When did punctuation develop?

Question

I understand about the development and evolution of languages, but who first looked at a run on sentence and thought: "Golly, that could use a comma, or semicolon, or even an end with a period."?

What are the oldest surviving documents discovered with punctuation? Anyone out there know? It would have been something interesting to learn in English class, along with learning the correct punctuation for our language.

Answer 1

I have starred your question because it would be of interest to know who was first. I can't tell you; but I would bet that someone who wrote "My wife yelled at the cat who had brought in a mouse and the dog chased the cat who ran up a tree and the dog tried to go up the tree too and couldn't and got stuck and we had to get a ladder which fell down on my head and knocked me out and I missed dinner," realized that he didn't speak like that, and had better break it up a bit.

Answer 2

you got me curious also. found these other sites that are better than wiked-pedia. only thing i had read in the past was the brief history in "eats shoots and leaves".
from new york university http://www.nyu.edu/classes/copyXediting/Punctuation.html
from other sources http://www.culham.ac.uk/biblos/background/background_ohl_wwtotwo.php
from the 11/3/06 column http://wohlstetter.typepad.com/letterfromthecapitol/classics_cds_dvds_books/index.html
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Resources/essays/punctuation_hist.html
found some funny stuff too (a lot of it)
It is the most pusillanimous, sissified, utterly useless mark of punctuation ever invented.
www.oneletterwords.com/weblog/?y=2006&m=5
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/07/09/the-origin-of-everyday-punctuation-symbols/

Answer 3

It was first invented by the grammarians of Alexandria circa 3rd Century BC in odre to facillate the laearning of Ancient Greek by non-Greek speaking people

Answer 4

Thanks for asking this question...I found the answer fascinating!