/09/how-china-adopted-...
blackbrokkoli 2y ago
Don't even have to look that far. Scriptio Continua, writing without spaces, was all the rage in Greek and Latin, and the idea of using all those fancy separators like spaces and full stops only caught on in Europe from 800-1400. [0] [0] Wiki Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_continua https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_continua

by fhe 2y ago

posterboy 2y ago

The characters aren't connected so the brush is lifted and a space left behind. Of course this also goes for the space between signs of a compound word, but this also holds for "compound word", which is itself a compound word. Also they had \n = EoL alright. Negative spaces are so important in *-graphy

csa 2y ago

Agree with your main sentiment. For accuracy: > quite a number of languages, such as Chinese and Japanese (and I think Korean too), are written without space between words or characters. Correct with Japanese and Chinese. Modern Korean (few or no hanzi/chinese characters) does use spaces. > In fact, until quite recently (last 100 years or so), written Chinese had no punctuations. Eh… ok, sure, I guess. Punctuation was formalized in the 20th century, yes. There are also lexical markers than can be (and often were) used to mark the beginning or end of certain ideas. While not punctuation, these characters serve a similar purpose in delineating linguistic chunks. The following page gives some simple examples: https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2021/09/how-china-adopted-western-punctuation/ https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2021/09/how-china-adopted-...

blackbrokkoli 2y ago

Don't even have to look that far. Scriptio Continua, writing without spaces, was all the rage in Greek and Latin, and the idea of using all those fancy separators like spaces and full stops only caught on in Europe from 800-1400. [0] [0] Wiki Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_continua https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_continua