,
,
,
,
, ()
,
, -
! Uyghur
, }
, }
,
,
,
,
, none
,
,
, -
!
Uzbek
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
, (nails)
,
, -
!
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
NBSP
In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space, , also called NBSP, required space, hard space, or fixed space (though it is not of fixed width), is a space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In s ...
(optional)
,
,
, -
!
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
,
,
,
,
,
,
, 1–2 pt
,
,
, -
Specific language features
Bulgarian
Contemporary Bulgarian employs
em dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
or quotation
horizontal bar
The horizontal bar, also known as the high bar, is an apparatus used by male gymnasts in artistic gymnastics. It traditionally consists of a cylindrical metal (typically steel) bar that is rigidly held above and parallel to the floor by a syste ...
( followed by a space characer) at the beginning of each direct-speech segment by a different character in order to mark
direct speech
As a form of transcription, direct or quoted speech is spoken or written text that reports speech or thought in its original form phrased by the original speaker. In narrative, it is usually enclosed in quotation marks, but it can be enclosed in gu ...
in prose and in most journalistic question and answer
interview
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...
s; in such cases, the use of standard quotation marks is left for in-text citations or to mark the names of institutions, companies, and sometimes also brand or model names.
Air quotes
Air quotes, also called finger quotes, are virtual quotation marks formed in the air with one's fingers when speaking. The gesture is typically done with both hands held shoulder-width apart and at the eye or shoulders level of the speaker, with ...
are also widely used in face-to-face communication in contemporary Bulgarian but usually resemble
" ... "
(secondary:
' ... '
) unlike written Bulgarian quotation marks.
Dutch
The standard form in the preceding table is taught in schools and used in handwriting. Most large newspapers have kept these low-high quotation marks, and ; otherwise, the alternative form with single or double English-style quotes is now often the only form seen in printed matter. Neutral (straight) quotation marks, and , are used widely, especially in texts typed on computers and on websites.
Although not generally common in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
any more, double angle (guillemet) quotation marks are still sometimes used in Belgium. Examples include the Flemish
HUMO
''HUMO'' is a popular Dutch-language Belgian weekly radio and television supermarket tabloid.
History and profile
''Humoradio'' (meaning a portmanteau of 'humor' and 'radio' in English) was first published in 1936 as a Dutch-language counterpar ...
magazine and the Metro newspaper in Brussels.
German
The symbol used as the left (typographical) quote in English is used as the right quote in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
and a "low double comma" (not used in English) is used for the left quote. Its single quote form looks like a comma.
Some fonts, e.g.
Verdana
Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography ...
, were not designed with the flexibility to use an English left quote as a German right quote. Such fonts are therefore typographically incompatible with this German usage.
Double quotes are standard for denoting speech in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
.
: (Andreas asked me: "Have you read the 'EU Expansion' article?")
This style of quoting is also used in
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
,
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
*Czech, ...
,
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
,
Estonian
Estonian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe
* Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent
* Estonian language
* Estonian cuisine
* Estonian culture
See also ...
,
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
,
Icelandic,
Latvian,
Lithuanian
Lithuanian may refer to:
* Lithuanians
* Lithuanian language
* The country of Lithuania
* Grand Duchy of Lithuania
* Culture of Lithuania
* Lithuanian cuisine
* Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...
,
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
,
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...
,
Slovak,
Slovene and in
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
.
Sometimes, especially in novels, guillemets (angle quotation mark sets) are used in Germany and Austria (albeit in reversed order compared to
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
):
:
:: Andreas asked me: "Have you read the 'EU Expansion' article?"
In
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, the
French-style angle quotation mark sets are also used for
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
printed text: «A ‹B›?»
:
:: Andreas asked me: 'Have you read the "EU Expansion" article?'
Finnish and Swedish
In
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, right quotes, called citation marks, , are used to mark both the beginning and the end of a quote. Double right-pointing angular quotes, , can also be used.
Alternatively, an
en-dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
followed by a (
non-breaking) space can be used to denote the beginning of quoted speech, in which case the end of the quotation is not specifically denoted (see section
Quotation dash
Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an ...
below). A line-break should not be allowed between the en-dash and the first word of the quotation.
, U+2013 (8211)
, –
, Alternative denotation at the beginning of quoted speech
French
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
uses angle quotation marks (
guillemet
Guillemets (, also , , ) are a pair of punctuation marks in the form of sideways double chevrons, and , used as quotation marks in a number of languages. In some of these languages "single" guillemets, and , are used for a quotation inside ano ...
s, or ''duck-foot quotes''), adding a 'quarter-em space' within the quotes. Many people now use the
non-breaking space
In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space, , also called NBSP, required space, hard space, or fixed space (though it is not of fixed width), is a space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In s ...
