Quotation mark, non-English usage
Encyclopedia
Quotation marks, also called quotes, speech marks or inverted commas, are punctuation
marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, 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.
They have a variety of forms in different languages and in different media, as can be seen in the table below. English usage is included for the purposes of comparison; for more detailed information on quotation marks in English, see the article Quotation marks.
.
any more, double angle quotation marks are still used in Dutch government publications.
and Austria
, and a different “low 9 quote” is used for the left instead. Some fonts, e.g. Verdana
, were designed not bearing in mind the automatic use of the English left quote as the German right quote and are therefore typographically incompatible with German.
Double quotes are standard for denoting speech in German
.
This style of quoting is also used in Bulgarian
, Czech
, Estonian
, Georgian
, Icelandic
, Russian
, Serbian
, and in Ukrainian
. In Bulgarian, Icelandic, Russian and Ukrainian single quotation marks are not used. The double-quote style was also used in the Netherlands, but is now out of fashion—it is still frequently found on older shop signs, however and is used by some news papers.
Sometimes, especially in books, the angle quotation marks (see below) are used in Germany and Austria, albeit in reversed order: »O«. In Switzerland
, however, the same quotation marks as in French are used: «O».
Double angle quotation marks without spaces are the standard for German
printed texts in Switzerland:
Angle quotation marks are also often used in German publications from Germany and Austria, especially in novels, but then exactly reversed and without spacing:
and Swedish
, right quotes, ”...”, are used to mark both the beginning and the end of a quote (sometimes called “dum quotes”).
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 below section “Quotation dash”). A line-break should not be allowed between the en-dash and the first word of the quotation.
uses angle quotation marks (guillemets
, or duck-foot quotes), adding a quarter-em space (officially) within the quotes. However, 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 is virtually always omitted in non-Unicode fonts. Even more commonly, people just put a normal (breaking) space between the quotation marks because the non-breaking space is often not easily accessible from the keyboard.
Sometimes, for instance on the French news site Le Figaro
, no space is used around the quotation marks. This parallels normal usage in other languages, e.g. Catalan
, Polish
, Portuguese
, Russian
, Spanish
, or in German
, French
and Italian as written in Switzerland
:
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 19th 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 currently does not provide alternate codes for these 6/9 guillemets on the baseline, which are still considered as form variants 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).
Unlike English, French does not set off unquoted material within a quotation mark by using a second set of quotes. They must be used with non-breaking space
s (preferably narrow, if available, i.e. U+202F NNBSP which is missing in most computer fonts but that renderers should be able to render using the same glyph as the breaking "French" 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 a half-width space from the glyph assigned to the normal half-em non-breaking space, if the thin space itself is not mapped). Compare:
In many printed books, when quotations are spanning 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 (and is still in use today). Note that such insertion of continuation quotation marks will also occur if there's a word hyphenation break. Unfortunately, there is still no support for automatic insertion of these continuation guillemets in HTML/CSS and in many word-processors, so these have to be inserted by manual typesetting:
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), though, does not use different quotation marks for nesting:
In this case, when there should be two adjacent opening or closing marks, only one is written:
The use of English quotation marks is increasing in French and usually follows English rules, for instance when the keyboard or the software context doesn't allow the utilisation of guillemets. The French news site Le Monde
uses straight quotation marks (however, the printed version of this daily newspaper still uses the French angle-shaped guillemets).
English quotes are also used sometimes for nested quotations:
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 Quotation dash hereafter.) 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 non-spoken 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 however, not extending to the end of paragraphs when the final part is not spoken.
and the quotation dash ( – pávla):
which translate to:
According to current recommendation by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
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, inversed »French quotes« without space (the German tradition) for the second level, so the following nested quotation pattern emerges:
In Hungarian linguistic tradition the meaning of a word is signified by uniform (unpaired) apostrophe-shaped quotation marks:
Quotation dash is also used and is predominant in belletristic literature.
