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Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks) are
punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. A ...
marks used in pairs in various
writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...
s to set off
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 ...
, a
quotation A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by ...
, or a phrase. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the same character. Quotation marks have a variety of forms in different languages and in different media.


History

The single quotation mark is traced to Ancient Greek practice, adopted and adapted by monastic copyists.
Isidore of Seville Isidore of Seville ( la, Isidorus Hispalensis; c. 560 – 4 April 636) was a Spanish scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of ...
, in his seventh century encyclopedia, , described their use of the Greek ''diplé'' (a
chevron Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock la ...
):
3⟩ Diplé. Our copyists place this sign in the books of the people of the Church, to separate or to indicate the quotations drawn from the
Holy Scripture Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual pra ...
s.
The double quotation mark derives from a marginal notation used in fifteenth-century
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...
annotations to indicate a passage of particular importance (not necessarily a quotation); the notation was placed in the outside margin of the page and was repeated alongside each line of the passage. In his edition of the works of
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
, which appeared in 1483 or 1484, the Milanese Renaissance humanist
Francesco Filelfo Francesco Filelfo ( la, Franciscus Philelphus; 25 July 1398 – 31 July 1481) was an Italian Renaissance humanist. Biography Filelfo was born at Tolentino, in the March of Ancona. He is believed to be a third cousin of Leonardo da Vinci. At t ...
marked literal and appropriate quotes with oblique double dashes on the left margin of each line. Until then, literal quotations had been highlighted or not at the author's discretion. were marked on the edge. After the publication of Filelfo's edition, the quotation marks for literal quotations prevailed. During the seventeenth century this treatment became specific to quoted material, and it grew common, especially in Britain, to print quotation marks (now in the modern opening and closing forms) at the beginning and end of the quotation as well as in the margin; the French usage (see under Specific language features below) is a remnant of this. In most other languages, including English, the marginal marks dropped out of use in the last years of the eighteenth century. The usage of a pair of marks, opening and closing, at the level of lower case letters was generalized. By the nineteenth century, the design and usage began to be specific to each region. In
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
the custom became to use the quotation mark pairs with the convexity of each mark aimed ''outward.'' In Britain those marks were elevated to the same height as the top of capital letters: . In
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, by the end of the nineteenth century, the marks were modified to an angular shape: . Some authors claim that the reason for this was a practical one, in order to get a character that was clearly distinguishable from the apostrophes, the commas, and the parentheses. Also, in other scripts, the angular quotation marks are distinguishable from other punctuation characters: the Greek breathing marks, the Armenian emphasis and apostrophe, the Arabic
comma The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline ...
, the decimal separator, the thousands separator, etc. Other authors claim that the reason for this was an aesthetic one. The elevated quotation marks created an extra white space before and after the word, which was considered aesthetically unpleasing, while the in-line quotation marks helped to maintain the typographical color, since the quotation marks had the same height and were aligned with the lower case letters. Nevertheless, while other languages do not insert a space between the quotation marks and the word(s), the French usage does insert them, even if it is a narrow space. The ''curved'' quotation marks ("66-99") usage, , was exported to some non-Latin scripts, notably where there was some
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 ...
influence, for instance in Native American scripts and
Indic scripts The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India ...
. On the other hand, Greek,
Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
,
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and Ethiopic adopted the French "angular" quotation marks, . The
Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The t ...
angle bracket quotation marks, , are also a development of the in-line angular quotation marks. In
Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...
, the practice was to use the quotation mark pairs with the convexity aimed ''inward.'' The
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 **Ge ...
tradition preferred the curved quotation marks, the first one at the level of the commas, the second one at the level of the apostrophes: . Alternatively, these marks could be angular and in-line with lower case letters, but still pointing inward: . Some neighboring regions adopted the German curved marks tradition with lower–upper alignment, while some adopted a variant with the convexity of the closing mark aimed rightward like the opening one, .
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...
(and
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...
) choose a convention where the convexity of both marks was aimed to the right but lined up both at the top level: . In
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
, there was hesitation between the French tradition and the German tradition . The French tradition prevailed in
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
(Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus), whereas the German tradition, or its modified version with the convexity of the closing mark aimed rightward, has become dominant in
Southeastern Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (a ...
, e.g. in the Balkan countries. The reemergence of single quotation marks around 1800 came about as a means of indicating a secondary level of quotation. In some languages using the angular quotation marks, the usage of the single guillemet, , became obsolete, being replaced by double curved ones: , though the single ones still survive, for instance, in Switzerland. In Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the curved quotation marks, , are used as a secondary level when the angular marks, are used as a primary level.


