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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1811769, member: 19463&quot;]Just to get this back a few centuries, coin collectors can study word spacing (or the lack of it) on Roman coins.&nbsp; When you took Latin I, the teacher should have pointed out that the Romans did not <i>usually</i> leave a space between words.&nbsp; If you were in school before political correctness took over, you may have been shown the illustrative example &quot;JESUSISNOWHERE&quot;&nbsp; which changes meaning depending on whether you break after the O or the W.&nbsp; Collectors with sufficient variety might even be able to show an example of dots used as separators but these are not consistent or even common between each word on the same coin.&nbsp; Some dots are found in the middle of words so may be a secret mark as much as punctuation.&nbsp; We might call this the beginnings of punctuation but it really does not have meaning as grammar.&nbsp; Relatively few coins even have a complete sentence (even if you allow for abbreviations) so grammar on coins is a small specialty at best.&nbsp; [ATTACH=full]296014[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]296015[/ATTACH]</p><p>Nero&#039;s two asses have full sentences (but abbreviates PR and drops the VE from Que).&nbsp;&nbsp; Who has an ancient coin with a sentence? It became more common in the medieval period.&nbsp;&nbsp; When did the first comma or other sign of grammar appear on a coin?&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p>[ATTACH=full]296016[/ATTACH] </p><p>The reverse of this Laodicea mint,&nbsp; Septimius Severus denarius has as extensive use of dot (abbreviated) word separators as I have seen on a Roman coin.&nbsp; Still, they are precursors of spaces rather than grammar aides.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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