According to current PN-83/P-55366
standard from 1983, 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 makes three styles of nested quotes:
There is no space on the internal side of quote marks, with the exception of ¼ firet (~ ¼ 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.
In Polish books and publications, the second style is used almost exclusively. In addition to being standard for second level quotes, French quotes are sometimes used as first level quotes in headings and titles but almost never in ordinary text in paragraphs. The second style is also used in Romanian
(„Quote «inside» quote”), according to the Romanian Academy rules.
Another style of quoting is to use an em-dash to open a quote; this is used almost exclusively to quote dialogues.
An en-dash is sometimes used in place of the em-dash, especially so in newspaper texts.
, Ukrainian
and Belarusian
, angled quotation marks are used without spaces. In case of quoted material inside a quotation, rules and most of noted style manuals prescribe the use of different kinds of quotation marks. However, some of them allow to use the same quotation marks for quoted material inside a quotation, and if inner and outer quotation marks fall together, then one of them should be omitted.
Right:
Permissible, when it is technically impossible to use different quotation marks:
But preferable ways in such case are:
And, when quotations are nested in more levels than inner and outer quotation, the system is:
As in French, the use of English quotation marks is increasing in Spanish, and the El País style guide, which is widely followed in Spain, recommends them.
, 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, however usages differ when writing horizontally:
White corner brackets are used to mark quote-within-quote segments.
This style is particularly common in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Greek, Russian, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Esperanto. James Joyce
always insisted on this style, although his publishers did not always respect his preference. Alan Paton
used this style in Cry, the Beloved Country
(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 each change in speaker indicated by a dash, and a closing guillemet to mark the end of the quotation.
Dashes are also used in many modern English
novel
s, especially those written in non-standard dialect
s. Some examples include:
In Italian, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Georgian, Romanian, Lithuanian and Hungarian, a second dash is added, if the main sentence continues after the end of the quote:
In Finnish
, on the other hand, a second dash is added when the quote continues after a reporting clause:
According to the Unicode standard, U+2015 HORIZONTAL BAR should be used as a quotation dash. In general it is the same length as an em-dash, and so this is often used instead. Both are displayed in the following table.
Punctuation
Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences...
marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, 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.
They have a variety of forms in different languages and in different media, as can be seen in the table below. English usage is included for the purposes of comparison; for more detailed information on quotation marks in English, see the article Quotation marks.
Overview
For particular quote glyph information, see Quotation mark glyphsQuotation mark glyphs
Different typefaces, character encodings and computer languages use various encodings and glyphs for quotation marks. This article lists some of these glyphs along with their Unicode code points and HTML entities...
.
| Language | Standard | Alternative | Spacing | Names, references | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| primary | secondary | primary | secondary | |||||
| Afrikaans | “…” | ‘…’ | „…” | ‚…’ | Aanhalingstekens | |||
| Albanian Albanian language Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece... |
„…“ | ‘…’ | ||||||
| Basque Basque language Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories... |
«…» | ‹…› | ||||||
| Belarusian Belarusian language The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people... |
«…» | „…“ | ("double commas"), ("little paws") | |||||
| Bulgarian Bulgarian language Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the... |
„…“ | «…» | ||||||
| Catalan Catalan language Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island... |
«…» | “…” | “…” | ‘…’ | 0 pt | (« »), (“ ”), (‘ ’). ‹ and › are never used. | ||
| Chinese, Simplified | “…” | ‘…’ | Fullwidth form | “…” Simplified Chinese 双引号 (Double quotation mark, pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into... : shuāng yǐn hào), ‘…’ Simplified Chinese 单引号 (Single quotation mark, pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into... : dān yǐn hào) GB/T Guobiao Guóbiāo is usually the phonetic transcription of the word "National Standards" in Chinese.It could mean any of the standards issued by the Standardization Administration of China , the Chinese National Committee of the ISO and IEC.... 15834:1995 |