, because the difference between a non-breaking space and a four-per-em is virtually imperceptible (but also because the Unicode quarter-em space is breakable), and the quarter-em glyph is omitted from many fonts. Even more commonly, many people just put a normal (breaking) space between the quotation marks because the non-breaking space cannot be accessed easily from the keyboard; furthermore, many are simply not aware of this typographical refinement. Using the wrong type of space often results in a quotation mark appearing alone at the beginning of a line, since the quotation mark is treated as an independent word.
:
::“Would you like a sandwich, Henri?”
Sometimes, for instance on several French news sites such as ''
Libération
''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...
'', ''
Les Échos'' or ''
Le Figaro
''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of reco ...
'', no space is used around the quotation marks. This parallels normal usage in other languages, e.g.
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
,
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
, or in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
and
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
as written in
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
:
: (Swiss Standard German)
: (Polish)
: ' (Ukrainian)
:: “This is a quote.”
Initially, the French guillemet characters were not angle shaped but also used the comma (6/9) shape. They were different from English quotes because they were standing (like today's guillemets) ''on'' the baseline (like lowercase letters), and not above it (like apostrophes and English quotation marks) or hanging down from it (like commas). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, this shape evolved to look like
small parentheses
. The angle shape appeared later to increase the distinction and avoid confusions with apostrophes, commas and parentheses in handwritten manuscripts submitted to publishers.
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
currently does not provide alternate codes for these 6/9 guillemets on the baseline, as they are considered to be form variants of guillemets, implemented in older French typography (such as the
Didot font design). Also there was not necessarily any distinction of shape between the opening and closing guillemets, with both types pointing to the right (like today's French closing guillemets).
They must be used with
non-breaking space
In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space, , also called NBSP, required space, hard space, or fixed space (though it is not of fixed width), is a space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In s ...
s, preferably narrow, if available, i.e. U+202F which is present in all up-to-date general-purpose fonts, but still missing in some computer fonts from the early years of Unicode, due to the belated encoding of U+202F (1999) after the flaw of not giving U+2008 non-breakable property as it was given to the related U+2007 .
Legacy support of narrow non-breakable spaces was done at rendering level only, without interoperability as provided by Unicode support. High-end renderers as found in
Desktop Publishing
Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online c ...
software should therefore be able to render this space using the same glyph as the breaking thin space U+2009, handling the non-breaking property internally in the text renderer/layout engine, because line-breaking properties are never defined in fonts themselves; such renderers should also be able to infer any width of space, and make them available as application controls, as is done with justifying/non-justifying.
In old-style printed books, when quotations span multiple lines of text (including multiple paragraphs), an additional closing quotation sign is traditionally used at the ''beginning'' of each line continuing a quotation; any right-pointing guillemet at the beginning of a line does not close the current quotation. This convention has been consistently used since the beginning of the 19th century by most book printers, but is no longer in use today. Such insertion of continuation quotation marks occurred even if there is a word hyphenation break. Given this feature has been obsoleted, there is no support for automatic insertion of these continuation guillemets in HTML or CSS, nor in word-processors. Old-style typesetting is emulated by breaking up the final layout with manual line breaks, and inserting the quotation marks at line start, much like pointy brackets before quoted plain text e-mail:
:
Unlike English, French does not set off unquoted material within a quotation by using a second set of quotation marks. Compare:
:
:: “This is a great day for Montrealers, the minister maintained. These investments will stimulate economic growth.”
For clarity, some newspapers put the quoted material in italics:
:
The French Imprimerie nationale (cf. ''Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l'Imprimerie nationale'', presses de l'Imprimerie nationale, Paris, 2002) does not use different quotation marks for nesting quotes:
:
:: "His 'explanation' is just a lie", the deputy protested.
In this case, when there should be two adjacent opening or closing marks, only one is written:
:
:: He answered: "It's only a 'gizmo'."
The use of English quotation marks is increasing in French and usually follows English rules, for instance in situations when the keyboard or the software context doesn't allow the use of guillemets. The French news site ''
L'Humanité
''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist."
History and profile
Pre-World Wa ...
'' uses straight quotation marks along with angle ones.
English quotes are also used sometimes for nested quotations:
:
:: "His 'explanation' is just a lie", the deputy protested.
But the most frequent convention used in printed books for nested quotations is to style them in italics. Single quotation marks are much more rarely used, and multiple levels of quotations using the same marks is often considered confusing for readers:
:
:
Further, running speech does not use quotation marks beyond the first sentence, as changes in speaker are indicated by a dash, as opposed to the English use of closing and re-opening the quotation. (For other languages employing dashes, see section
Quotation dash
Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an ...
below.) The dashes may be used entirely without quotation marks as well. In general, quotation marks are extended to encompass as much speech as possible, including not just nonverbal text such as "he said" (as previously noted), but also as long as the conversion extends. The quotation marks end at the last spoken text rather than extending to the end of paragraphs when the final part is not spoken.
