Chinese punctuation is the punctuation system used in writing of Chinese. The standard in all Sinophone regions, including mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, are almost same.
History The earliest prototype of punctuation in Chinese can be found in oracle bone script. In Guo Moruo's work General Anthology of Divination Inscriptions (, a collection of oracle bone script, written in 1933), in the 430th text, it showed from left to right "" which has 2 lines between them. These lines help to make texts independent. In Eastern and Western Han Dynasty, there were 13 punctuations observed in the sources. This proved that early Chinese had already started to use punctuations; however, due to a lot of reasons, e.g. ignorance from government, lack of standard system, punctuation is still not common-seen in old Chinese texts. This is the reason for students in Ancient Chinese that they had to learn (), the skill of punctuating texts.
Nonetheless, because Chinese texts were generally not transmitted with any punctuation, there are passages, even in famous texts, where the "correct" or intended punctuation are ambiguous. As a result, the meaning of the text can also be ambiguous. For example, this passage "" in Mencius 7B "Wholeheartedly" () has been punctuated as ""; or as ""; or as "". The first was given by the Han dynasty scholar Zhao Qi () and was the traditional reading accepted by Song scholar Zhu Xi, Qing scholar , etc. The second reading is favored by 13th-century scholars Liu Changshi (), Zhou Mi, etc. The third reading is proposed by modern scholars Wang Changlin (2002, 64) as well as Qin Hualin & Ling Yu (2005, 31).Van Els, Paul (February 2021). "Moral Beauty and the Beast: Ethical Dilemmas in the Mencius", Vol. 35. p. 18-19 of pp. 13–45
The reform of punctuation had already started in 1904, when Yan Fu, a prolific translator, suggested a system modelled after European languages, a proposition that eventually caught on when Hu Shih and Wang Yuanfang presented a punctuated edition of Water Margin in 1920. The first book to be printed with modern punctuation was Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy () by Hu Shih, published in 1919.
Since 2011, the use of punctuation in mainland China is regulated by Chinese national standard GB/T 15834–2011 "General rules for punctuation" ().
List of punctuation The table is based on GB/T 15834–2011 "General rules for punctuation", the document by Standardization Administration of China, mainland Chinese government. If the difference exists in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or other Chinese-speaking world, it will be labeled out. +Use of Chinese punctuationsPunctuationChinese nameEnglish nameUseExample sentencefullstop End of a sentence. The sentence is declarative; can also be used in the exclamational sentences or questions which have a more smooth tone. comma In the middle of a sentence to show the stop of tone. Use after a long subject or object. After the vocative part, like calling of one's name. If the object is before subject. Add a descriptive sentence of the subject, similar to English subordinate clause.
enumeration comma Write a list of nouns. Write between the repeated words. Write a list with using Chinese numerals.
In numbers, if it is not an abbreviation of a number. Between quotation marks.
No:
em dash Showing the longer sound. Add the explanation between two sentences. Showing a transition.
exclamation markEnd of an exclamory sentence. question markEnd of a question.colon Before a statement, a speech, a quotation. Summary of previous text. Before the word needed to explain. In a letter, archive, showing the speech of someone.
semicolon Use the stop between parallel sentences but a sentence is not finished yet. Showing the turning point in non-parallel sentences. Show the segmentations in listing.
parenthesis Add extended description.ellipsis For omission.quotation markGeneral use.
Quotation. Sarcasm of literal meaning. Use within quotation mark.Use only for book titles.Non-standard form in mainland China. One of two standard forms in Taiwan. middle dot For foreign, minority, to split the non-Han names. quotation mark for book (《》) because of the use in 3. Splitting a date. In quotation mark for book (《》), it means the chapter.
proper noun underlineIn mainland China, only use in old texts.·emphasisGiving emphasis. Marks imported from Europe are fullwidth instead of halfwidth like their original European counterparts, thus incorporating more space, and no longer need to be followed by an additional space in typesetting:
(U+3000 ) is the space, but takes the width of a full hanzi. ， (U+FF0C ) is the comma (,). It cannot be used for enumerating a list; see "enumeration comma" below. ！ (U+FF01 ) is the exclamation mark (!). ？ (U+FF1F ) is the question mark (?). ； (U+FF1B ) is the semicolon (;). ： (U+FF1A ) is the colon (:). （ ） (U+FF08 ), (U+FF09 ) are parentheses (round brackets). There are two kinds of square brackets: ［］ (U+FF3B ), (U+FF3D ) 【 】 (U+3010 ), (U+3011 ) Other punctuation symbols are more different, in shape or usage:
More details
Period () The Chinese period (U+3002 ) is a fullwidth small circle (). In horizontal writing, the period is placed in the middle , however in Mainland China it is placed in the bottom left ; in vertical writing, it is placed below and to the right of the last character (U+FE12 ) in Mainland China, and in the middle in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Quotation marks () Traditional Chinese does not use European quotation marks. Its double and single quotation marks are fullwidth (U+300E , U+300F ) and (U+300C , U+300D ). The double quotation marks are used when embedded within single quotation marks: . In vertical text, quotation marks are rotated 90° clockwise ( (U+FE41 , U+FE42 )).
