Diple (textual symbol)

{{Short description|Symbol used in margins of Greek manuscripts to draw attention to something in text}}

{{About|a textual symbol|the musical instrument|Diple}}

Image:Diple-periestigmene.png" by Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, 2003]]

Diple ({{langx|grc|διπλῆ}}, meaning double, referring to the two lines in the mark {{char|>}}) was a mark used in the margins of ancient Greek manuscripts to draw attention to something in the text. It is sometimes also called antilambda{{Citation needed|date=December 2009}} because the sign resembles a Greek capital letter lambda ({{char|Λ}}) turned upon its side. In some ways its usage was similar to modern day quotation marks; guillemets (« »), used for quotations in French, are derived from it.

Isidore remarks in his Etymologiae (I.21.13){{Cite web | url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Isidore/1*.html#21.13 |title = LacusCurtius • Isidore's Etymologies — Book 1}} that the diple was used to mark quotations from the Bible. He also talks about diple peri strichon (or sticon), which was used to draw attention to separate concepts, and diple periestigmene used (like obelos) to mark dubious passages. Diple obolismene was used according to Isidore to separate sentences in comedies and tragedies, so its usage was similar to that of paragraphos.