: (
Dumas,
Les trois mousquetaires
''Les Trois Mousquetaires'' (The Three Musketeers) is a 1921 French silent adventure film serial directed by Henri Diamant-Berger based on the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas, père.
Plot summary
Cast
* Aimé Simon-Girard ... d'Artagnan
* ...
)
:: "I am not speaking to you, sir", he said.
:: "But ''I'' am speaking to you!" cried the young man, exasperated by this combination of insolence and good manners, of protocol and disdain.
Greek
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
uses angled quotation marks ( – ''isagogiká''):
:
and the
quotation dash
Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an ...
( – ''pávla''):
:
which translate to:
: "Is he serious?" he asked Maria.
: "Yes, certainly," she replied.
A closing quotation mark, , is added to the beginning of each new quoted paragraph.
:
When quotations are nested, double and then single quotation marks are used: .
, U+2015 (8213)
, ―
, Greek direct quotation em-dash
Hungarian
According to current recommendation by the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( hu, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, MTA) is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. Its ma ...
the main Hungarian quotation marks are comma-shaped double quotation marks set on the base-line at the beginning of the quote and at apostrophe-height at the end of it for first level, (), reversed »French quotes« without space (the German tradition) for the second level, and thus the following nested quotation pattern emerges:
*
... and with third level:
*
In Hungarian linguistic tradition the meaning of a word is signified by ''uniform (unpaired)'' apostrophe-shaped quotation marks:
*
A
quotation dash
Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an ...
is also used, and is predominant in
belletristic
is a category of writing, originally meaning beautiful or fine writing. In the modern narrow sense, it is a label for literary works that do not fall into the major categories such as fiction, poetry, or drama. The phrase is sometimes used pejora ...
literature.
* .
Hebrew
In Israel, the original practice was to use modified German-style „low-high” quote marks, however since the 1990s, American-style "quote marks" have become the standard. (Note that Hebrew is written from right to left.)
Polish
According to current
PN-83/P-55366 standard from 1983 (but not dictionaries, see below), ''Typesetting rules for composing Polish text'' (''Zasady składania tekstów w języku polskim'') one can use either „ordinary Polish quotes” or «French quotes» (without space) for first level, and ‚single Polish quotes’ or «French quotes» for second level, which gives three styles of nested quotes:
#
#
#
There is no space on the internal side of quote marks, with the exception of ''
firet'' (≈
em) space between two quotation marks when there are no other characters between them (e.g.
,„ and
’”).
The above rules have not changed since at least the previous
BN-76/7440-02 standard from 1976 and are probably much older.
The rules on the use of guillemets conflict with the Polish punctuation standard as given by dictionaries, including the ''Wielki Słownik Ortograficzny PWN'' recommended by the
Polish Language Council
The Council for the Polish Language (Polish: ''Rada Języka Polskiego'') is the official language regulating organ of Polish. It was established by the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences pursuant to Resolution No. 17/96 of 9 September 199 ...
. The PWN rules state:
In Polish books and publications, this style for use of guillemets (also known as »German quotes«) is used almost exclusively. In addition to being standard for second level quotes, guillemet quotes are sometimes used as first level quotes in headings and titles but almost never in ordinary text in paragraphs.
Another style of quoting is to use an
em-dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
to open a quote; this is used almost exclusively to quote dialogues, and is virtually the only convention used in works of fiction.
:Mag skłonił się. Biały kot śpiący obok paleniska ocknął się nagle i spojrzał na niego badawczo.
:— Jak się nazywa ta wieś, panie? — zapytał przybysz. Kowal wzruszył ramionami.
:— Głupi Osioł.
:— Głupi...?
:— Osioł — powtórzył kowal takim tonem, jakby wyzywał gościa, żeby spróbował sobie z niego zażartować. Mag zamyślił się.
:— Ta nazwa ma pewnie swoją historię — stwierdził w końcu. — W innych okolicznościach chętnie bym jej wysłuchał. Ale chciałbym porozmawiać z tobą, kowalu, o twoim synu.
::The wizard bowed. A white cat that had been sleeping by the furnace woke up and watched him carefully.
::“What is the name of this place, sir?” said the wizard.
::The blacksmith shrugged.
::“Stupid Donkey,” he said.
riginal English version is "Bad Ass", but that's not a common phrase in Polish::“Stupid—?”
::“Donkey,” repeated the blacksmith, his tone defying anyone to make something of it.
::The wizard considered this.
::“A name with a story behind it,” he said at last, “which were circumstances otherwise I would be pleased to hear. But I would like to speak to you, smith, about your son.”
:(
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his ''Discworld'' series of 41 novels.
