Upside-down question and exclamation marks

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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 marks are supported by various standards, including ISO-8859-1, Unicode, and HTML. They can be entered directly on keyboards designed for Spanish-speaking countries.

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 especially critical in Spanish (although Portuguese and Italian are also prone to the following syntax structure) 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.

Upside-down marks, simple in the era of hand typesetting, were originally recommended by the Real Academia Española (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 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 "¿".^{[citation needed]}

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.^[4][5]

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 in Galician^[6][7] and formerly in Catalan.^[8] Certain Catalan-language authorities, such as Joan Solà i Cortassa, insist that both the opening and closing question marks be used for clarity.^{[citation needed]} The current Institute for Catalan Studies prescription is never to use the upside-down marks for Catalan.^[9]

Some Spanish-language writers, among them Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), refuse to use the upside-down question mark.^[10]

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: ¡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?!^[11])

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"^{[citation needed]} (/ŋˌnɑːbɔːrˈɛt.ni/) (interrobang spelled backwards).

¡ 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

¿ and ¡ are available in all keyboard layouts designed for Spanish-speaking countries. Smart phones typically offer these if you hold down ? or ! in the on-screen keyboard. Auto-correct will often turn a normal mark typed at the start of a sentence to the upside-down one.

On systems with an AltGr key (actual or emulated via right Alt key) and Extended (or 'International') keyboard mapping set, the symbols can be accessed directly, though the sequence varies by OS and locality and is documented by the vendor. Otherwise see Unicode input.

• Spanish orthography