Mellempunkt

Mellempunkt is the term used in Danish and Norwegian for the typographic punctuation mark known in English as the interpunct or middle dot. The symbol is a small dot placed in the middle of the line, typically rendered as the character "·" (Unicode U+00B7). A closely related dot, "⋅" (U+22C5), is used in mathematics as a dot operator, but it is distinct in its formal function from the interpunct in prose.

In use, the mellempunkt serves various roles across languages and contexts. It is employed to separate items in a list when the comma would cause ambiguity, and it is used in linguistic and lexicographic notation to split morphemes, syllables, or compounds for readability or analysis. In some orthographic conventions, it marks boundaries in foreign names or terms or serves as a separator in bibliographic references or catalog entries.

The historical root of the interpunct goes back to ancient writing systems, where dots or marks functioned as word boundaries. In contemporary Scandinavian typography, the mellempunkt is comparatively rare in everyday writing but appears in specialized texts such as dictionaries, linguistic works, or scholarly editions where precise delimitation is needed.

Encoding and typography: The mellempunkt is well supported in standard fonts and Unicode, allowing consistent use across digital formats. Renderings can vary slightly depending on font design and typographic settings, but the symbol generally remains visually centered on the baseline as a mid-line dot.