Emphasis mark

The emphasis mark, emphasis dot, kenten (圏点) or boten (傍点, bōten) is a typographic mark used in some East Asian languages to indicate emphasis. The markings can take many forms, such as dots or bullets, circles, or triangles. They were more commonly used historically, but with the rise of modern technology, it is now common to use quotation marks or change the font style.

事業是幹出來的，不是吹出來的。 看來，他彷佛用一千隻眼睛瞧著。

In China and Hong Kong, the emphasis mark (Chinese: 着重号) is used in textbooks and teaching materials. It is centred under each character highlighted in the horizontal texts, and centred to the right of each character in the vertical texts.

In Japan, the emphasis mark (傍点 bōten or 圏点 kenten) is usually a dot or a sesame dot and is centred above each character in the horizontal texts and to the right of each character in the vertical texts.

It is not unusual for kenten and ruby to concur on the same side of the main text (usually above or to the right), but this feature has not been possible with CSS.

In South Korea, the emphasis mark (드러냄표 deureonaempyo) usually rules as a dot or circle centred above the characters in the horizontal texts and to the right of the characters in the vertical texts.

Examples:

• using the CSS text-emphasis property:

  한글의 본 이름은 훈민정음이다.

  중요한 것은 왜 사느냐가 아니라 어떻게 사느냐 하는 문제이다.

• using positioned characters: :

  한글의 본 이름은 •훈•민•정•음이다.

  중요한 것은 ◦왜 ◦사◦느◦냐◦가 아니라 ◦어◦떻◦게 ◦사◦느◦냐 하는 문제이다.

In Vietnam, the emphasis mark (dấu nhấn mạnh) was written with various marks such as a dot, circle, or a sesame dot. It is commonly positioned to the right of the character. After Vietnam switched to the Latin alphabet, emphasis marks fell into disuse as bolding, underlining, and italics replaced the usage of emphasis marks.

• 定𫜵科次固𱺵𡗶空
  Định làm khoa thứ có là trời không

Apart from any single character, the following characters are used as emphasis marks in some implementations.

• Chinese punctuation
• Japanese punctuation
• Korean punctuation

• Lunde, Ken (2009) [1999]. CJKV Information Processing. O'Reilly. ISBN 978-0-596-51447-1.
• 한글 맞춤법 (in Korean). Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. 1988. Archived from the original on 2014-02-21. Retrieved 2019-03-28.
• "한글 맞춤법: VI. 드러냄표" (in Korean). Archived from the original on 2014-02-01. Retrieved 2019-03-28.