||||
| Chinese, Traditional | 引號 (yǐn hào) 國語文教育叢書第三 | |||||||
| Croatian Croatian language Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries... |
„…” | ‚…’ | »…« | „…” and »…« (latter not used in handwriting, only press & print); ‚…’ | ||||
| Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century... |
„…“ | ‚…‘ | »…« | ›…‹ | (singular), (plural) (cf. = "to introduce") | |||
| Danish Danish language Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language... |
»…« | ›…‹ | „…“ or “…” |
‚…‘ | ("citation marks"), , ("goose eyes") | |||
| Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... |
“…” | ‘…’ | „…” | ‚…’ | ("citation marks") | |||
| English, UK British English British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere... |
‘…’ or “…” | “…” or ‘…’ | 1–2 pt | Quotation mark Quotation mark Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony... , double quote, quote, dirk, double mark Prime (symbol) The prime symbol , double prime symbol , and triple prime symbol , etc., are used to designate several different units, and for various other purposes in mathematics, the sciences and linguistics... , literal mark, double-glitch, inverted commas, speech mark; (INTERCAL INTERCAL INTERCAL, a programming language parody, is an esoteric programming language that was created by Don Woods and James M. Lyon, two Princeton University students, in 1972. It satirizes aspects of the various programming languages at the time, as well as the proliferation of proposed language... : rabbit-ears; ITU-T ITU-T The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector is one of the three sectors of the International Telecommunication Union ; it coordinates standards for telecommunications.... : dieresis, quotation mark) |
||||
| English, US American English American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States.... |
“…” | ‘…’ | 1–2 pt | See above | ||||
| Esperanto | “…” | ‘…’ | ||||||
| Estonian Estonian language Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities... |
„…“ | «…» | ("speech marks") | |||||
| Filipino Filipino language This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:... |
“…” | ‘…’ | ||||||
| Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a... |
”…” | ’…’ | »…» | ’…’ | ("citation mark", singular), (plural) | |||
| French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... |
« … » | « … » or “…” | “ … ” | ‘ … ’ | ¼-em / non-break | |||
| French, Swiss | «…» | ‹…› | See above | |||||
| Georgian Georgian language Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad... |
„…“ | “…” | 0 pt | (brč’q’alebi "claws") | ||||
| German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.... |
„…“ | ‚…‘ | »…« | ›…‹ | , ("little goose feet"), / ("high commas") | |||
| German, Swiss | «…» | ‹…› | See above | |||||
| Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;... |
«…» | “…” | 1 pt | ("introductory marks") | ||||
| Hebrew Hebrew language Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such... |
“…” | “…„ | merkha'ot — (plural of merkha — ); a similar punctuation mark unique to Hebrew is called gershayim Gershayim Gershayim , also occasionally grashayim , names two distinct typographical marks in the Hebrew language. The name literally means "double geresh".-Punctuation mark:... — |
|||||
| Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe.... |
„…” | »…« | ("cat claws"), ("quotation mark" = „ ”), ("goose feet"), (» «) | |||||
| Icelandic Icelandic language Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the... |
„…“ | ‚…‘ | ("goose feet") | |||||
| Indonesian Indonesian language Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries.... |
“…” | ‘…’ | ||||||
| Interlingua | Virgulettas | |||||||
| Irish Irish language Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of... |
“…” | ‘…’ | 1–2 pt | (from "William", see Guillemets) | ||||
| Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia... |
«…» | “…” | ‘…’ | 1–2 pt | ||||
| Italian, Swiss | «…» | ‹…› | See above | |||||
| Japanese Japanese language is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an... |
, | |||||||
| Korean Korean language Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing... |
(“ttaompyo”) | |||||||
| Latvian Latvian language Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language... |
«…» | „…“ | ||||||
| Lithuanian Lithuanian language Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they... |
„…“ | ‚…‘ | «…» | ‹…› | ||||
| Macedonian Macedonian language Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora... |
„…“ | ’…‘ | (primary level, double quote), (secondary level, single quote) | |||||
| Norwegian Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language... |
«…» | ’…’ | „…” | ’…’ | , / ("goose eyes"), /, /, | |||
| Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... |
„…” | «…» | «…» | |||||