Pratchett's first nov ...
, ''Equal Rites'')
An
en-dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
is sometimes used in place of the
em-dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
, especially so in newspaper texts.
, U+2014 (8212)
, —
, Polish direct quotation
em-dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
, -
, }
, U+2013 (8211)
, –
, Polish direct quotation
en-dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
Portuguese
Neither the
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
language regulator
This is a list of bodies that consider themselves to be authorities on standard languages, often called language academies. Language academies are motivated by, or closely associated with, linguistic purism and prestige, and typically publish pr ...
nor the
Brazilian prescribe what is the shape for quotation marks, they only prescribe when and how they should be used.
In
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, the angular quotation marks
(ex. ) are traditionally used. They are the Latin tradition quotation marks, used normally by typographers. It is that also the chosen representation for displaying quotation marks in reference sources,
[Cunha, Celso & Lindley Cintra. ''Gramática do Português Contemporâneo''. Edições João Sá da Cunha, Lisboa, 2013] and it is also the chosen representation from some sites dedicated to the Portuguese Language.
The ''Código de Redação''
[ (Guide to Inter-institutional Translation)] for Portuguese-language documents published in the European Union prescribes three levels of quotation marks representation, :
:''
E estava escrito «Alguém perguntou “Quem foi que gritou ‘Meu Deus!’?”.» na folha de papel.''
:
And it was written “Someone asked ‘Who shouted “My God”!?’.” on the sheet of paper.
* in
black: main sentence which contains the quotations;
* in
green: 1st level quotation;
* in
red: 2nd level quotation;
* in
blue: 3rd level quotation;
The usage of curved quotation marks (ex. ) is growing in Portugal.
That is probably due to the omnipresence of the English language and to the corresponding difficulty or even inability of some machines (mobile phones, cash registers, calculators, etc.) to enter the angular quotation marks.
In
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, angular quotation marks are rare, and curved quotation marks () are almost always used. This can be verified by the difference between a
Portuguese keyboard (which possesses a specific key for « and for ») and a
Brazilian keyboard.
The
Portuguese-speaking African countries
The Portuguese-speaking African countries ( pt, Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa; PALOP), also known as Lusophone Africa, consist of six African countries in which the Portuguese language is an official language: Angola, Cape Ver ...
tend to follow Portugal's conventions, not the Brazilian ones.
Other usages of quotation marks ( for double, for single) are obsolete..
Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian
In
Belarusian,
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, and
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
, the angled quotation (
Belarusian: «двукоссе»,
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
: «кавычки»,
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
: «лапки») marks are used without spaces. In case of quoted material inside a quotation, rules and most noted style manuals prescribe the use of different kinds of quotation marks.
Example in Russian:
(
Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
wrote to Delvig: "Waiting for '
Gypsies
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...
', and publish at once."
Example in Ukrainian:
"And, of course, you can't avoid using a dictionary. One of my acquaintances, a poet and literary critic, once jokingly said: 'I prefer to read dictionaries than poems. The dictionary has the same words as in the poem, but is presented in a systematic way'. It's a joke, but 'reading dictionaries' is not as amazing and bizarre as it may seem."
Spanish
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
uses angled quotation marks ( or ) as well, but always without the spaces.
:
: "This is an example of how a literal quotation is usually written in Spanish."
And, when quotations are nested in more levels than inner and outer quotation, the system is:
:
: "Antonio told me, 'What a piece of "junk" Julián has purchased for himself'".
The use of English quotation marks is increasing in Spanish, and the ''
El País
''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA.
It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...
'' style guide, which is widely followed in Spain, recommends them.
Hispanic America
The region known as Hispanic America (in Spanish called ''Hispanoamérica'' or ''América Hispana'') and historically as Spanish America (''América Española'') is the portion of the Americas comprising the Spanish-speaking countries of North, ...
ns often use them, owing to influence from the United States.
Chinese, Japanese and Korean
Corner brackets are well-suited for
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
,
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, and
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
languages which are written in both
vertical and horizontal orientations. China, South Korea, and Japan all use corner brackets when writing vertically. Usage differs when writing horizontally:
* In
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, corner brackets are used.
* In
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
, corner brackets and English-style quotes are used.
* In
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
, angle quotes are used.
* In
Mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
, English-style quotes (full width “”) are official and prevalent; corner brackets are rare today. The Unicode codepoints used are the English quotes (rendered as fullwidth by the font), not the fullwidth forms.
* In
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
and
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
, where
Traditional Chinese
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
is used, corner brackets are prevalent, although English-style quotes are also used.
* In the Chinese language, double angle brackets are placed around titles of books, documents, movies, pieces of art or music, magazines, newspapers, laws, etc. When nested, single angle brackets are used inside double angle brackets. With some exceptions, this usage parallels the usage of italics in English:
::「你看過《三國演義》嗎?」他問我。
::"Have you read ''
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' () is a 14th-century historical novel attributed to Luo Guanzhong. It is set in the turbulent years towards the end of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, starting in 184 AD and ...
