Where did the question mark appear? What does an inverted question mark mean?

We We often wonder where this or that alphabet came from. But where did the familiar punctuation marks first appear? One of them, used in the previous sentence, appears to have been first inscribed in the Syriac copy of the Bible. As you may have guessed, we are talking about a question mark. True, in those days he looked completely different.

The ancient question mark was completely different from the beautiful curl we are used to. In a copy of the Bible created in Syria in the 5th century, the question mark looked like an icon reminiscent of our colon.

This sign was found and deciphered by Chip Coakley, a specialist in ancient manuscripts from the British University of Cambridge. It is curious that the double dot, which linguists called zawga elaya, was placed not at the end, but before the beginning of an interrogative sentence. Except for those cases when the phrase began with a question word: then everything was clear even without a sign.

Before the spread of Islam in the Middle East, a huge amount of Christian literature was created and translated in Syriac. In the 1840s, this collection was bought by the British Museum for 5 thousand pounds. Since then, scientists have not yet unraveled all the secrets of this library. Coakley presented the results of his scientific investigation at a special conference.

In ancient Hebrew, as in ancient Arabic writing, there were no punctuation marks at all - accordingly, nothing similar to the Syriac “dot” question mark was found there. In Greek and Latin writing, question marks began to appear much later, only in the 8th century. It is possible that they were not borrowed from Syriac writing, but were invented anew. In modern Greek writing, by the way, the question mark is a semicolon, but the dot at the top of the line replaces the colon and semicolon we are familiar with.

In its modern style - "?" - the question mark appeared in printed books from the 16th century and came from the Latin letters q and o (quaestio - search, in this case - the answer). Initially, a “q” was written above the letter “o”, and then this icon was transformed into a modern style.

Many people know the curious tradition of formatting interrogative sentences in Spanish: in this language, a question mark is placed both at the beginning and at the end of the interrogative phrase, and at the beginning it is inverted. This rule was introduced by the Spanish Royal Academy in 1754: the fact is that, due to the grammatical features of the Spanish language, affirmative sentences can only be distinguished from interrogative sentences using punctuation marks.

In modern Arabic, where words and sentences are written from right to left, the question mark looks like a mirror image of ours. Arabs do the same thing with commas and semicolons. But in Hebrew, which also has a mirror script, the question mark looks completely ordinary.

The question mark is also used in modern hieroglyphic languages, and when written vertically it is not “put on its side.” True, in Japanese it is not obligatory: all Japanese interrogative sentences, by definition, end with the interrogative particle “-ka”.

Armenian uses its own question mark, which looks like a thick dot or wedge-shaped stroke above the last letter of a sentence.

The question mark is also unique in that it can be combined with other punctuation marks, such as an ellipsis, to express uncertainty or convey a rhetorical question. In this case, instead of three dots, only two are put: the third is already under a question mark.

We all know that a question mark is placed at the end of a sentence and expresses doubt or question. But not everyone knows that this punctuation mark comes from two Latin letters “q” and “o” (these are the first and last letters of the Latin word “quæstio”, which means “search” or “question”).

Previously, such an abbreviation (qo) was used to end a question sentence, and later it was replaced by a ligature in the form of a question mark. Originally, the letter "q" was written above the "o". Later, such writing turned into the modern style known to us.

In most languages, a question mark is placed exclusively at the end of a sentence. But in Spanish, question marks and exclamation marks (“¡!” and “¿?”) are placed at the beginning and end of a sentence. In this case, the inverted sign stands before the sentence, and the ordinary sign at the end. For example: “¿Cómo estás?” (Spanish).

The Spanish language has long used one question mark. It was only after 1754, when the Royal Academy of Languages published the second edition of Spelling, that question marks began to begin and end interrogative sentences. The same goes for the exclamation mark.

This rule did not immediately find wide application. In the 19th century, there are still texts where there are no question marks and exclamation marks inverted at the beginning of sentences. But the syntax of the Spanish language is considered peculiar, and sometimes it is difficult to determine in which part of a complex phrase the interrogative part begins. Therefore, over time, all texts began to include two question marks and exclamation marks in sentences.

