Paragraphos

Various paragraphoi.

A paragraphos (Ancient Greek: παράγραφος, parágraphos, from para-, “beside”, and graphein, “to write”) was a mark in ancient Greek punctuation, marking a division in a text (as between speakers in a dialogue or drama) or drawing the reader's attention to another division mark, such as the two dot punctuation mark ⟨⁚⟩. There are many variants of this symbol, sometimes supposed to have developed from Greek gamma (Γ), the first letter of the word graphos. It was usually placed at the beginning of a line and trailing a little way under or over the text.^[1]

It was referenced by Aristotle, who was dismissive of its use.^[2]

Unicode encodes multiple versions:

• U+2E0F ⸏ PARAGRAPHOS (HTML ⸏)
• U+2E10 ⸐ FORKED PARAGRAPHOS (HTML ⸐)
• U+2E11 ⸑ REVERSED FORKED PARAGRAPHOS (HTML ⸑)

References

1. Pearse, Roger. "Paragraphos and Coronis—the joy of the chase". 9 Nov 2010. Accessed 9 Oct 2014.
2. Pearse, Roger. "More on the paragraphos mark". 10 Nov 2010. Accessed 9 Oct 2014.

See also

• Obelus and Obelism, Greek marginal notes
• Coronis, the Greek paragraph mark
• Pilcrow, the English paragraph mark
• Section sign, the English section mark