Inverted question (¿) and exclamation marks (¡) are punctuation marks used to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences (or clauses), respectively, in written Spanish and sometimes also in languages which have cultural ties with Spanish, such as Galician (in older standards; now it is optional but not recommended). They can also be combined in several ways to express the combination of a question and surprise or disbelief. The initial marks are normally mirrored at the end of the sentence or clause by the common marks (?, !) used in most other languages. Unlike the ending marks, which are fully above the line in a sentence, the (¿) and (¡) are placed about halfway below the line.
Inverted marks were originally recommended by the Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy) in 1754, and adopted gradually over the next century.
On computers, inverted 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, or via alternative methods on other keyboards.
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The inverted question mark (¿) is a punctuation mark written before the first letter of an interrogative sentence or clause to indicate that a question follows. It is an inverted form of the standard symbol '?' recognized by speakers of languages written with the Latin alphabet. In most languages, a single question mark is used, and only at the end of an interrogative sentence: "How old are you?" This once was true of the Spanish languages.
The inverted question mark was adopted long after the Real Academia's decision, published in the second edition of La ortografía de la Real Academia [The Orthography of the Royal Academy] (1754) recommending it as the symbol indicating the beginning of a question in written Spanish — ¿Cuántos años tienes? ("How old are you?"). The Real Academia also ordered the same inverted-symbol system for statements of exclamation, using the symbols '¡' and '!'. This helps to recognize questions and exclamations in long sentences, because unlike English, they often have the same words as a regular sentence: "Do you like summer?" and "You like summer." are both translated as "¿Te gusta el verano?" and "Te gusta el verano." These new rules were slowly adopted; there exist nineteenth-century books in which the writer does not use either opening symbol, neither the '¡' nor the '¿'.
In mixed, declarative / interrogative sentences, the clause that asks a question is isolated with the starting-symbol inverted question mark, for example: Aunque no puedas ir con ellos, ¿quieres ir con nosotros? (Although you can't go with them, would you like to go with us?)
Some writers omit the inverted question mark in the case of a short unambiguous question such as: Quién viene? ("Who comes?"). This is the criterion in Catalan (despite certain Catalan-language authorities, such as Joan Solà, insisting that both the opening- and closing-question marks be used for clarity).
Some Spanish-language writers, among them Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, refuse to use the inverted question mark.[1] It is common in Internet chat rooms and instant messaging now to use only the single '?' as an ending symbol for a question, since it saves typing time — using most keyboards, it is easier to type the closing symbol than the opening, inverted symbol. Multiple closing symbols are used for emphasis: Por qué dices eso??, instead of the standard ¿Por qué dices eso? ("Why do you say that?"). Given the informal setting, this might be unimportant; however, teachers see this as a problem, fearing and claiming that contemporary young people are inappropriately and incorrectly extending the practice to academic homework and essays . (See Internet linguistics#Educational perspective)
Unspoken uncertainty is expressed in writing (informal notes, comics) with ¿?, and surprise with ¡!, but single interrogative ? and exclamatory ! symbols are used.
An example of inverted question and exclamation marks in a sentence:
English: Where's your jacket? You lost it in your house!
Spanish: ¿Dónde está tu chaqueta? ¡La perdiste en tu casa!
Another example:
English: Why didn't you and your family come to the festival yesterday? You had the flu!
Spanish (Spain): ¿Por qué tú y tu familia no llegasteis a la fiesta de ayer? ¡Tenías gripe!
A third example:
English: Why haven't you finished the business presentation for work? You fell down the stairs and had to be hospitalized!
Spanish: ¿Por qué no has terminado la presentación de negocios para el trabajo? ¡Caíste por las escaleras y tuviste que ser hospitalizado!
Although it has now become rare, it is actually correct usage in Spanish to begin a sentence with an opening inverted 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 que eres? ("Who do you think you are?!"). Normally, the four signs are used, always with one type in the outer side and the other in the inner side (¿¡Y tú quién te crees que eres!?, ¡¿Y tú quién te crees que eres?! [2])
"¡" and "¿" are both located within the Unicode Common block, and are both inherited from ISO-8859-1. "¡" has Unicode codepoint U+00A1 (decimal entity reference ¡) and HTML named entity reference ¡. "¿" has Unicode codepoint U+00BF (decimal entity reference ¿) and has HTML named entity reference ¿. In both cases, the "i" in the named entity reference is an initialism for "inverted".[3]
"¿" is available in all keyboard layouts for Spanish-speaking countries. On English (US) keyboards under Microsoft Windows, the inverted question mark "¿" can be entered using the Alt code method by holding down the Alt key and pressing 0191 or 168 on the number pad and the inverted exclamation mark "¡" with number pad code 0161 or 173. In Microsoft Word, the inverted question and exclamation marks can be typed by holding down the Ctrl, Alt, and shift keys while typing a normal question or exclamation mark, or by typing either mark at the start of the sentence whilst in the Spanish language mode.
Windows users with a US keyboard-layout are able to switch to the US-International layout. This facilitates the use of international characters such as the inverted question mark/exclamation point. With the layout switched to US-International, one only needs to hold Ctrl+Alt+? to invert, and likewise to type an inverted exclamation mark.
On the Mac OS X platform (or when using the "US International"/us-intl keyboard layout on Windows and Linux), "¡" and "¿" can be entered by pressing Alt (option) + 1 and Shift + Alt (option) + / respectively. With a compose key, for example, <LEFT SHIFT> + <RIGHT CTRL> , they can be entered by pressing the compose key and ! or ? twice.
In LaTeX documents, the "¿" is written as ?` (question mark, backtick), and "¡" as !` (exclamation point, backtick).