For quite a long time in the Spanish language, inverted signs were used only in long sentences in order to avoid their false interpretation. But in short and simple questions they put only one question mark at the end of the sentence.

Modern Spanish is greatly influenced by English language. Today, this language is increasingly limited to just one question mark. This trend can be observed especially clearly on forums on the Internet.

As for the Russian language, until the end of the 15th century, all texts were written either without spaces between words, or were divided into unbroken segments. The period in Russian writing appeared in the 1480s, and the comma in the 1520s. The semicolon appeared later and was used as a question mark. Even later, question marks and exclamation marks began to be used. The dash was first used in his texts by N. Karamzin, and by the end of the 18th century. this punctuation mark began to be used more actively.

Illustration copyright Getty

Commas, semicolons, and question marks are so familiar to us that it may seem as if they have always existed in written speech. However, this is not the case. The correspondent offers to take a trip into the past of punctuation marks.

Both as readers and writers, we are intimately familiar with the periods, slashes, and dashes that pepper every written text.

Commas, colons, semicolons and their other relatives are integral parts of writing that form grammatical structures and help us transform a set of letters into spoken speech or mental images.

Without them, we will be without hands (or, at best, we will find ourselves in a fair amount of confusion), but ancient readers and writers somehow managed without them for several thousand years. What made them change their minds?

In the 3rd century BC, in the Hellenistic Egyptian city of Alexandria, there lived a librarian named Aristophanes* who decided that enough was enough.

He was the chief custodian of the city's famous library, which contained thousands of scrolls, the reading of which took a great deal of time and effort.

The Greeks then wrote their texts in such a way that the letters merged with one another, there were no punctuation marks or spaces between them. There was no distinction between uppercase and capital letters.

The reader himself had to wade through this merciless heap of letter signs in order to understand where one word or sentence ends and another begins.

Organic speech is much stronger than disordered speech Cicero

It must be said that the absence of punctuation marks and spaces between words did not seem to be a problem to anyone in those days.

In ancient democracies such as Greece and Rome, where elected officials were required to debate to convince their fellow citizens of the correctness of their point of view, beautiful and persuasive spoken language was considered a more important means of communication than written text.

Any reader had every right to expect that the speakers would carefully study what was written on the scroll before they began to recite in public.

Understanding a written text from the first reading was unheard of. Thus, a Roman writer of the 2nd century AD, called Aulus Gellius,** was indignant when he was asked to read an unfamiliar document aloud. He stated that he could distort the meaning of the text and highlight the wrong words. (And when the man standing next to him volunteered to read the scroll, that’s exactly what happened).

Time to connect the dots

Aristophanes' breakthrough was that the eminent librarian allowed readers to annotate documents by breaking up the continuous flow with ink dots in the middle, at the end, and at the beginning of each line.

Its small, medium and simple points corresponded to pauses of increasing duration, which a skilled reader habitually inserted between more or less completed fragments of text, and later received the names comma, colon and periodos.

They were indicated by a dot at the bottom, in the middle and at the top of the line and highlighted small, medium and large fragments of text, respectively.***

Illustration copyright Getty Image caption In Ancient Greece and Rome, it was not easy to understand the text from the first reading

This was not yet the coherent system of punctuation as we know it today - Aristophanes considered his marks to be simple markings of pauses rather than grammatical barriers. However, the seed was sown.

Alas, not everyone was convinced of the usefulness of this innovation. When the Romans took the initiative from the Greeks as builders of the next great empire ancient world, they, without thinking twice, abandoned the system of points proposed by Aristophanes.

Cicero, for example, one of the most famous public speakers in Rome, argued in his Treatises on Oratory that anyone who wants to speak magnificently and beautifully must master a basic technique called “rhythm.”

The speaker, wrote Cicero, must use this technique “so that the speech does not flow in a non-stop stream […] (after all, the stop in it should not be determined by the breath of the speaker or the punctuation of the scribe, but by the requirement of rhythm), but also because harmonious speech can be much stronger disorderly."

Writing in adulthood

The rise of a new cult inspired and new life into the innovative creation of Aristophanes - punctuation.

