White Sesame Dot

It marks selected text for emphasis, like italics.

In Japanese emphasis-dot typography, called kenten or bouten, one white sesame mark accompanies each highlighted character: to the right in vertical writing, above in horizontal writing. It is attached to text, not punctuation. The practice predates this encoded character; Japanese layout guidance describes emphasis dots as a long-established method in kanbun, the Japanese reading of classical Chinese texts.

Why is ﹆ called a sesame dot?

The white sesame form is one traditional kenten mark.

The Japanese typesetting standard JIS X 4052 lists it among marks used to draw attention to selected words or characters, especially in literary and editorial text. Unicode describes ﹅ SESAME DOT as historically related to 、 IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA, while its emphasis function remains separate. A visually related white dot served as a semicolon in Japanese literature in 1886; that mark, called shiroten (“white dot”), is different inline punctuation, not ﹆.

Why does ﹆ look wrong when I type it?

A typed ﹆ stays inline; it cannot attach itself to text.

Japanese composition places one emphasis dot per base character in the gap beside the line, at about half the character size. A raw inline ﹆ therefore looks oversized or misplaced. A Japanese web-fiction account checked 2026-09-14 reports four posting sites offering emphasis only with black dots; there, an editor or markup must supply the white styling.