In English

In English writing, quotation marks are placed in pairs around a word or phrase to indicate: *
Quotation A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by ...
or
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 ...
: * Mention in another work of the
title A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...
of a short or subsidiary work, such as a chapter or an episode: . *
Scare quotes Scare quotes (also called shudder quotes,Pinker, Steven. ''The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century''. Penguin (2014) sneer quotes, and quibble marks) are quotation marks that writers place around a word o ...
, used to mean " so-called" or to express irony: . In American writing, quotation marks are normally the double kind (the primary style). If quotation marks are used inside another pair of quotation marks, then single quotation marks are used. For example: If another set of quotation marks is nested inside single quotation marks, double quotation marks are used again, and they continue to alternate as necessary (though this is rarely done). British publishing is regarded as more flexible about whether double or single quotation marks should be used. A tendency to use single quotation marks in British writing is thought to have arisen after the mid-19th century invention of steam-powered presses and the consequent rise of London and New York as distinct, industrialized publishing centers whose publishing houses adhered to separate norms. '' The King's English'' in 1908 noted that the prevailing British practice was to use double marks for most purposes, and single ones for quotations within quotations. Different media now follow different conventions in the United Kingdom. Different varieties and styles of English have different conventions regarding whether terminal punctuation should be written inside or outside the quotation marks. North American printing usually puts full stops and commas (but not colons, semicolons, exclamation or question marks) inside the closing quotation mark, whether it is part of the original quoted material or not. Styles elsewhere vary widely and have different rationales for placing it inside or outside, often a matter of house style. Regarding their appearance, there are two types of quotation marks: * and are known as neutral, vertical, straight, typewriter, dumb, or
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 ...
quotation marks. The left and right marks are identical. These are found on typical English
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 and
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 technolog ...
s, although they are sometimes automatically converted to the other type by software. * and are known as typographic, curly, curved, book, or smart quotation marks. (The doubled ones are more informally known as "66 and 99".) The beginning marks are commas raised to the top of the line and rotated 180 degrees. The ending marks are commas raised to the top of the line. Curved quotation marks are used mainly in
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...
, printing, and
typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...
.
Type case A type case is a compartmentalized wooden box used to store movable type used in letterpress printing.Williams, Fred (1992). "Origin of the California Job Case". ''Type & Press'', fall 1992. http://www.apa-letterpress.com/T%20&%20P%20ARTICLES/ ...
s (of any language) generally have the curved quotation mark metal types for the respective language, and may lack the vertical quotation mark metal types. Because most computer keyboards lack keys to enter typographic quotation marks directly, much that is written using word-processing programs has vertical quotation marks. The "
smart quotes In English writing, quotation marks or inverted commas, also known informally as quotes, talking marks, speech marks, quote marks, quotemarks or speechmarks, are punctuation marks placed on either side of a word or phrase in order to identify i ...
" feature in some computer software can convert vertical quotation marks to curly ones, although sometimes imperfectly. The closing single quotation mark is identical in form to the
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 ...
and similar to the
prime A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...
symbol. The double quotation mark is identical to the ditto mark in English-language usage. It is also similar to—and often used to represent—the
double prime The prime symbol , double prime symbol , triple prime symbol , and quadruple prime symbol are used to designate units and for other purposes in mathematics, science, linguistics and music. Although the characters differ little in appearance fr ...
symbol. These all serve different purposes. File:Underwoodfive.jpg, A typewriter File:Upper case and lower case types.jpg, A type case


