The upside-down (also inverted, turned or rotated) question mark ? and exclamation mark ? are punctuation marks used to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences or clauses in Spanish and some languages that have cultural ties with Spain, such as Asturian and Waray.[1] The initial marks are mirrored at the end of the sentence or clause by the ordinary question mark, ?, or exclamation mark, !.
| ??? | |
|---|---|
Upside-down question mark Upside-down exclamation mark | |
| U+00BF ? INVERTED QUESTION MARK U+00A1 ? INVERTED EXCLAMATION MARK |
Upside-down marks are supported by various standards, including Unicode, and HTML. They can be entered directly on keyboards designed for Spanish-speaking countries.
Usage
edit
?The upside-down question mark ? is written before the first letter of an interrogative sentence or clause to indicate that a question follows. It is a rotated form of the standard symbol "?" recognized by speakers of other languages written with the Latin script. A regular question mark is written at the end of the sentence or clause.
Upside-down punctuation is important in Spanish since the syntax of the language means that both statements and questions or exclamations could have the same wording.[2] "Do you like summer?" and "You like summer." are translated respectively as "?Te gusta el verano?" and "Te gusta el verano." (There is not always a difference between the wording of a yes–no question and the corresponding statement in Spanish.)
In sentences that are both declarative and interrogative, the clause that asks a question is isolated with the starting-symbol upside-down question mark, for example: "Si no puedes ir con ellos, ?quieres ir con nosotros?" ("If you cannot go with them, would you like to go with us?"), not *"?Si no puedes ir con ellos, quieres ir con nosotros?" This helps to recognize questions and exclamations in long sentences.
Unlike the ending marks, which are printed along the baseline of the text, the upside-down marks (? and ?) descend below the line.
History
editUpside-down marks, simple in the era of hand typesetting, were originally recommended by the Real Academia Espa?ola (Royal Spanish Academy), in the second edition of the Ortografía de la lengua castellana (Orthography of the Castilian language) in 1754[3] recommending it as the symbol indicating the beginning of a question in written Spanish—e.g. "?Cuántos a?os tienes?" ("How old are you?"; lit.?'How many years do you have?'). The Real Academia also ordered the same upside-down-symbol system for statements of exclamation, using the symbols "?" and "!".
These new rules were slow to be adopted: there are 19th-century books in which the printer uses neither "?" nor "?".[4]
Outside of the Spanish-speaking world, John Wilkins proposed using the upside-down exclamation mark "?" as a symbol at the end of a sentence to denote irony in 1668. He was one of many, including Desiderius Erasmus, who felt there was a need for such a punctuation mark, but Wilkins' proposal, like the other attempts, failed to take hold.[5][6]
Adoption
editSome writers omit the upside-down question mark in the case of a short unambiguous question such as: "Quién viene?" ("Who comes?"). This is the criterion in Galician[7][8] and formerly in Catalan.[9] Certain Catalan-language authorities, such as Joan Solà i Cortassa, insist that both the opening and closing question marks be used for clarity.[5] The current Institute for Catalan Studies prescription is never to use the upside-down marks for Catalan.[10]
Some Spanish-language writers, among them Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), refuse to use the upside-down question mark.[11]
Upside-down marks are often omitted when texting.[citation needed]
Mixtures
editIt is acceptable in Spanish to begin a sentence with an opening upside-down exclamation mark ("?") and end it with a question mark ("?"), or vice versa, for statements that are questions but also have a clear sense of exclamation or surprise such as: ?Y tú quién te crees? ("And who do you think you are?!"). Normally, four signs are used, always with one type in the outer side and the other in the inner side (nested) (??Y tú quién te crees!?, ??Y tú quién te crees?!)[12]
Unicode 5.1 also includes U+2E18 ? INVERTED INTERROBANG, which is an upside-down version of the interrobang, a nonstandard punctuation mark used to denote both excitement and a question in one glyph. It is also known as a "gnaborretni" (/??nɑ?b??r??t.ni/) (interrobang spelled backwards).
Computer usage
edit
?Encodings
edit? and ? are in the "Latin-1 Supplement" Unicode block, which is inherited from ISO-8859-1:
- U+00A1 ? INVERTED EXCLAMATION MARK
- U+00BF ? INVERTED QUESTION MARK
See also
edit- Spanish orthography
- Unicode input?– Input characters using their Unicode code points
References
edit- ^ Luangco, Gregorio C. (1982). "Ortograpiya han Binisaya". Kandabao: Essays on Waray language, literature, and culture. Divine Word University.
- ^ Galavitz, Rowena (September 5, 2019). "What's Up With The Upside Down Question Mark?". Rosetta Stone Inc. Retrieved April 10, 2020.
The upside-down question marks in Spanish are needed to let the reader know immediately that a question is involved.
- ^ "Ediciones de la Ortografía Académica" [Editions of the Academic Orthography] (PDF). Real Academia Espa?ola. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 17, 2023. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
- ^ Carrithers, Michael; Candea, Matei; Sykes, Karen; Holbraad, Martin; Venkatesan, Soumya (May 28, 2010). "Ontology is just another word for culture". Critique of Anthropology. Sage Journals. Archived from the original on June 26, 2025. Retrieved June 26, 2025.
- ^ a b Houston, Keith (September 24, 2013). Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks. W. W. Norton. p.?214. ISBN?978-0-393-24154-9.
- ^ Popova, Maria (September 27, 2013). "Ironic Serif: A Brief History of Typographic Snark and the Failed Crusade for an Irony Mark". Brain Pickings.
- ^ "7. Os signos de interrogación e de admiración". Normas ortográficas e morfolóxicas do idioma galego [Orthographic rules and morphology of the Galician language] (in Galician) (23a?ed.). Real Academia Galega. 2012. p.?27. ISBN?978-84-87987-78-6. Retrieved December 25, 2021.
Para facilitar a lectura e evitar ambigüidades pode-rase indicar o inicio destas entoacións cos signos ? e ?, respectivamente.
[permanent dead link] - ^ "A posición do signo de interrogación (?) e exclamación (!)" [The position of the question mark (?) and exclamation mark (!)]. Portal das Palabras. October 21, 2017. Retrieved December 25, 2021.
- ^ Institut d'Estudis Catalans (1996), "Els signes d'interrogació i d'admiració (Acord de l'11 de juny de 1993)", Documents de la Secció Filològica [The signs of questioning and admiration], vol.?III, pp.?92–94, archived from the original on September 6, 2011, retrieved May 7, 2012
- ^ Josep M. Mestres; Joan Coste; Mireira Oliva; Ricard Fité (2009), "Els signes d'entonació inicials" (PDF), Manual d'estil. La redacció i l'edició de textes. [Manual of style. Writing and editing texts.] (4?ed.), Institut d'Estudis Catalans, pp.?197–200, retrieved March 5, 2022
- ^ Neruda, Pablo (June 2008). "Antología Fundamental" [Fundamental Anthology]. Archived from the original on April 25, 2012. Retrieved November 10, 2011.?(556?KB) ISBN?978-956-16-0169-7. p. 7 (in Spanish)
- ^ "Diccionario de la lengua espa?ola". RAE. 2014. Retrieved May 31, 2018. (in Spanish)