Simplified Chinese officially prescribes European-style quotation marks for horizontal text and Chinese quotation marks for vertical text. Single quotation marks are used when embedded within double quotation marks: . These quotation marks are fullwidth in printed matter but share the same codepoints as the European quotation marks in Unicode, so they require a Chinese-language font to be displayed correctly. In vertical text, corner brackets rotated 90° clockwise (), are used similar to Traditional Chinese but in reverse clamping order, with double quotation on the outside and single quotation on the inside. However, corner brackets are commonly encountered in situations that normally necessitate European punctuation, including in official contexts and media.
Enumeration comma () The enumeration comma (U+3001 ) or "dun comma" () must be used instead of the regular comma when separating words constituting a list. Chinese language does not traditionally observe the English custom of a serial comma (the comma before conjunctions in a list), although the issue is of little consequence in Chinese at any rate, as the English "A, B, and C" is more likely to be rendered in Chinese as "" or more often as "", without any word for "and", see picture to the right.
Middle dot () Chinese uses a middle dot to separate characters in non-Han personal names, such as Tibetan, Uyghur, etc. For example Nur Bekri (), the name of a Chinese politician of Uyghur descent, is rendered as "". "Leonardo da Vinci" is often transcribed into Mandarin as . The middle dot is also fullwidth in printed matter, while the halfwidth middle dot [·] is also used in computer input, which is then rendered as fullwidth in Chinese-language fonts.
In Taiwan, the hyphenation point ([‧], U+2027 ) is used instead for the same purpose. They can also be used to represent decimal points in Chinese. For example "3.5" becomes .
Title marks ()
For titles of books, films, and so on, Simplified Chinese officially uses fullwidth double angle brackets (U+300A , U+300B ), and fullwidth single angle brackets (U+3008 , U+3009 ).
The latter is used when embedded within the former: . Although (wavy underline, U+FE4F ) is the officially prescribed title mark by Taiwan's Ministry of Education (especially for handwriting), when typing, square brackets and double quotation marks are also de facto used, if not prescribed by dictionaries in a manner akin to Korean and Japanese; Simplified Chinese often does likewise for song titles. In practice, Traditional Chinese, single title marks are also used for articles in or sections of a book, a rule that is also officially prescribed for Simplified Chinese.
Furthermore, unsanctioned and alternate usage of Western or Chinese quotation marks is rather common, especially so for Chinese quotation marks in Traditional Chinese newspapers; this "unsanctioned practice" is also commonly found in Japanese and Korean.
Ellipsis () In Chinese, the ellipsis is written with six dots (not three) occupying the same space as two characters in the center of a line. Unicode provides an explicitly centered character in addition to the inexplicit character.
Two-em dash () Similarly, the two-em dash () is written so that it occupies the space of two em dash characters in the center of the line. There should be no breaking in the line. To represent the two-em dash character ([⸺]), one can write two consecutive em dashes ([——], U+2014 U+2014). Chinese is .
En dash () When connecting two words to signify a range, Chinese generally uses an en dash occupying the space of one character (e.g. "January to July", which can also be written 1月至7月, with the character 至 in place of the dash). A single em dash character or a tilde may also be used.
Wave dash () The wave dash (, ) is used in the Chinese language to signify a numerical range (e.g. 5～20個字 "5 to 20 words"). Additionally, there is another Unicode character called the fullwidth tilde (, ) which is often used as an alternative form of the wave dash symbol. The wave dash is more commonly but not exclusively used when the numbers are estimates (e.g. circa dates and temperatures in weather forecasts). For the most part, however, the en dash and wavy dash are interchangeable; usage is largely a matter of personal taste or institutional style. Note that the wave dash ([〜]) and the fullwidth tilde ([～]) should not be confused with the wavy dash character (, ). In Japanese, the wavy dash is used as an emphatic form of the katakana-hiragana prolonged sound mark. In informal use (such as texting), wavy dashes are also used to indicate a prolonged vowel similar to informal English's repeated letters (e.g. "waaah") or to indicate stress in places where English would employ an emphatic tone marked variously by italics or bolding (e.g. "I want it!").
Spacing Similar to the spacing between letters (kerning) in European languages, Chinese writing uses a very narrow space between characters, though it does not observe the equivalent to the wider space between words except on rare occasions. Chinese particularly classical Chinese is thus a form of scriptio continua and it is common for words to be split between lines with no marking in the text equivalent to the English hyphen.
When a space is used, it is also fullwidth (U+3000 : ).
One instance of its usage is as an honorific marker. A modern example in 20th century Taiwan, is found in the reference to Chiang Kai-shek as (Former President, Lord Chiang), in which the preceding space serves as an honorific marker for . This use is also still current in very formal letters or other old-style documents, as well as religious scripture.
Asterisk ( ) Mainland Chinese supply chains often use an asterisk in place of a multiplication sign (×) to specify product dimensions. For example "10×200×350" becomes "10*200*350".
Typographic styles