Scriptio continua
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Scriptio continua ("Continuous script" in Latin) is a classical style of writing without spaces between words or sentences, with all the text in upper case, and with no punctuation, like this:
- NEQVEPORROQVISQUAMESTQVIDOLOREMIPSVMQVIADOLORSITAMETCONSECTETVRADIPISCIVELIT
- NOBODYLIKESPAINFORITSOWNSAKEORLOOKSFORITANDWANTSTOHAVEITJVSTBECAVSEITISPAIN
Which in normal modern style is:
- Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…
- Nobody likes pain for its own sake, or looks for it and wants to have it, just because it is pain…
(Text from Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum)
This style was often found in Greek manuscripts. It may have been used in order to conserve expensive manuscript material like vellum. It is used currently in Thai, other Southeast Asian abugidas, and in languages that use Chinese characters though with sentence breaks.
Here is an example of a normal Chinese sentence, then what it would look like with spaces between words, then a pinyin transcription (in which words are normally divided), and finally an English translation:
- 北京在中国北方；广州在中国南方。
- 北京 在 中国 北方； 广州 在 中国 南方。
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- Peking or Beijing is in Northern China; the city of Canton or Guangzhou is in Southern China.
As the example shows, Chinese differs from ancient scriptio continua in that it does at least use punctuation, although this was borrowed from the West only about a century ago.