The Roman Empire perished under the rubble of its own greatness and the blows of the barbarians in the 4th-5th centuries new era, and the Roman pagans suffered one defeat after another in battles with new religion, whose name was Christianity.

If the pagans passed on their traditions and culture from mouth to mouth, then Christians preferred to write down their psalms and sermons in order to more successfully spread the word of God.

Illustration copyright Getty Image caption Christianity has put the art of writing and punctuation at its service

Books have become the alpha and omega of Christian identity. They were decorated with decorative initial letters and paragraph marks (Γ, ¢, 7, ¶ and others), and many were richly decorated with gold foil and illustrated with elegant painted miniatures.

Having spread throughout Europe, Christianity placed the art of writing and punctuation at its service. In the 6th century AD. Christian authors began to use punctuation marks in their writings to preserve their original meaning, long before these works fell into the hands of readers.

Later, already in the 7th century, Isidore of Seville **** (first an archbishop, and later canonized) improved Aristophanes’ system of punctuation marks. He changed the order of the dots in height to represent short, medium, and long pauses, respectively.

Moreover, Isidore, for the first time in the history of writing, clearly and unambiguously connected punctuation with meaning. Renamed to subdistinctionor bottom point(.), this sign no longer simply denoted a pause, but became an indicator of grammatical comma. Top point or distinctiofinalis(·) now marked the end of the sentence.

Shortly after this, gaps appeared between words. They were the invention of Irish and Scottish monks trying to make sense of unfamiliar Latin words.

Towards the end of the 8th century, in the nascent country of Germany, the famous king, and eventually emperor, Charlemagne ordered a monk whose name was Alcuin***** to compile a unified alphabet of letters that would be understandable to all subjects of the monarch in all corners his vast possessions.

Alcuin introduced the same lowercase letters that we still use today. Writing has entered a period of maturity, and punctuation has become an integral part of it.

Cut diagonally

Now that Aristophanes' points have become generally accepted, the writing fraternity began to diversify and modify them. Some borrowed musical notation from Gregorian chant and invented new symbols.

One of these signs punctus verus, was a medieval symbol for a semicolon; it was used to interrupt a sentence, and looked like a simple period.

Another sign punctus elevatus, denoted movement from top to bottom, to the starting position and was transformed into a modern colon. The sign was placed when the meaning of the previous sentence, although complete, allowed for expansion.

Another new icon, the ancestor of the modern question mark, was called punctusinterrogativeus. It was used to indicate a question and at the same time to convey rising intonation. An exclamation mark with a similar function appeared later, already in the 16th century.

Illustration copyright Thinkstock Image caption Emoticons: new punctuation marks?

The original three dots that punctuated the early punctuation system suffered as a result. As more specific symbols were created, the distinctions between low, middle and high points became increasingly blurred.

As a result, what was left was a simple period that could be placed anywhere on a line to indicate a pause of indefinite duration, which was a vague mixture of a comma, a colon, and a period at the end of a sentence.

A new blow struck the humble point when, in the 12th century, the Italian writer, historian and professor of rhetoric at the University of Bologna, Boncompagno da Signa, proposed a completely new punctuation system that consisted of only two characters. A slash or diagonal slash (/) indicated pauses, and a dash (-) ended a sentence.

The fate of the dash proposed by da Xinha - a sign denoting introductory words or a fragment of text - is vague. It may or may not have been the ancestor of modern parentheses and other similar signs.

On the contrary, to the share of the diagonal line, virgulasuspensiva, was an undoubted success. This sign turned out to be compact and clear, clearly denoting a pause, like the current comma, and soon the last lines of defense of the Aristophanes system fell under its onslaught.

Punctuation is not dead at all, it is simply waiting for a new technological breakthrough to ride it

Punctuation was in this state during the High Renaissance. It was a motley mixture of ancient Greek periods, commas, question marks and other descendants of medieval symbols. The company was also complemented by later additions - a diagonal line and a dash.

By this time, people of writing were quite satisfied with the current state of affairs, and thank God, because with the advent of printing in the mid-1450s, when Johann Gutenberg printed his 42-line (the number of lines on a page) Bible, punctuation was unexpectedly preserved in time .