''?", he asked me.
White corner brackets are used to mark quote-within-quote segments in case corner brackets are used.
}
,
, -
,
, (non-normative)
, For vertical writing:
, -
,
,
, rowspan="2" , White corner brackets
,
, -
,
, U+FE43 (65091), U+FE44 (65092)
(non-normative)
, For vertical writing:
, -
,
,
, Double quotation marks
,
, -
,
,
, Single quotation marks
,
, -
,
,
, Double angle brackets
,
, -
,
,
, Single angle brackets
,
Quotation dash
Another typographical style is to omit quotation marks for lines of dialogue, replacing them with an initial dash, as in lines from James Joyce's ''
Ulysses
Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature.
Ulysses may also refer to:
People
* Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name
Places in the United States
* Ulysses, Kansas
* Ulysse ...
'':
:― O saints above! Miss Douce said, sighed above her jumping rose. I wished I hadn't laughed so much. I feel all wet.
:― O Miss Douce! Miss Kennedy protested. You horrid thing!
This style is particularly common in Bulgarian, French, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
always insisted on this style, although his publishers did not always respect his preference.
Alan Paton
Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 – 12 April 1988) was a South African writer and anti-apartheid activist. His works include the novels ''Cry, the Beloved Country'' and '' Too Late the Phalarope''.
Family
Paton was born in Pietermaritzbu ...
used this style in ''
Cry, the Beloved Country
''Cry, the Beloved Country'' is a 1948 novel by South African writer Alan Paton. Set in the prelude to apartheid in South Africa, it follows a black village priest and a white farmer who must deal with news of a murder.
American publisher Benne ...
'' (and no quotation marks at all in some of his later work).
Charles Frazier
Charles Frazier (born November 4, 1950) is an American novelist. He won the 1997 National Book Award for Fiction for '' Cold Mountain''.
Biography
Early life
Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina, grew up in Andrews and Franklin, Nort ...
used this style for his novel ''
Cold Mountain'' as well. Details for individual languages are given above.
The dash is often combined with ordinary quotation marks. For example, in French, a guillemet may be used to initiate running speech, with a dash to indicate each change in speaker and a closing guillemet to mark the end of the quotation.
Dashes are also used in many modern
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
s, especially those written in
nonstandard dialect
A nonstandard dialect or vernacular dialect is a dialect or language variety that has not historically benefited from the institutional support or sanction that a standard dialect has.
Like any dialect, a nonstandard dialect has an internally co ...
s. Some examples include:
* James Joyce's prose
*
William Gaddis
William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist.
The first and longest of his five novels, ''The Recognitions'', was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005
and two othe ...
' prose
* ''
Trainspotting
Trainspotting may refer to:
* Trainspotting (hobby), an amateur interest in railways/railroads
* ''Trainspotting'' (novel), a 1993 novel by Irvine Welsh
** ''Trainspotting'' (film), a 1996 film based on the novel
*** ''Trainspotting'' (soundtr ...
'' by
Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer. His 1993 novel '' Trainspotting'' was made into a film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short fil ...
* ''
M/F'' by
Anthony Burgess
John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer.
Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his Utopian and dystopian fiction, d ...
* ''
The Book of Dave
''The Book of Dave'' is a 2006 novel by English author Will Self.
Content
''The Book of Dave'' tells the story of an angry and mentally ill London taxi driver named Dave Rudman, who writes and has printed on metal a book of his rantings agai ...
'' by
Will Self
William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English author, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Sel ...
, which alternates between standard English chapters, with standard quotation marks, and dialect chapters, with quotation dashes
* ''
A Scanner Darkly
''A Scanner Darkly'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, published in 1977. The semi-autobiographical story is set in a dystopian Orange County, California, in the then-future of June 1994, and includes an extensive ...
'' by
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928March 2, 1982), often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his l ...
(not written in dialect)
*
The Ægypt Sequence by
John Crowley, in extracts from the fictional writings of the character Fellowes Kraft, a
historical novelist
This page provides a list of novelists who have written historical novels. Countries named are where they ''worked'' for longer periods. Alternative names appear before the dates.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
...
. According to another character, Kraft used dashes to indicate imaginary dialogue that was not documented in the original sources.
* ''
The Van'' by
Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle (born 8 May 1958) is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, eight books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories. Several of his books have been ma ...
* ''
You Shall Know Our Velocity
''You Shall Know Our Velocity!'' is a 2002 novel by Dave Eggers. It was Eggers's debut novel, following the success of his memoir ''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'' (2000).
The plot follows Will and Hand, two childhood friends who set ...
