emphasis mark; dot or mark for stress/attention
Marks (dots, sesame dots, or short lines) placed beside characters in Japanese text to indicate emphasis, similar to italics or underlining in English. Common in printed materials and manga.
In this book, important words have emphasis marks next to them.
guiding marks for kanbun
Special marks used in reading Chinese classics (kanbun) to indicate Japanese word order and grammatical particles. A technical term in classical studies.
See also: 漢文
When emphasis marks are placed on dialogue in manga, it gives a feeling of stress.
In kanbun class, we learned how to add guiding marks such as return marks.
返り点 are a specific type of guiding mark used in kanbun to indicate reading order, whereas 傍点 in the kanbun sense is a general term for such marks.
Standard kanji spelling for emphasis marks or guiding marks.
Variant kanji form; 旁 is a less common character for this word.
Compound of 傍 (beside) and 点 (mark, dot), literally 'side marks'. The kanji 旁 is a variant with the same meaning.