Over the next 50 years, most of the symbols we use today were literally cast in lead, never to be changed again.

The diagonal line of Boncompagno da Signa has lost its former line at the base and acquired a slight bend, thus turning into a modern comma and inheriting its old Greek name.

The semicolon and exclamation point are joined by the comma and question mark.

The Aristophanes point has had its last rise and has become a final point at the end of a sentence.

After this, the evolution of punctuation marks stopped dead in its tracks, finding itself in a dead end into which the printing press had driven it.

And only now, when computers have become more widespread than the printing press once was, punctuation began to show signs of life again.

The average 16th-century writer would have had no trouble figuring out the meaning of the punctuation marks that adorn the computer keyboard, but he might have been somewhat surprised by the emoticons (symbols for expressing feelings) and emoji (Japanese pictures expressing concepts) that joined them on computer screens.

As it turns out, punctuation is not dead at all, it is simply waiting for a new technological breakthrough to ride it.

Now we live in a time of just such a breakthrough, and it depends on us, readers and writers, with what signs we use to separate words from each other in our texts over the next two thousand years.

Keith Houston is the author of Suspicious Marks: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographic Icons.

Translator's Notes

*Aristophanes of Byzantium (c. 257-180 BC), famous philologist of antiquity. He was in charge of the Library of Alexandria from 190 BC. Researched the heritage of Homer and Hesiod. He prepared for publication the tragedies of Sophocles, Euripides and, probably, Aeschylus, as well as the comedies of his namesake Aristophanes. Introduced punctuation, vowel and accent marks.

** Aulus Gellius (c. 130-170), ancient Roman writer and popularizer of knowledge in history, literature, philosophy and exact sciences. Author of the 20-volume collection of "stuff", Noctes Atticae ("Attic Nights"). It is believed that he introduced into use such concepts as “classical”, “humanism”, “proletarian”.

***Latin wordcomma means "pause", "caesura"; Greekκόμμα – “part”, “segment”, “blow”.Colon means "hill".Periodo – “circle”, “period of time”.

****Isidore of Seville (560-636), Archbishop of Seville in the Visigothic Kingdom of Spain. One of the last fathers and philosophers catholic church and the first encyclopedist. His main work, Etymologiae, collected in 20 volumes all the knowledge accumulated by the early Middle Ages. Canonized in 1598. Patron Saint of the Internet.

***** Alcuin (735-804), Anglo-Saxon scholar, theologian and poet. At the invitation of Charlemagne, he headed the Palace Academy in the capital of the French kingdom, Aachen. Inspirer of the Carolingian Renaissance - the era of flourishing culture and arts in Western Europe inVIII-9th centuries after a long period of barbarism. Conducted a fundamental revision of the translation of the Bible into Latin. Alcuin's Bible is lost.

******Boncompagno da Signa (1165/1175-1235) published the treatise “Palm” in 1198, in which he discussed the principles of writing in general, dividing the text into parts and punctuation marks.

Anyone who is familiar with Old Russian writings knows that they were created in a continuous “letter” of words without intervals, especially since there were no punctuation marks in them. Only towards the end of the 15th century did a period appear in the texts, at the beginning of the next century a comma joined it, and even later a question mark was “written” on the pages of manuscripts. It is noteworthy that until this moment, its role was played by the semicolon for some time. Following the interrogative, he was not slow to appear and

The symbol comes from the Latin word quaestio, which translates as “search for an answer.” To depict the sign, the letters q and o were used, which were first depicted on the letter, one above the other. Over time, the graphic appearance of the sign took on the appearance of an elegant curl with a dot at the bottom.

What does a question mark mean?

Russian linguist Fyodor Buslaev argued that punctuation (the science of) has two tasks - to help a person express his thoughts clearly, separating sentences, as well as its parts from each other, and to express emotions. The question mark serves these purposes, among others.