'' by
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the 2000 best-selling memoir ''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius''. Eggers is also the founder of ''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', a lite ...
, in which spoken dialogues are written with the typical English quotation marks, but dialogues imagined by the main character (which feature prominently) are written with quotation dashes
* ''
A Winter in the Hills'' by
John Wain
John Barrington Wain CBE (14 March 1925 – 24 May 1994) was an English poet, novelist, and critic, associated with the literary group known as "The Movement". He worked for most of his life as a freelance journalist and author, writing and revi ...
in which conversations in English are indicated by ordinary quotation marks and in Welsh by quotation dashes
In Italian, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Georgian, Romanian, Lithuanian and Hungarian, the reporting clause in the middle of a quotation is separated with two additional dashes (also note that the initial quotation dash is followed by a single whitespace character as well as the fact that the additional quotation dashes for the middle main clause after the initial quotation dash are all with a single whitespace character on both of their sides):
:
:
:: "Oh dear!" exclaimed Levin. "I think it is nine years since I went to communion! I haven't thought about it."
:: "You are a good one!" remarked Oblonsky, laughing. "And you call me a Nihilist! But it won't do, you know; you must confess and receive the sacrament."
::: from
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
’s ''
Anna Karenina
''Anna Karenina'' ( rus, «Анна Каренина», p=ˈanːə kɐˈrʲenʲɪnə) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever writte ...
'' (Louise and Aylmer Maude translation)
:– Nem hagyják magukat, mozgásban maradnak – mondta Ron. – Ahogy mi is.
: "Well, they keep on the move, don't they?" said Ron. "Like us."
:: From J. K. Rowling's ''
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'' is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the seventh and final novel of the main ''Harry Potter'' series. It was released on 21 July 2007 in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publi ...
'' and its Hungarian translation by Tóth Tamás Boldizsár.
In
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
, on the other hand, a second dash is added when the quote continues after a reporting clause:
: – Et sinä ole paljon minkään näköinen, sanoi Korkala melkein surullisesti, – mutta ei auta.
:: "You don't seem to be anything special," said Korkala almost sadly, "but there's no help to it."
: – Frakki, älähti Huikari. – Missä on frakki?
: – Räätälissä, sanoi Joonas rauhallisesti.
:: "Tailcoat", yelped Huikari. "Where is the tailcoat?"
:: "At the tailor's", said Joonas calmly.
The
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
standard introduced a separate character to be used as a quotation dash. It may be the same length as an em-dash, which is often used instead. Some software will insert a line break after an em-dash, but not after a quotation dash. Both are displayed in the following table.
, U+2015 (8213)
, ―
, Quotation dash, also known as
horizontal bar
The horizontal bar, also known as the high bar, is an apparatus used by male gymnasts in artistic gymnastics. It traditionally consists of a cylindrical metal (typically steel) bar that is rigidly held above and parallel to the floor by a syste ...
, -
, }
, U+2014 (8212)
, —
,
Em-dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
, an alternative to the quotation dash
, -
, }
, U+2013 (8211)
, –
,
En-dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
, used instead of em-dash for quotation dash in some languages (e.g. Swedish)
Electronic documents
Different
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are list of type ...
s,
character encoding
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to Graphics, graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of Language, human language, allowing them to be Data storage, stored, Data communication, transmi ...
s and
computer language
A computer language is a formal language used to communicate with a computer. Types of computer languages include:
* Construction language – all forms of communication by which a human can specify an executable problem solution to a compu ...
s use various encodings and glyphs for quotation marks.
Typewriters and early computers
'Ambidextrous' or 'straight' quotation marks were introduced on
typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
s to minimise the number of keys on the keyboard, and were inherited by
computer keyboard
A computer keyboard is a peripheral input device modeled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Replacing early punched cards and paper tape technology ...
s and
character set
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values that ...
s. The
ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...
character set, which has been used on a wide variety of computers since the 1960s, only contains a straight single quote () and double quote ().
Many systems, such as the
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s of the 1980s and early 1990s, actually drew these ASCII quotes like closing quotes on-screen and in printouts, so text would ''appear'' like this (approximately):
These same systems often drew the
backtick
The backtick is a typographical mark used mainly in computing. It is also known as backquote, grave, or grave accent.
The character was designed for typewriters to add a grave accent to a (lower-case) base letter, by overtyping it atop that le ...
(the free standing character ) as an 'open quote' glyph (usually a mirror image so it still sloped in the direction of a grave accent). Using this character as the opening quote gave a
typographic approximation
A typographic approximation is a replacement of an element of the writing system (usually a glyph) with another glyph or glyphs. The replacement may be a nearly homographic character, a digraph, or a character string. An approximation is differen ...
of curved single quotes. Nothing similar was available for the double quote, so many people resorted to using two single quotes for double quotes, which would ''look'' approximately like the following:
The typesetting application
TeX
Tex may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname
* Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr.
