Language desk
< January 23	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 25 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 24

Full stops in Chinese textbook

1912 textbook of the Republic of China, with punctuation marks to the right of characters

In this picture, used as an illustration for our article Chinese punctuation, the little circles indicating full stops abound at the end of the visible text (i.e. to the left). Here's the text repeated with simplified characters. (Minus the end of the previous chapter and the last character, which I would regard as part of the next sentence):
铁达尼邮船遇险记(二)
船既遇险、船张督率船员、百计救护。既知无可为、乃发令下小艇。小艇既备、又令男子退后、妇孺登艇。男子。闻。令。卽。退、。穆然。无。有。喧。哗。者。。
Up to the last two columns, the text makes sense to me, as well as to Google Translate. But the abundance of circles in the last two columns distorts their meaning, which, with the circles removed, Google Translate gives as “The men retreated after hearing the order, but no one was making any noise.”. What's the purpose of the circles? Creatively express the bubbles from the drowning ship? But that would be strange, given that this is a textbook which supposedly teaches proper writing. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 14:42, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it could be emphasis, similar to bold Latin writing. Another idea is that ○ would be similar to a Japanese "maru" sign and signify that the marked text is correctly written. [1] 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:44, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your two suggestions. For the second one, I don't see a reason here, and particularly not to mark。every。single。word。 as correct. But the first one makes sense. I wonder why they would do that in this case. Was it that the rule “women and children first” was so foreign to the readers of the book then that it needed to be particularly pointed out that all men followed it ungrudgingly? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 16:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Might it be loud exclamations, similar to an exclamation mark? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:25, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That seems not so likely for a sentence that says “... no one was making any noise”. I've settled on a combination of your first two answers: If the 丸印 was used in China then, it could have carried the connotation “this is the correct comportment.” ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 07:15, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We'll see if someone with bigger expertise comes along. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:54, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]