| Portuguese, Brazil Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay.... |
“…” | ‘…’ | Aspas Duplas and Aspas Simples respectively. | |||||
| Portuguese, Portugal Portuguese language Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095... |
«…» | “…” | “…” | ‘…’ | Aspas or Vírgulas dobradas | |||
| Romanian Romanian language Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova... |
„…” | «…» | «…» | „…” | 0 pt | (plural), (singular, rarely used) | ||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
«…» | „…“ | 0 pt | (kavychki, general term); (yolochki, "little fir trees": angle quotes); (lapki, "little paws": curly quotes) | ||||
| Serbian Serbian language Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries.... |
„…“ | ’…’ | „…” or »…« | (cyr.) / (lat.) | ||||
| Slovak Slovak language Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people... |
„…“ | ‚…‘ | »…« | ›…‹ | (singular), (plural) (cf. = "to introduce") |
|||
| Slovene | „…“ | ‚…‘ | »…« | ›…‹ | ||||
| Sorbian | „…“ | ‚…‘ | ||||||
| Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... |
«…» | “…” | “…” | ‘…’ | 0 pt | or (« »), (“ ”), (‘ ’). ‹ and › are never used in Spanish. Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... |
||
| Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... |
”…” | ’…’ | »…» or »…« | ’…’ | , , (modernised term), (colloquial for ASCII double quote) | |||
| Thai Thai language Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively... |
“…” | ‘…’ | (anprakat) | |||||
| Turkish Turkish language Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,... |
“…” | ‘…’ | «…» | ‹…› | 0–1 pt | ("fingernail mark") | ||
| Ukrainian Ukrainian language Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet.... |
«…» | „…“ | 0 pt | [plural only] (lapky, "little paws") | ||||
| Vietnamese Vietnamese language Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam... |
“…” | Dấu ngoặc kép | ||||||
| Welsh Welsh language Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa... |
‘…’ or “…” | “…” or ‘…’ | 1–2 pt | Dyfynodau | ||||
Dutch
Although not common in DutchDutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
any more, double angle quotation marks are still used in Dutch government publications.
German (Germany and Austria)
What the “left quote” is in English is used as the right quote in GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, and a different “low 9 quote” is used for the left instead. Some fonts, e.g. Verdana
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 group...
, were designed not bearing in mind the automatic use of the English left quote as the German right quote and are therefore typographically incompatible with German.
| Samples | Unicode (decimal) | HTML | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ‚O‘ | U+201A (8218), U+2018 (8216) | ‚ ‘ | German single quotes (left and right) |
| „O“ | U+201E (8222), U+201C (8220) | „ “ | German double quotes (left and right) |
Double quotes are standard for denoting speech in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
This style of quoting is also used in Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, Estonian
Estonian language
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
, Georgian
Georgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
, Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, and in Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
. In Bulgarian, Icelandic, Russian and Ukrainian single quotation marks are not used. The double-quote style was also used in the Netherlands, but is now out of fashion—it is still frequently found on older shop signs, however and is used by some news papers.
Sometimes, especially in books, the angle quotation marks (see below) are used in Germany and Austria, albeit in reversed order: »O«. In Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, however, the same quotation marks as in French are used: «O».
Double angle quotation marks without spaces are the standard for German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
printed texts in Switzerland:
-
- Andrew asked me: ‘Have you read the article “EU Expansion”?’
Angle quotation marks are also often used in German publications from Germany and Austria, especially in novels, but then exactly reversed and without spacing:
-
- Andrew asked me: ‘Have you read the article “EU Expansion”?’
Finnish and Swedish
In FinnishFinnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
and Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, right quotes, ”...”, are used to mark both the beginning and the end of a quote (sometimes called “dum quotes”).
Double right-pointing angular quotes, »…», can also be used.
Alternatively, an en-dash followed by a (non-breaking
Non-breaking space
In computer-based text processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space or no-break space is a variant of the space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In certain formats , it also prevents the “collapsing” of multiple consecutive whitespace characters into a...