Entertainment
* ''Tex'', the Italian ...
uses this convention for input files. The following is an example of TeX input which yields proper curly quotation marks.
:
:
The
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
standard added
codepoint
In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
s for slanted or curved quotes ( and , described further below), shown here for comparison:
The Unicode mapping for
PostScript Standard Encoding The PostScript Standard Encoding (often spelled StandardEncoding, aliased as PostScript) is one of the character sets (or encoding vectors) used by Adobe Systems' PostScript (PS) since 1984 (1982). In 1995, IBM assigned code page 1276 (CCSID 1276 ...
preserves the typographic approximation convention by mapping its equivalent of ASCII grave and single-quote to the Unicode curly quotation mark characters.
Keyboard layouts
Typographical quotation marks are almost absent on keyboards.
In typewriter keyboards, the curved quotation marks were not implemented. Instead, to save space, the straight quotation marks were invented as a compromise. Even in countries that did not use curved quotation marks, angular quotation marks were not implemented either.
Computer keyboards followed the steps of typewriter keyboards. Most computer keyboards do not have specific keys for curved quotation marks or angled quotation marks. This may also have to do with computer character sets:
*
IBM character sets generally do not have curved quotation mark characters, therefore, keys for the curved quotation marks are absent in most IBM computer keyboards.
* Microsoft followed the example of IBM in its character set and keyboard design. Curved quotation marks were implemented later in
Windows character sets, but most Microsoft computer keyboards do not have a dedicated key for the curved quotation mark characters. On keyboards with the key or both the key and the
numeric keypad
A numeric keypad, number pad, numpad, or ten key,
is the palm-sized, usually-17-key section of a standard computer keyboard, usually on the far right. It provides calculator-style efficiency for entering numbers. The idea of a 10-key nu ...
, they are accessible through a series of keystrokes that involve these keys. Also, techniques using
their Unicode code points are available; see
Unicode input
Unicode input is the insertion of a specific Universal Character Set characters, Unicode character on a computer by a user (computing), user; it is a common way to input characters not directly supported by a physical Keyboard (computing), keybo ...
.
*
Macintosh character sets have always had curved quotation marks available. Nevertheless, these are mostly accessible through a series of keystrokes, involving the key.
In languages that use the curved
“...” quotation marks, they are available in:
* none
In languages that use the angular
«...» quotation marks, they are available in:
*
Macintosh Arabic keyboard;
* Armenian keyboard
*
Canadian keyboard
* French
BÉPO
The BÉPO layout is an optimized French keyboard layout developed by the BÉPO community, supporting all Latin-based alphabets of the European Union, Greek and Esperanto. It is also designed to ease programming. It is based on ideas from the Dvor ...
keyboard
* Greek keyboard
* Khmer keyboard
* Latvian ergonomic keyboard
* Pashto keyboard
* Persian keyboard
*
Portuguese keyboard
* Syriac keyboard
* Uyghur keyboard
In languages that use the corner bracket
「...」 quotation marks, they are available in:
* Japanese keyboard
In languages that use the angle bracket
《...》 they are available in:
* Mongolian keyboard
* New Tai Lue keyboard
In languages that use the curved
„...“ quotation marks, they are available in:
* Bulgarian keyboard
* Georgian keyboard
* Macedonian keyboard
In languages that use the curved
„...” quotation marks, they are available in:
*
Romanian Standard SR 13392:2004 keyboard
In languages that use the curved
”...” quotation marks, they are available in:
* none
Curved quotes within and across applications
Historically, support for curved quotes was a problem in information technology, primarily because the widely used ASCII character set did not include a representation for them.
The term "smart quotes", , is from the name in several word processors of a function aimed this problem: automatically converting straight quotes typed by the user into curved quotes, the feature attempts to be "smart" enough to determine whether the punctuation marked opening or closing. Since curved quotes are the typographically correct ones, word processors have traditionally offered curved quotes to users (at minimum as available characters). Before
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
was widely accepted and supported, this meant representing the curved quotes in whatever 8-bit encoding the software and underlying
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
was using. The character sets for
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
used two different pairs of values for curved quotes, while
ISO 8859-1
ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, ''Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1 ...
(historically the default character set for the
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
es and older
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
systems) has ''no'' curved quotes, making cross-platform and -application compatibility difficult.
Performance by these "smart quotes" features was far from perfect overall (variance potential by e.g. subject matter, formatting/style convention, user typing habits). As many word processors (including Microsoft Word and
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...
) have the function enabled by default, users may not have realized that the ASCII-compatible straight quotes they were typing on their keyboards ended up as something different (conversely users could incorrectly assume its functioning in other applications, e.g. composing emails).
