Diple ( grc, διπλῆ, meaning double, referring to the two lines in the mark >) was a mark used in the
margins 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 (Λ) turned upon its side. In some ways its usage was similar to modern day
quotation marks
Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an ...
;
guillemets (« »), used for quotations in French, are derived from it.
Isidore
Isidore ( ; also spelled Isador, Isadore and Isidor) is an English and French masculine given name. The name is derived from the Greek name ''Isídōros'' (Ἰσίδωρος) and can literally be translated to "gift of Isis." The name has survived ...
remarks in his ''
Etymologiae'' (I.21.13)
that the diple was used to mark quotations from the
Bible. 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
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term origin ...
and
tragedies, so its usage was similar to that of
paragraphos.
See also
*
Usenet quoting
When Usenet and e-mail users respond to a message, they often want to include some context for the discussion. This is often accomplished by quoting a portion of the original message using Usenet conventions. In essence the convention is to communi ...
*
Obelos
*
Coronis
References
External links
Punctuation
Palaeography
Punctuation
Ancient Greek punctuation
{{AncientGreek-lang-stub