Space (punctuation)
In writing, a
space is any empty (non-written) zone between written sections. The term however is usually referred to an empty zone used for
interword separation (
interword space).
Not all languages use spaces between words; the ancient
Latin and Greek did not. Spaces were not used to separate words until roughly
600 AD –
800 AD (see
interword separation for more on the history). Traditionally, all
CJK languages have no space: modern
Chinese and
Japanese (except when written with little or no
kanji) still do not, but modern
Korean uses spaces.
For use of spaces after full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks, see discussion in the article
full stop.
In typography there are various kinds of interword spaces, mainly differing in their width. Correspondingly, even more
space characters exist in computing to combine the different width with different word-breaking properties in dynamic rearrangement of text.
;typography:*Hair space â€" the narrowest of metallic spaces in typesetting or the narrowest space used in typography (Unicode: U+200A)
;computing:*
space characters
