How did the perfectly lucid and literal FULL STOP acquire PERIOD as a synonym?

What kind of punctuation do languages other than English use? Any thoughts on the evolution of punctuation?

Sanskrit, I know, uses diacritics and a vertical line (sometimes two) to denote the end of a sentence. Words are separated by spaces, unlike the Latin dot. Can diacritics be considered to be a form of punctuation?

I frequently use commas to denote pauses in my speech, even if grammatically, there is no reason for doing so. I think, that by doing so, I am able to convey some rhythm and emphasis to the written word. Of course, in the process, I might also be causing a great deal of confusion and if that is the case, let me apologise. Any similar such punctuational idiosyncrasies?