Morse Code Punctuation & Special Characters

Punctuation in Morse Code

Beyond letters and numbers, International Morse Code defines patterns for common punctuation marks and special characters. These use 5–6 symbols each.

Common Punctuation

Period (.)        .-.-.-
Comma (,)         --..--
Question mark (?) ..--..
Apostrophe (')    .----.
Exclamation (!)   -.-.--
Slash (/)         -..-.
Colon (:)         ---...
Semicolon (;)     -.-.-.
Equals (=)        -...-
Plus (+)          .-.-.
Hyphen (-)        -....-
Underscore (_)    ..--.-
Quotation (")     .-..-.
At sign (@)       .--.-.
Dollar ($)        ...-..-

Parentheses

Open parenthesis (   -.--.
Close parenthesis )  -.--.-

Note that the close parenthesis is the open parenthesis with an extra dot appended.

Pattern Design

Punctuation marks generally use longer sequences (5–6 symbols) to avoid collision with the shorter letter and number codes. Many punctuation codes are constructed by combining parts of related letter codes:

• Period (.-.-.-) mirrors the A code (.-) repeated three times
• Comma (--..--) mirrors the M code (--) and I code (..)
• Question mark (..--..) embeds the U code (..-) and M code (--)

Rarely Used Characters

Some characters like the ampersand (& = .-...) and at sign (@ = .--.-.) were added to the ITU standard more recently to accommodate modern communication needs.