) space can be used to denote the beginning of quoted speech, in which case the end of the quotation is not specifically denoted (see below section “Quotation dash”). A line-break should not be allowed between the en-dash and the first word of the quotation.
| Samples | Unicode (decimal) | HTML | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ’O’ | U+2019 (8217) | ’ | Secondary level quotation |
| ”O” | U+201D (8221) | ” | Primary level quotation |
| »O» | U+00BB (187) | » | Alternative primary level quotation |
| – O | U+2013 (8211) | – | Alternative denotation at the beginning of quoted speech |
French
French languageFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
uses angle quotation marks (guillemets
Guillemets
Guillemets , also called angle quotes, are line segments, pointed as if arrows , sometimes forming a complementary set of punctuation marks used as a form of quotation mark....
, or duck-foot quotes), adding a quarter-em space (officially) within the quotes. However, 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 is virtually always omitted in non-Unicode fonts. Even more commonly, people just put a normal (breaking) space between the quotation marks because the non-breaking space is often not easily accessible from the keyboard.
-
- “Would you like a sandwich, Henri?”
Sometimes, for instance on the French news site Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
, no space is used around the quotation marks. This parallels normal usage in other languages, e.g. Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, or in German
Swiss German
Swiss German is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in some Alpine communities in Northern Italy. Occasionally, the Alemannic dialects spoken in other countries are grouped together with Swiss German as well, especially the dialects of Liechtenstein and Austrian Vorarlberg...
, French
Swiss French
Swiss French is the name used for the variety of French spoken in the French-speaking area of Switzerland known as Romandy. Swiss French is not to be confused with Franco-Provençal/Arpitan or Romansh, two other individual Romance languages spoken in areas not far from Romandy.The differences...
and Italian as written in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
:
- [Swiss German]
-
- “This is a quote.”
| Samples | Unicode (decimal) | HTML | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| « O » | U+00AB (171), U+00BB (187) | « » | French double angle quotes (left and right), most usual (approximative) form used today on the web, with normal (half-em) non-breaking spaces. |
| « O » | French double angle quotes (left and right), more exact form used by typographers, with narrow (quarter-em) non-breaking spaces. | ||
| «O» | non-French double angle quotes (left and right) without space (not recommended) | ||
| ‹ O › | U+2039 (8249), U+203A (8250) | ‹ › | French single angle quotes (left and right), alternate form for embedded quotations, used on the web with normal non-breaking spaces. |
| ‹ O › | French single angle quotes (left and right), alternate form for embedded quotations, preferably used by typographers with narrow non-breaking spaces. |
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 19th 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 currently does not provide alternate codes for these 6/9 guillemets on the baseline, which are still considered as form variants 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).
Unlike English, French does not set off unquoted material within a quotation mark by using a second set of quotes. They must be used with non-breaking space
Non-breaking space
In computer-based text processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space or no-break space is a variant of the space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In certain formats , it also prevents the “collapsing” of multiple consecutive whitespace characters into a...
s (preferably narrow, if available, i.e. U+202F NNBSP which is missing in most computer fonts but that renderers should be able to render using the same glyph as the breaking "French" 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 a half-width space from the glyph assigned to the normal half-em non-breaking space, if the thin space itself is not mapped). Compare:
-
- “This is a great day for Montrealers”, the minister upholds. “These investments will stimulate economic growth.”
In many printed books, when quotations are spanning 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 (and is still in use today). Note that such insertion of continuation quotation marks will also occur if there's a word hyphenation break. Unfortunately, there is still no support for automatic insertion of these continuation guillemets in HTML/CSS and in many word-processors, so these have to be inserted by manual typesetting:
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), though, does not use different quotation marks for nesting:
-
- “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 when the keyboard or the software context doesn't allow the utilisation of guillemets. The French news site Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
uses straight quotation marks (however, the printed version of this daily newspaper still uses the French angle-shaped guillemets).
