Diple (, meaning double, referring to the two lines in the mark ) was a mark used in the
margins
Margin may refer to:
Physical or graphical edges
*Margin (typography), the white space that surrounds the content of a page
*Continental margin, the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust
*Leaf ...
of ancient Greek manuscripts to draw attention to something in the text. It is sometimes also called antilambda because the sign resembles a
Greek capital letter
lambda
Lambda (; uppercase , lowercase ; , ''lám(b)da'') is the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant . In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoen ...
() turned upon its side. In some ways its usage was similar to modern day
quotation marks;
guillemets (« »), used for quotations in French, are derived from it.
Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville (; 4 April 636) was a Spania, Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville, archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montal ...
remarks in his ''
Etymologiae'' (I.21.13)
that the diple was used to mark quotations from the
Bible
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
. He also talks about ''diple peri strichon'' (or ''sticon''), which was used to draw attention to separate concepts, and ''diple periestigmene'' used (like
obelos) to mark dubious passages. ''Diple obolismene'' was used according to Isidore to separate sentences in
comedies and
tragedies, so its usage was similar to that of
paragraphos
A paragraphos (, , from , 'beside', and , '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 d ...
.
See also
*
*
*
*
*
References
External links
Punctuation(Ancient Greek)
Palaeography
Punctuation
Ancient Greek punctuation
{{AncientGreek-lang-stub