Of course, the very first thing this symbol means is a question. In it is expressed by the corresponding intonation, which is called interrogative. Another question mark can mean bewilderment or doubt. Sentences with sometimes express which is called a rhetorical question. It is asked not for the purpose of asking, but in order to express admiration, indignation and similar strong feelings, as well as to encourage the listener, reader to comprehend a particular event. The answer to the rhetorical question is given by the author himself. When accompanied by an exclamation mark, a question mark conveys the meaning of extreme surprise.

Where to put it if you need to express a question

Where in Russian sentences do they put a question mark? The symbol is usually located at the end of the sentence, but not only. Let's consider each case in more detail.

A question mark is found at the end of a simple sentence expressing a question. ( For example: What are you looking for here? Why does water turn into ice?)
A question mark is placed inside an interrogative sentence when listing homogeneous members. ( For example: What should I cook for you - soup? roast? turkey?)
In complex sentences, this sign is placed at the end even if all its parts contain a question, even if only the last part of the sentence contains it. ( For example: 1. How long should I wait for the call, or will my turn come soon? 2. He laughed sincerely, and who would remain indifferent to such a joke?)
The question mark is placed at the end:
1. When the question contains both a main clause and a subordinate clause. ( For example: Do you know what surprises happen on hikes?)
2. When it is contained only in the main clause. ( For example: Don’t we really want there to be peace?)
3. If the question is contained in a subordinate clause. ( For example: Various bold thoughts overwhelmed his inflamed mind, although could this at least help his sister in any way?)
In a non-union sentence, a question mark is placed at the end:
1. If the question contains all its parts. ( For example: Where should I go, where should I seek shelter, who will extend a friendly hand to me?)
2. If the question contains only the last part of it. ( For example: Be honest with me: how long do I have left to live?)

Where to put a question mark if you need to express doubt

When indicating doubt, suspicion, reflection, a question mark is placed in the middle of the sentence and enclosed in brackets: Some people in robes, prisoners or workers(?) came and sat around the fire.

When you don't have to put a question mark

In a complex sentence in which the subordinate clause sounds like a question mark, it is not used. ( For example: I didn’t tell him why I hadn’t read this book.) However, if the interrogative intonation is too strong, then a sentence with an indirect question can be crowned with this sign. ( Example: I can’t figure out how to solve this problem? They persistently asked how I became a millionaire?)

Figurative meaning

Sometimes the question symbol is mentioned in speech for an allegorical purpose, wanting to express something mysterious, incomprehensible, hidden. In this case, the phrase “question mark” sounds like a metaphor. ( For example: Those events forever remained for me an unresolved mystery, a question mark, some kind of vivid but confusing dream.)

Question mark somersaults

There are languages in which this symbol is turned upside down. For example, in Greek and Old Church Slavonic (used Orthodox Church) in languages it is written with a hook down, a dot up. In Spanish, the sign at the end of a question sentence is complemented by its inverted “twin”. Turned in a curl in the opposite direction, it decorates Arabic texts. The programming language also turned the question mark upside down.

(, ) dash (‒ , –, -, ― ) ellipses (…, ..., . . . ) Exclamation point (! ) dot (. ) hyphen (‐ ) hyphen-minus (- ) question mark (? ) quotes („ “, « », “ ”, ‘ ’, ‹ › ) semicolon (; ) Word separators space () ( ) ( )

Additional Information
?
Approximate appearance of the symbol
Symbol name	Question mark
Unicode
HTML
UTF-8
Heading form
Lowercase form
Group in Unicode
← 63 →

Additional Information
¿
Approximate appearance of the symbol
Symbol name	Inverted question mark
Unicode
HTML
Heading form
Lowercase form
Group in Unicode
← 191 →

Question mark (? ) - punctuation mark, usually placed at the end of a sentence to express a question or doubt.

It has been found in printed books since the 16th century, but to express the question it was fixed much later, only in the 18th century.

The design of the sign comes from Latin letters q And o(lat. quaestio- search for an answer). Originally wrote q above o, which were then transformed into the modern style.

It can be combined with an exclamation mark to indicate surprise (“?!”; according to the rules of Russian punctuation, a question mark is written first) and with an ellipsis (“?..”; only two dots remain from the ellipsis symbol).

