| ¿ ¡ | |
|---|---|
Upside-down question mark Upside-down exclamation mark | |
| U+00BF ¿INVERTED QUESTION MARK U+00A1 ¡INVERTED EXCLAMATION MARK |
Theupside-down (alsoinverted,turned orrotated)question mark¿ andexclamation mark¡ arepunctuation marks used to begininterrogative and exclamatory sentences orclauses inSpanish and some languages that have cultural ties with Spain, such asAsturian andWaray.[1] The initial marks are mirrored at the end of the sentence or clause by the ordinaryquestion mark? orexclamation mark!.
Upside-down marks are supported by various standards, includingUnicode andHTML. They can be entered directly on keyboards designed for Spanish-speaking countries.
The upside-down question mark¿ is written before the first letter of aninterrogative sentence orclause to indicate that a question follows. It is a rotated form of the standard symbol? recognized by speakers of other languages written with theLatin script. A regularquestion mark is written at the end of the sentence or clause.
Upside-down punctuation is important inSpanish since thesyntax of the language means that both statements and questions orexclamations 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 ayes–no question and the corresponding statement in Spanish.)
In sentences that are bothdeclarative 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 thebaseline of the text, the upside-down marks (¿ and ¡)descend below the line.
Upside-down marks, simple in the era of hand typesetting, were originally recommended by theReal Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), in the second edition of theOrtografía 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 años 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 todenote irony in 1668. He was one of many, includingDesiderius 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]
Some 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 inGalician[7][8] and formerly inCatalan.[9] Certain Catalan-language authorities, such asJoan Solà i Cortassa, insist that both the opening and closing question marks be used for clarity.[5] The currentInstitute for Catalan Studies prescription is never to use the upside-down marks for Catalan.[10] However,Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua allows optional use of the upside-down marks.[11]
Some Spanish-language writers, among them Nobel laureatePablo Neruda (1904–1973), refuse to use the upside-down question mark.[12]
Upside-down marks are often omitted in informal writing, such as intexting.[13]
It is acceptable in Spanish to begin a sentence with an opening upside-downexclamation 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?!)[14]
Unicode 5.1 also includesU+2E18 ⸘INVERTED INTERROBANG, which is anupside-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" (/ŋˌnɑːbɔːrˈɛt.ni/) (interrobang spelled backwards).
¡ and¿ are in the"Latin-1 Supplement" Unicode block, which is inherited fromISO-8859-1:
The upside-down question marks in Spanish are needed to let the reader know immediately that a question is involved.
Para facilitar a lectura e evitar ambigüidades pode-rase indicar o inicio destas entoacións cos signos ¿ e ¡, respectivamente.