The curved
apostrophe
The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
is the same character as the closing single quote. "Smart quotes" features wrongly convert initial apostrophes (as in 'tis, 'em, 'til, and '89) into ''opening'' single quotes. (An example of this error appears in the advertisements for the television show ''
'Til Death
''Til Death'' is an American sitcom which aired on the Fox network from September 7, 2006, to June 20, 2010. The series was created by husband and wife team Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, who were also the writers and executive producers. The ...
''). The two very different functions of this character can cause confusion, particularly in British styles, in which single quotes are the standard primary.
Unicode support has since become the norm for operating systems. Thus, in at least some cases, transferring content containing curved quotes (or any other non-ASCII characters) from a word processor to another application or platform has been less troublesome, provided all steps in the process (including the
clipboard
A clipboard is a thin, rigid board with a clip at the top for holding paper in place. A clipboard is typically used to support paper with one hand while writing on it with the other, especially when other writing surfaces are not available. Th ...
if applicable) are Unicode-aware. But there are still applications which still use the older character sets, or output data using them, and thus problems still occur.
There are other considerations for including curved quotes in the widely used
markup language
Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the document ...
s HTML,
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
, and
SGML
The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML; ISO 8879:1986) is a standard for defining generalized markup languages for documents. ISO 8879 Annex A.1 states that generalized markup is "based on two postulates":
* Declarative: Markup should des ...
. If the encoding of the document supports direct representation of the characters, they can be used, but doing so can cause difficulties if the document needs to be edited by someone who is using an editor that cannot support the encoding. For example, many simple text editors only handle a few encodings or assume that the encoding of any file opened is a platform default, so the quote characters may appear as the generic replacement character or "
mojibake
Mojibake ( ja, 文字化け; , "character transformation") is the garbled text that is the result of text being decoded using an unintended character encoding. The result is a systematic replacement of symbols with completely unrelated ones, ofte ...
" (gibberish). HTML includes a set of entities for curved quotes:
‘
(left single),
’
(right single or apostrophe),
‚
(low 9 single),
“
(left double),
”
(right double), and
„
(low 9 double). XML does not define these by default, but specifications based on it can do so, and XHTML does. In addition, while the HTML 4, XHTML and XML specifications allow specifying numeric character references in either hexadecimal or decimal, SGML and older versions of HTML (and many old implementations) only support decimal references. Thus, to represent curly quotes in XML and SGML, it is safest to use the decimal numeric character references. That is, to represent the double curly quotes use
“
and
”
, and to represent single curly quotes use
‘
and
’
. Both numeric and named references function correctly in almost every modern browser. While using numeric references can make a page more compatible with outdated browsers, using named references are safer for systems that handle multiple character encodings (i.e. RSS aggregators and search results).
In
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
file and folder names, the straight double quotation mark is prohibited, as it is a
reserved character
A filename or file name is a name used to uniquely identify a computer file in a directory structure. Different file systems impose different restrictions on filename lengths.
A filename may (depending on the file system) include:
* name &ndas ...
. The curved quotation marks, as well as the straight single quotation mark, are permitted.
Usenet and email
The style of quoting known as
Usenet quoting
When Usenet and e-mail users respond to a message, they often want to include some context for the discussion. This is often accomplished by quoting a portion of the original message using Usenet conventions. In essence the convention is to communi ...
uses the
greater-than sign
The greater-than sign is a mathematical symbol that denotes an inequality between two values. The widely adopted form of two equal-length strokes connecting in an acute angle at the right, , has been found in documents dated as far back as the 1 ...
, prepended to a line of text to mark it as a quote. This convention was later standardized i
RFC 3676 and was adopted subsequently by many email clients when automatically including quoted text from previous messages (in
plain text
In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...
mode).
Unicode code point table
In Unicode, 30 characters are marked
Quotation Mark=Yes
by
character property.
They all have general category "Punctuation", and a subcategory Open, Close, Initial, Final or Other (
Ps, Pe, Pi, Pf, Po
). Several other Unicode characters with quotation mark semantics lack the character property.
Explanatory notes
References
External links
"Curling Quotes in HTML, SGML, and XML" David A Wheeler (2017)
by Markus Kuhn (1999) – includes detailed discussion of the ASCII 'backquote' problem
''The Gallery of "Misused" Quotation Marks''"Commonly confused characters" ''Greg's References Pages'', Greg Baker (2016)
David Dunham (2006)
"How to type “smart quotes” (U+201C, U+201D)" on Unix/Linux, at ''Stack Exchange''
Index of quotation-marks-related materialat the ''EnglishGrammar'' website
*
"Œuvrez les guillemets", Pauline Morfouace (2002) – French quotation mark typography
{{navbox punctuation
Punctuation
Typographical symbols