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Interpunct is a small middle dot used for interword separation in ancient Latin script. The dot was vertically centered, e.g. "DONA·NOBIS·REQVIEM". Besides a round dot, in inscriptions the interpunct is sometimes a small equilateral triangle, pointing either up or down. It can be seen on inscriptions on buildings in the twentieth century.
Interpuncts were perhaps the first consistent visual representation of word boundaries in a written language. (Ancient Greek, by contrast, had not developed interpuncts; all the letters ran together.)
When a wave of enthusiasm for all things Greek swept ancient Rome, the use of interpuncts died out, presumably being inadequately fashionable.
The use of spaces for interword separation didn't appear until much later, roughly 600-800 AD.
A punctuation mark resembling the interpunct is used in the characteristically Catalan grapheme l·l (called ele geminada, "twinned l"), as in "paral·lel". It is used to distinguish such a case (pronounced as a long "l") from ll (palatalized, as in llum).
Grammar lessons in the Japanese language sometimes use a similar symbol to separate a verb suffix from its root.
In British typography, an interpunct is sometimes called a "centered dot" or a "space dot".
In some word processors, interpunct is used to visualise either a hard space or space character.
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