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 Quotation dash hereafter.) 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 non-spoken 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 however, not extending to the end of paragraphs when the final part is not spoken.
- (DumasAlexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
, Les trois mousquetaires)- “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 ( – eisagogiká):- «Μιλάει σοβαρά;» ρώτησε την Μαρία.
- «Ναι, σίγουρα», αποκρίθηκε.
and the quotation dash ( – pávla):
- ― Μιλάει σοβαρά; ρώτησε την Μαρία.
- ― Ναι, σίγουρα, αποκρίθηκε.
which translate to:
- "Is he serious?" he asked Maria.
- "Yes, certainly", she replied.
| Samples | Unicode (decimal) | HTML | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| «O» | U+00AB (0171), U+00BB (0187) | « » | Greek first level double quotes () |
| ― O | U+2015 (8213) | — | Greek direct quotation em-dash |
Hungarian
| Samples | Unicode (decimal) | HTML | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| „O” | U+201E (8222), U+201d (8221) | „ ” | Hungarian first level double quotes (left and right) |
| »O« | U+00AB (0187), U+00BB (0171) | » « | Hungarian second level double quotes (left and right) |
| ’O’ | U+2019 (8217) | ’ | Hungarian unpaired quotes signifying "meaning" |
According to current recommendation by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest.-History:...
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, inversed »French quotes« without space (the German tradition) for the second level, so the following nested quotation pattern emerges:
- „Quote »inside« quote”
In Hungarian linguistic tradition the meaning of a word is signified by uniform (unpaired) apostrophe-shaped quotation marks:
- die Biene ’méh’
Quotation dash is also used and is predominant in belletristic literature.
- – Merre jártál? – kérdezte a köpcös.
Polish
| Samples | Unicode (decimal) | HTML | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ‚O’ | U+201A (8218), U+2019 (8217) | ‚ ’ | Polish single quotes (left and right) |
| „O” | U+201E (8222), U+201d (8221) | „ ” | Polish double quotes (left and right) |
| ― O | U+2015 (8213) | — | Polish direct quotation em-dash |
| – O | U+2013 (8211) | – | Polish direct quotation en-dash |
According to current PN-83/P-55366
PN-83/P-55366
PN-83/P-55366, Zasady składania tekstów w języku polskim , is a Polska Norma standard by Polish Committee for Standardization covering rules of typesetting used in the Polish language....
standard from 1983, 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 makes three styles of nested quotes:
- „Quote ‚inside’ quote”
- „Quote «inside» quote”
- «Quote ‚inside’ quote»
There is no space on the internal side of quote marks, with the exception of ¼ firet (~ ¼ em
Em (typography)
An em is a unit of measurement in the field of typography, equal to the currently specified point size.The name of em is related to M. Originally the unit was derived from the width of the capital "M" in the given typeface....
) 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
BN-76/7440-02
BN-76/7440-02 is an old standard for typesetting from 1976 used in Poland before PN-83/P-55366.-See also:* PN-83/P-55366* Polska Norma* Polish Committee for Standardization* Poland* typography-External links:*...
standard from 1976 and are probably much older.
In Polish books and publications, the second style is used almost exclusively. In addition to being standard for second level quotes, French quotes are sometimes used as first level quotes in headings and titles but almost never in ordinary text in paragraphs. The second style is also used in Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
(„Quote «inside» quote”), according to the Romanian Academy rules.
Another style of quoting is to use an em-dash to open a quote; this is used almost exclusively to quote dialogues.
- 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.
- “Bad ass,” he said.
- “Bad—?”
- “Ass,” 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.”
An en-dash is sometimes used in place of the em-dash, especially so in newspaper texts.
Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian
In RussianRussian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
and Belarusian
Belarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
, angled quotation marks are used without spaces. In case of quoted material inside a quotation, rules and most of noted style manuals prescribe the use of different kinds of quotation marks. However, some of them allow to use the same quotation marks for quoted material inside a quotation, and if inner and outer quotation marks fall together, then one of them should be omitted.
