Upside-down question and exclamation marks
Template:Short description Template:Redirect2 Template:Infobox punctuation mark The upside-down (also inverted, turned or rotated) question mark Template:Char and exclamation mark Template:Char 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The initial marks are mirrored at the end of the sentence or clause by the ordinary question mark, Template:Char, or exclamation mark, Template:Char.
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
Template:Main File:Signosdepuntuación html y binario.pdf The upside-down question mark Template:Char 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.<ref name="Rosetta">Template:Cite web</ref> "Do you like summer?" and "You like summer." are translated respectively as Template:Lang and Template:Lang (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: Template:Lang ("If you cannot go with them, would you like to go with us?"), not *Template:Lang 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
Upside-down marks, simple in the era of hand typesetting, were originally recommended by the Template:Lang (Royal Spanish Academy), in the second edition of the Template:Lang (Orthography of the Castilian language) in 1754<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> recommending it as the symbol indicating the beginning of a question in written Spanish—e.g. Template:Lang ("How old are you?"; Template:Lit). 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 "¿".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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.<ref name="Houston2013">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Adoption
Some writers omit the upside-down question mark in the case of a short unambiguous question such as: Template:Lang ("Who comes?"). This is the criterion in Galician<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:In lang</ref> and formerly in Catalan.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> Certain Catalan-language authorities, such as Joan Solà i Cortassa, insist that both the opening and closing question marks be used for clarity.<ref name="Houston2013" /> The current Institute for Catalan Studies prescription is never to use the upside-down marks for Catalan.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> However, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua allows optional use of the upside-down marks.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Some Spanish-language writers, among them Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), refuse to use the upside-down question mark.<ref>Template:Cite web Template:Small Template:ISBN. p. 7 Template:In lang</ref>
Upside-down marks are often omitted in informal writing, such as in texting.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Mixtures
It 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: Template:Lang ("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) (Template:Lang, Template:Lang)<ref>Template:Cite web Template:In lang</ref>
Unicode 5.1 also includes Template:Unichar, 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" (Template:IPAc-en) (interrobang spelled backwards).
Computer usage
Encodings
Template:Char and Template:Char are in the "Latin-1 Supplement" Unicode block, which is inherited from ISO-8859-1: