Virgel

The Virgel as the only punctuation mark: First page from William Caxton's edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur . London 1485.

Virgeln is the name given to the slashes that were previously used to structure sentences and that are now replaced by commas in this function , which is still heard in French and Italian today ( French virgule / Italian virgola 'comma' ). The use of Virgeln was limited to texts set in Fraktur . Even in these, however, care was taken to ensure that a comma and not a virgel appeared after a word set in Antiqua (e.g. a French loan word that was traditionally not set in Fraktur but in Antiqua ).

In the course of the 18th century, most German-language printers shortened the Virgeln to the length of commas.

Virgeln is still used today when reproducing lines of poetry in a running text to indicate the change in verse lines. They are also used in hymn books to denote pauses or sections sung on a breath.

Virgeln in the plan view

At least in Austria , a Z- or S-shaped bracket is also referred to as a virgel, with which it is shown in surveying and zoning plans that two areas on either side of a dividing line (usage limit, building edge, etc.) belong to the same property .

literature

Burckhard Garbe (Ed.): Texts on the history of German punctuation and its reform 1462–1983 (= German Linguistics. 83, 4/6). Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 1984, ISBN 3-487-07475-3 .
Duden. The big foreign dictionary. Origin and meaning of the words. 4th updated edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim / Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-411-04164-0 .
Frank Kirchhoff: From the virgel to the comma. The development of punctuation in German. Winter, Heidelberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-8253-6776-3 .
Kevin Christopher Masalon: The German punctuation yesterday, today - and tomorrow (?): A corpus-based, diachronic investigation of punctuation as part of written language change in the field of tension between text pragmatics, system and norm with special consideration of the comma. Dissertation. Duisburg-Essen, May 5, 2014; uni-duisburg-essen.de (PDF).

Web links

Wiktionary: Virgel - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Wolf Busch: Virgeln und Kommas - examples from old German prints. In: flitternikel.onlinehome.de. October 19, 2005, accessed November 12, 2013 .
en: Virgule

Individual evidence

↑ transcription. pierre-marteau.com; accessed on October 30, 2017.
↑ Virgel . In: Real Estate ABC. immogrand.at; Quote: “Lat. Slash, in survey plans connecting signs in the form of an elongated 'S' across the border lines between two properties, which means that these properties belong to the same land register deposit. "

[1] transcription. pierre-marteau.com; accessed on October 30, 2017.

[2] Virgel . In: Real Estate ABC. immogrand.at; Quote: “Lat. Slash, in survey plans connecting signs in the form of an elongated 'S' across the border lines between two properties, which means that these properties belong to the same land register deposit. "