Right:
- (Pushkin wrote to Delvig: “Waiting for ‘Gypsies’, and publish at once”.)
Permissible, when it is technically impossible to use different quotation marks:
- (“My ‘Gypsies’ are not selling at all”, Pushkin complained.)
But preferable ways in such case are:
- setting the quote as a separate paragraph with indent;
- marking the inner quotation with italics;
- marking the outer quotes with bold or
- using single angled quotation marks (‹ ›) as inner ones (the last method is virtually never found in practice).
Spanish
Spanish uses angled quotation marks ( or ) as well, but always without the spaces.- “This is an example of how one usually writes a literal quotation in Spanish.”
And, when quotations are nested in more levels than inner and outer quotation, the system is:
As in French, the use of English quotation marks is increasing in Spanish, and the El País style guide, which is widely followed in Spain, recommends them.
Chinese, Japanese and Korean quotation marks
Corner brackets are well-suited for ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
languages which are written in both vertical and horizontal orientations
Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts
Many East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts can be oriented in either direction, as they consist mainly of disconnected syllabic units, each occupying a square block of space...
. China, South Korea, and Japan all use corner brackets when writing vertically, however usages differ when writing horizontally:
- In JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, corner brackets are used. - In South KoreaSouth KoreaThe Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
and Mainland ChinaMainland ChinaMainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, English-style quotes are used. - In North KoreaNorth KoreaThe Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
, angle quotes are used. - In the TaiwanTaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and MacauMacauMacau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
where Traditional Chinese is used, corner brackets are prevalent, but English-style quotes are also used. - In the Chinese language, double angle brackets are used around titles of books, documents, musical pieces, cinema films, TV programmes, newspapers, magazines, laws, etc. With some exceptions, this usage overlaps italics in English. When nested, single angle brackets are used inside double angle brackets.
White corner brackets are used to mark quote-within-quote segments.
| Samples | Unicode (decimal) | Description | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 「文字」 | U+300C (12300), U+300D (12301) | Corner brackets Traditional Chinese: 單引號 (dān yǐn hào) Simplified Chinese: 单引号 Japanese Japanese language is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an... : 鉤括弧 (kagikakko) (natpyo) |
Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese |
| ﹁ 文 字 ﹂ |
U+FE41 (65089), U+FE42 (65090) | For vertical writing: Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese |
|
| 『文字』 | U+300E (12302), U+300F (12303) | White corner brackets Traditional Chinese: 雙引號 (shuāng yǐn hào) Simplified Chinese: 双引号 Japanese: 二重鉤括弧 (nijū kagikakko) Korean: 겹낫표 (gyeopnatpyo) |
Japanese, Korean (book titles), Traditional Chinese |
| ﹃ 文 字 ﹄ |
U+FE43 (65091), U+FE44 (65092) | For vertical writing: Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese |
|
| U+201C (8220), U+201D (8221) | Double quotes Korean: 큰따옴표 (keunttaompyo), Simplified Chinese: 双引号 (shuāng yǐn hào) |
Korean (South Korea South Korea The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south... ), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese (acceptable but less common, happened in Hong Kong mainly as a result of influence from Mainland China.) |
|
| U+2018 (8216), U+2019 (8217) | Single quotes Korean: 작은따옴표 (jageunttaompyo), Simplified Chinese: 单引号 (dān yǐn hào) |
Korean (South Korea), Simplified Chinese (for quote-within-quote segments) |
|
| U+00AB (171), U+00BB (187) | Double angle quotes Simplified Chinese: 书名号 (shū míng hào) Traditional Chinese: 書名號 |
Korean (North Korea North Korea The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea... ), Chinese Chinese language The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages... (used for titles of books, documents, musical pieces, cinema films, TV programmes, newspapers, magazines, laws, etc. ) |
Quotation dash
Another typographical style is to omit quotation marks for lines of dialogue, replacing them with an initial dash:-
- “I’m so bored”, she said.