Summary table

Other languages have similar conventions to English, but use different symbols or different placement. , , , } , , , optional , (, quotation marks) , , - ! Armenian , , , , , , , , (, quotation marks) , , - !
Azerbaijani Azerbaijani may refer to: * Something of, or related to Azerbaijan * Azerbaijanis * Azerbaijani language See also * Azerbaijan (disambiguation) * Azeri (disambiguation) * Azerbaijani cuisine * Culture of Azerbaijan The culture of Azerbaijan ...
, , , , , , , 0–1 pt , (fingernail mark) , , - ! Basque , , , , , , , , , , - ! Belarusian , , , , , , , , , , - ! Bosnian , , , , , , , , , is used only in printed media. , - ! Bulgarian , , , , , , , , () (or , () for the main types of quotation marks (also called ''double quotation mark(s)''), and , () for the secondary quotation marks (also called ''single quotation mark(s)''). , * is sometimes replaced by or very rarely by * and are sometimes written as , or * There is some limited use of alternative secondary quotation marks: ; ; ; ; . , - !
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 ...
, , , , , , , none , , , - ! Chinese, simplified , , , , , , , Fullwidth form , , double quotation mark) * ( zh, p=dān yǐn hào, single quotation mark) , rowspan="2" , * Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese agree on the names of the vertical rectangle quotation marks ( and ) but disagree on which pair being the primary one. * In Simplified Chinese, rectangle quotation marks are only used in vertical texts. The horizontal rectangle quotation marks are not commonly used in Simplified Chinese, and in the rare cases where they are used, often the convention of Traditional Chinese is followed. * In Traditional Chinese, curly quotation marks are not commonly used, and in the rare cases where they are used, often the convention of Simplified Chinese is followed. , - ! Chinese, traditional , , , , , , , Fullwidth form , , single quotation mark) * ( zh, p=shuāng yǐn hào, j=soeng1 jan5 hou6, double quotation mark) , - ! Croatian , , , , , , , , , is used only in printed media. , - ! Czech , , , , , , , , (introduce) , , - ! Danish , , } , , , , , , , , - ! Dutch , , , , , , , , , * Double citation marks are only used in literal citations * The sequence when using primary and secondary level is a recommendation, not a rule. , - ! English, UK , , , , , , , rowspan="2" , 1–2 pt , rowspan="2" , Quotation marks, double quotes, quotes, inverted commas, speech marks , rowspan="2" , Usage of single or double as primary varies across English varieties. , - ! English, US; English, Canada , , , , , , , - !
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
, , , , , , , , ( lit. quoting tools) , , - !
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 * ...
, , , , , , , , , , - ! Filipino , , , , , , , , , , - ! Finnish , , , Regulated by the standard SFS 4175:2006, “Typing of numbers, marks and signs." Released by the National standards organization of Finland. , , , , , (citation marks) , , - ! rowspan="2" ,
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 ...
, , , rowspan="2" , , , , rowspan="2" , , * NNBSP * NBSP , rowspan="3" , ( William) , rowspan="3" , , - , , , , , none , - ! French, Switzerland , , , , , , , , - ! Galician , , , , , , , , , , - ! Georgian , , , , ,

, none , (, claws) , , - !
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 **Ge ...
, , , , , , , , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , , - ! Swiss Standard German, German, Switzerland; Swiss German , , , , , , , , - ! Greek , , , Δημήτρης Ν. Μαρωνίτης, «Το Εγκόλπιο της Ορθής Γραφής» (1998) , , , , , (, introductory marks) , , - !
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, } , } , , } , , , () , Not to be confused with (, double geresh typographical mark). , - !
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
, , , , , , , , () , , - ! Hungarian , , , , , , , , , The three levels of Hungarian quotation: , - ! Icelandic , , , , , , , , (goose feet) , , - ! Ido , , , , , , , , (quotation hooks) , , - ! Indonesian , , , , , , , , , (quote mark) , Usage of alternative marks seen among the literature by Jehovah’s Witnesses in Indonesian. , - ! Interlingua , , , , , , , , (small
comma The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline ...
s) , , - ! Irish , , , , , , , 1–2 pt , ( William) , , - ! Italian , , , , , , , , rowspan="2" , (small
comma The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline ...
s) , rowspan="2" , , - ! Italian, Switzerland , , , , , , , , - ! Japanese , , , , , , , Fullwidth form , , Occasionally, other symbols, such as , are used stylistically. , - ! Kazakh , , , , , , , , () , , - ! Khmer , , , , , , , , (, quotation mark) , , - ! Korean, North Korea , , , , , , , , , , - ! Korean, South Korea , , , , } , } , , , , , - ! Lao , , , , , , , , () , , - ! Latvian , , , , , , , , , , - ! Lithuanian , , , , , , , , , , - !
Lojban Lojban (pronounced ) is a logical, constructed, human language created by the Logical Language Group which aims to be syntactically unambigious. It succeeds the Loglan project. The Logical Language Group (LLG) began developing Lojban in 198 ...
, } , , , } , , , , Double quotes are not officially named in Lojban, but sometimes called , following the same pattern as vowel letters, e.g. ⟨a⟩ = , Lojban uses the words and , rather than punctuation, to surround quotes of grammatically correct Lojban. Double quotes can also be used for aesthetic purposes. Non-Lojban text may be quoted using . , - !
Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
, , , pp. 141-143, Правопис на македонскиот литературен јазик, Б. Видеоски ''etal.'', Просветно Дело-Скопје (2007) , , , , , , , - ! Maltese , , , , , , , , Virgoletti , , - ! Mongolian,
Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking c ...
, , , , , , , , , , - ! Mongolian,
Mongolian script The classical or traditional Mongolian script, also known as the , was the first Mongolian alphabet, writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language, and was the most widespread until the introduction of Cyrillic script, Cyrillic ...
, } , } , , , , , , , , - ! New Tai Lue , , , , , , , , , , - ! Norwegian , , , , , , , , , , - ! Occitan , , , , , , , , , , , - !
Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...
, } , , , , , , , , , - ! Persian , } , , , , , , , (, guillaume) , , - ! Polish , , , , , , , none , (someone else's word) , , - ! Portuguese, Brazil , , , , , , , , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , , - ! Portuguese, Portugal , , , Bergström, Magnus, & Neves Reis 2004. ''Prontuário Ortográfico e Guia da Língua Portuguesa.'' Editorial Notícias, Lisboa. , , , , , - !
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
, , , Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan“, Îndreptar ortografic, ortoepic și de punctuație, ediția a V-a, Univers Enciclopedic, București, 1995 , , , , none , (quotes) , , - ! Romansh , , , , , , , , , , - ! Russian , , , , , , , none , , , - !
Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...
, , , , , , , , , , - !
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
, , , , , , , , , , - ! Slovak , , , , , , , , (introduce) , , - ! Slovene , , , , , , , , , , - ! Sorbian , , , , , , , , , , - ! Spanish , , , , , , , , , , - ! Spanish, Mexico , , , , , , , , , , - ! Swedish , , , , , , , , , , - ! Tai Le , , , , , , , , , , - !
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...
, , , , , , , , () , , - !
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
, , , , , , , , , , - ! Tigrinya , , , , , , , , , , - ! Thai , , , , , , , , (, differentiating mark) , , - ! Turkish , , , , , , , 0–1 pt , (fingernail mark) , , - !
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 ...
, , , , , , , none , (, little paws) , , - !
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''
, , , , , () , , - ! Uyghur , } , } , , , , , none , , , - ! Uzbek , , , , , , , , (nails) , , - ! Vietnamese , , , , , , , NBSP (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 peopl ...
, , , , , , , 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 ( 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 ...
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 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 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 betwee ...
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, 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 **Ge ...
. : (Andreas asked me: "Have you read the 'EU Expansion' article?") This style of quoting is also used in Bulgarian, Czech, Danish,
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, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian,
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 an ...
, 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 **Ge ...
printed text: «A ‹B›?» : :: Andreas asked me: 'Have you read the "EU Expansion" article?'