Some languages, such as Spanish, also use an inverted question mark (¿, U+00BF), which is placed at the beginning of a phrase in addition to the regular question mark at the end. For example: What do you mean?(With Spanish- "How are you?")
In French, a question mark, like some other punctuation marks, is separated from a word by a space, for example: Qu'est-ce que tu dis ?(With fr.- "What are you saying?")
in command templates of various operating systems, the sign “?” stands for any character.
In Microsoft Windows operating systems, the use of the service character “?” in the file name is prohibited. If necessary, use the symbols “7” or “¿” as a replacement. But you should remember that files with the symbol “¿” in the name are not supported by all programs.
in BASIC the sign "?" is an alternative notation for the command PRINT.
in Arabic and languages using Arabic script (for example, Persian), the question mark is written backwards ( ؟ - U+061F).
in Greek and Church Slavonic, an inverted question mark is used: the dot is placed at the top and the “curl” at the bottom. The question mark is represented as the symbol ";" .

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Notes

Excerpt characterizing Question Mark

The glow of the first fire that started on September 2nd was watched from different roads by fleeing residents and retreating troops with different feelings.
That night the Rostovs' train stood in Mytishchi, twenty miles from Moscow. On September 1, they left so late, the road was so cluttered with carts and troops, so many things had been forgotten, for which people had been sent, that that night it was decided to spend the night five miles outside Moscow. The next morning we set off late, and again there were so many stops that we only got to Bolshie Mytishchi. At ten o'clock the gentlemen of the Rostovs and the wounded who were traveling with them all settled in the courtyards and huts of the large village. The people, the Rostovs' coachmen and the orderlies of the wounded, having removed the gentlemen, had dinner, fed the horses and went out onto the porch.
In the next hut lay Raevsky’s wounded adjutant, with a broken hand, and the terrible pain he felt made him moan pitifully, without ceasing, and these groans sounded terribly in the autumn darkness of the night. On the first night, this adjutant spent the night in the same courtyard in which the Rostovs stood. The Countess said that she could not close her eyes from this groan, and in Mytishchi she moved to a worse hut just to be away from this wounded man.
One of the people in the darkness of the night, from behind the high body of a carriage standing at the entrance, noticed another small glow of a fire. One glow had been visible for a long time, and everyone knew that it was Malye Mytishchi that was burning, lit by Mamonov’s Cossacks.
“But this, brothers, is a different fire,” said the orderly.
Everyone turned their attention to the glow.
“But, they said, Mamonov’s Cossacks set Mamonov’s Cossacks on fire.”
- They! No, this is not Mytishchi, this is further away.
- Look, it’s definitely in Moscow.
Two of the people got off the porch, went behind the carriage and sat down on the step.
- This is left! Of course, Mytishchi is over there, and this is in a completely different direction.
Several people joined the first.
“Look, it’s burning,” said one, “this, gentlemen, is a fire in Moscow: either in Sushchevskaya or in Rogozhskaya.”
No one responded to this remark. And for quite a long time all these people silently looked at the distant flames of a new fire flaring up.
The old man, the count's valet (as he was called), Danilo Terentich, approached the crowd and shouted to Mishka.
- What haven’t you seen, slut... The Count will ask, but no one is there; go get your dress.
“Yes, I was just running for water,” said Mishka.
– What do you think, Danilo Terentich, it’s like there’s a glow in Moscow? - said one of the footmen.
Danilo Terentich did not answer anything, and for a long time everyone was silent again. The glow spread and swayed further and further.
“God have mercy!.. wind and dryness...” the voice said again.
- Look how it went. Oh my God! You can already see the jackdaws. Lord, have mercy on us sinners!
- They'll probably put it out.
- Who should put it out? – the voice of Danila Terentich, who had been silent until now, was heard. His voice was calm and slow. “Moscow is, brothers,” he said, “she is mother squirrel...” His voice broke off, and he suddenly sobbed like an old man. And it was as if everyone was waiting for just this in order to understand the meaning that this visible glow had for them. Sighs, words of prayer and the sobbing of the old count's valet were heard.