- “That’s not my fault”, he retorted.
This style is particularly common in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Greek, Russian, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Esperanto. James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
always insisted on this style, although his publishers did not always respect his preference. Alan Paton
Alan Paton
Alan Stewart Paton was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist.-Family:Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg, Natal Province , the son of a minor civil servant. After attending Maritzburg College, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Natal in his hometown, followed...
used this style in Cry, the Beloved Country
Cry, The Beloved Country
Cry, the Beloved Country is a novel by South African author Alan Paton. It was first published in New York City in 1948 by Charles Scribner's Sons and in London by Jonathan Cape; noted American publisher Bennett Cerf remarked at that year's meeting of the American Booksellers Association that there...
(and no quotation marks at all in some of his later work). Charles Frazier
Charles Frazier
Charles Frazier is an award-winning American historical novelist.Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1973. He earned an M.A. from Appalachian State University in the mid-1970s, and received his Ph.D. in English from the University...
used this style for his novel Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain (novel)
Cold Mountain is a 1997 historical fiction novel by Charles Frazier. It tells the story of W. P. Inman, a wounded deserter from the Confederate army near the end of the American Civil War who walks for months to return to Ada Monroe, the love of his life; the story shares several similarities with...
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 each change in speaker indicated by a dash, and a closing guillemet to mark the end of the quotation.
Dashes are also used in many modern English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s, especially those written in non-standard dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s. Some examples include:
- James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's prose; - TrainspottingTrainspotting (novel)Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is written in the form of short chapters narrated in the first person by various residents of Leith, Edinburgh, who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are...
by Irvine WelshIrvine WelshIrvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...
; - The Book of DaveThe Book of Dave- 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 against women and thoughts on custody rights for fathers. These stem from his anger with his ex-wife, Michelle, who he believes...
by Will SelfWill SelfWilliam Woodard "Will" Self is an English novelist and short story writer. His fictional style is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical. He is a prolific commentator on contemporary British life, with regular appearances on Newsnight and Question Time...
, which alternates between standard English chapters, with standard quotation marks, and dialect chapters, with quotation dashes; - A Scanner DarklyA Scanner DarklyA Scanner Darkly is a BSFA Award winning 1977 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The semi-autobiographical story is set in a dystopian Orange County, California, in the then-future of June 1994...
by Philip K. Dick (not written in dialect); - The VanThe Van (novel)The Van is a 1991 novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle and the third novel in The Barrytown Trilogy, continuing the story from The Snapper . It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize . -Premise:...
by Roddy DoyleRoddy DoyleRoddy Doyle is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. Several of his books have been made into successful films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991. He won the Booker Prize in 1993....
; and - You Shall Know Our VelocityYou Shall Know Our VelocityYou 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 ....
by Dave EggersDave EggersDave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a screenwriter. He is also the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia.-Life:Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts,...
, 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.
In Italian, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Georgian, Romanian, Lithuanian and Hungarian, a second dash is added, if the main sentence continues after the end of the quote:
-
- “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 TolstoyLeo TolstoyLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
’s Anna KareninaAnna KareninaAnna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger...
(Louise and Aylmer Maude translation)
- from Leo Tolstoy
In Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, 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.
According to the Unicode standard, U+2015 HORIZONTAL BAR should be used as a quotation dash. In general it is the same length as an em-dash, and so this is often used instead. Both are displayed in the following table.
| Samples | Unicode (decimal) | HTML | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ― O | U+2015 (8213) | ― | Quotation dash, also known as horizontal bar |
| — O | U+2014 (8212) | — | Em-dash, an alternative to the quotation dash |
External links
- Curling Quotes in HTML, SGML, and XML
- French Quotes Typography (Œuvrez les guillemets!) -- in French
- Quotation marks in the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository
- ASCII and Unicode quotation marks – detailed discussion of the ASCII `backquote' problem
- The Gallery Of "Misused" Quotation Marks
- Commonly confused characters
- Smart Quotes