Spanish punctuation, however, is a key differentiator from Italian, and more generally from almost all other languages in the world.
Just approaching a Spanish text for the first time is enough to notice differences in how some punctuation marks are represented, such as the Spanish question mark. But how exactly does it work?
In this Sprachcaffe article, we'll delve deeper into Spanish punctuation and discover why it presents such unusual characteristics compared to other languages.
In general, Spanish punctuation is made up of signs and symbols that are almost identical to those found in Italian. Each serves to divide the text and allow the reader to set the correct intonation, make necessary pauses, and fully understand the meaning of the sentence.
The main types of punctuation marks in the Spanish language are:
Then we have the more classic Spanish punctuation marks:
Naturally, in Spanish punctuation we also find symbols such as the parenthesis (el parentesis), the underscore (guion), the hyphen (raya), the asterisk, and the quotation marks (comillas), to be used in the same ways as we would in English.
What significantly differentiates Spanish from most other languages in the world is the use of the question mark and the exclamation point .
Let's start by looking at the Spanish question mark , which is actually not represented by a single punctuation mark as is usually the case, but by two different symbols.
In Spanish, we place the symbol ¿ at the beginning of the interrogative sentence, which does not necessarily have to coincide with the beginning of the sentence, and we place the symbol ? at the end of the question.
Examples :
¿ Hola, how do you call me ? = Hi, what's your name?
Fui al supermercado, ¿ por qué no me dijiste que necesitabas ajo ? = I went to the supermarket, why didn't you tell me you needed garlic?
No record, can you pass the diary please ? = I don't remember, can you give me the agenda please?
This way of using interrogative punctuation is very typical of Spanish, but it is not the only language in which it is used: today this rule is also part of Galician (the official language of Galicia) and of the Waray language , spoken in the Philippines.
But what is the reason for this choice? It's an old rule established by the Royal Spanish Academy in 1754, which served as a trick to make reading easier. If a person knows exactly where a question begins, it will be easier to immediately adjust the intonation to the interrogative form. In some cases, in fact, the syntax of a sentence may not give any indication that it is actually a question, and one finds oneself reading it with the wrong intonation until the end, when one comes across the question mark. Thanks to the symbol ¿ , however, this cannot happen.
At first, the idea was to use the question mark and the opposite exclamation point mainly for sentences that wanted to give an ironic tone , but eventually the rule caught on and was applied to all questions in general, regardless of their purpose.
While this peculiarity of Spanish punctuation is an integral part of the language and culture, it's becoming increasingly commonplace lately, and more and more people who speak and write in Spanish are forgetting the backward question mark at the beginning of sentences. If you decide to study in Spain for a year to hone your Spanish language skills, you'll find that younger people, especially in chat rooms, often leave out the ¿ symbol for convenience, even though omitting it is still considered a spelling mistake.
The same goes for exclamations. In Spanish, punctuation isn't limited to the end of a sentence to add emphasis, but the opposite exclamation point is also used at the beginning.
The concept is the same: this way, it's easier to pinpoint the exact point where you need to change intonation and place more emphasis on the words you're speaking. This makes it much easier to read longer, denser texts aloud.
Here are some examples to see how the exclamation point appears in a sentence:
¡Ay! A little tree for me. = Ouch! A bee stung me.
Come back here! This is what I said before you go. = Come back here! I wanted to tell you something before you left.
It was a pleasure. ¡Pronto nos veremos! = It was a pleasure. See you soon!
In some cases, we can choose to use the exclamation point and the Spanish question mark at the same time . This serves to completely change the tone of a sentence, making it-depending on the context-more frightened, surprised, worried, or angry.
Examples :
¡¿Qué estás haciendo?! = What are you doing?!
Here the tone is decidedly angry, because perhaps the speaker is noticing that the other person is doing something they absolutely shouldn't be doing, like peeking behind a door or eating the cake that had "do not touch" written on it.
¿Qué estás haciendo? = What are you doing?
In this case, however, it's a calm question. The person asking the question is simply curious to know what the other person is doing.
Are you serious ?! = Are you serious?!
In this sentence, the tone certainly depends on the context, but it could very likely be sarcasm. It's the typical response when someone says something banal and obvious. In other cases, however, there could be a note of concern, and it could be, for example, the response to use when someone tells us they forgot their wallet at home while we're at the airport getting ready to leave.
