Editing Georgian scripts (section)

== Punctuation ==
In Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri punctuation, various combinations of dots were used as [[word divider]]s and to separate phrases, clauses, and paragraphs. In monumental inscriptions and manuscripts of 5th to 10th centuries, these were written as dashes, like −, = and =−. In the 10th century, clusters of one (·), two (:), three ([[wikt:჻|჻]]) and six (჻჻) dots (later sometimes small circles) were introduced by [[Ephrem Mtsire]] to indicate increasing breaks in the text. One dot indicated a "minor stop" (presumably a simple word break), two dots marked or separated "special words", three dots for a "bigger stop" (such as the [[appositive]] name and title "the sovereign Alexander", below, or [[#Gospel of Matthew|the title of the Gospel of Matthew]], above), and six dots were to indicate the end of the sentence. Starting in the 11th century, marks resembling the apostrophe and comma came into use. An apostrophe was used to mark an interrogative word, and a comma appeared at the end of an interrogative sentence. From the 12th century on, these were replaced with the semicolon (the [[Greek question mark]]). In the 18th century, Patriarch [[Anton I of Georgia]] reformed the system again, with commas, single dots, and double dots used to mark "complete", "incomplete", and "final" sentences, respectively.<ref>[[Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia]], V. 8, p. 231, Tbilisi, 1984</ref> For the most part, Georgian today uses the punctuation as in international usage of the [[Latin script]].{{sfn|Gillam|2003|p=252}}

<div class="center">[[File:Alexander II signature.svg|center|180px]]
<small>Signature of King [[Alexander II of Kakheti]], with the divider {{angbr|჻}}<br>ჴლმწიფე ჻ ალექსანდრე<br>"The sovereign Alexander"</small></div>