Finnish and Swedish

In Finnish and Swedish, 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 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 ( guillemets, or ''duck-foot quotes''), adding a 'quarter-em space' within the quotes. Many people now use the non-breaking space, 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'', '' 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 r ...
'', 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, Portuguese,
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 **Ge ...
,
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 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 standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
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 spaces, 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 ...
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 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 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, ''Equal Rites'') An en-dash 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


Portuguese

Neither the Portuguese language regulator 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 th ...
, 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 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, 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: «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', 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 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 Americans often use them, owing to influence from the United States.


Chinese, Japanese and Korean

Corner brackets are well-suited for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean 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 n ...
, 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 Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...
, angle quotes are used. * In
Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the China, People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming Island, Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territorie ...
, 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 no ...
,
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 List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
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 ...
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 ...
''?", 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'': :― 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 Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...
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 Benn ...
'' (and no quotation marks at all in some of his later work). Charles Frazier 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 ...
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", itself ...
s, especially those written in nonstandard dialects. Some examples include: * James Joyce's prose * William Gaddis' prose * '' Trainspotting'' by Irvine Welsh * '' M/F'' by Anthony Burgess * ''
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 aga ...
'' by Will Self, which alternates between standard English chapters, with standard quotation marks, and dialect chapters, with quotation dashes * '' A Scanner Darkly'' by Philip K. Dick (not written in dialect) * The Ægypt Sequence by John Crowley, in extracts from the fictional writings of the character Fellowes Kraft, a historical novelist. According to another character, Kraft used dashes to indicate imaginary dialogue that was not documented in the original sources. * '' The Van'' by Roddy Doyle * '' You Shall Know Our Velocity'' 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 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'' (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 Publ ...
'' and its Hungarian translation by Tóth Tamás Boldizsár. In Finnish, 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 standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
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 , - , } , 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, 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 thousands o ...
s,
character encoding 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 tha ...
s and computer languages 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 technolog ...
s and character sets. 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 ...
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 te ...
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 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 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 standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
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, 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 Unicode character on a computer by a user; it is a common way to input characters not directly supported by a physical keyboard. Unicode characters can be produced either by selecting them from a dis ...
. * 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 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 standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
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 daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
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 se ...
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 ...
(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, ...
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, whi ...
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) 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 ...
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''). 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. The ...
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 languages 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 ...
. 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" (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 se ...
file and folder names, the straight double quotation mark is prohibited, as it is a reserved character. 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, 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 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 material
at the ''EnglishGrammar'' website *
"Œuvrez les guillemets"
, Pauline Morfouace (2002) – French quotation mark typography {{navbox punctuation Punctuation Typographical symbols