Question mark

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Punctuation marks
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Semicolon, semicolon ;
Colon, colon :
Point .
Ellipsis ...
Focus ·
bullet point •
Question mark ?
Exclamation, exclamation, call signs !
Apostrophe, apostrophe '
- - Hyphen ; Hyphen ;
Supplementary line
Indent ; Up line -
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A question mark is a punctuation mark that is used to identify question marks . In numerous writing systems , such as Latin script , the character “ ? “Used as a question mark.

origin

The question mark “?” First appeared in Charlemagne's writing reforms . Its introduction was embedded in the enforcement of the Carolingian minuscule , which is considered a sustainable achievement of Carolingian renewal and science . However, its function and shape were brought to the present day later.

There are several assumptions about the origin of the sign:

Quaestio.svg

One derives it from the Latin word quaestio for 'question'. This word was placed at the end of the question mark. Over time, the word became too long, so it was abbreviated as qo . A little later, for reasons of space, the q was written over the o , and this combination developed into today's symbol  ? .

Another explanation sees the origin in the 9th century, when a point was set at the end of a question, which was then followed by a curved line, as it were an upward sloping tilde ( ~ ), which should indicate the course of the voices, similar to the early musical notation the neumes . Today's question mark could have developed from this combination.

The question mark as a punctuation mark

In addition to the question , a question mark can also be used to represent a request: “Are you going to the cellar for drinks?” Is not a question, but a request. This is a special case of a rhetorical question . In the early modern period there was a separate form of the question mark for this. The percontation point ( ⸮ , U + 2E2E reversed question mark ) introduced by Henry Denham in the 1580s lost its importance again in the 17th century. In the 1960s, the Interrobang (‽, U + 203D interrobang ), a separate character for it, was introduced again, but it was also never able to gain wide acceptance.

Latin script and Cyrillic script

?

In German and in many other languages whose alphabets are based on the Latin or Cyrillic writing system, the sign "?" Indicates the end of a questionable sentence. In most Latin-written languages ​​(exception: French ), this question mark - like any final punctuation mark - is written without a space before the last word of the sentence. This avoids unwanted breaks between the last word and the question mark. An incorrect space in front of the question mark is also known colloquially as a plenk . In typographical usage, a narrow space is often inserted in front of the question mark for better visual separation.

Spanish peculiarity

¿

In Spanish , a question mark is also introduced by an upside-down question mark ¿( Unicode : U + 00BF inverted question mark ). It was introduced by the Real Academia Española in 1754 in the second edition of the orthography.

Other writing systems

;

In Greek , the semicolon (;) is used as a question mark (Ερωτηματικό). In Unicode the characters U + 037E greek question mark and U + 003B semicolon are canonically equivalent ; so you will usually use the latter.

The Arabic script also knows the question mark. However, it is adapted to the direction of writing:؟ (U + 061F arabic question mark ).

In contrast, New Hebrew , although left-handed like Arabic, uses the question mark in the form known from the Latin scripts.

Other writing systems have also adopted this form. Chinese knows, for example, the special question suffix ma ( Chinese  吗 ), with which statements are formulated as questions. Complemented by the additional character from the Latin writing system, a simple question in modern Chinese is: 你 好吗?

՞

In the Armenian script there is the հարցական նշան ( hartsakan nshan , Unicode: U + 055E armenian question mark ). Similar to a diacritical mark, it is placed on the stressed vowel of the question; when typing on the computer it is entered after this vowel.

The question mark in the computer field

In the ASCII code, the question mark "?" Has the numerical value 63 ( decimal ) or 0x003F ( hexadecimal ).

keyboard

The question mark " ? "Can be found on commercially available keyboards with a German assignment, regardless of the operating system, on the number line to the right of the" 0 "( zero ), together with the" ß "( Eszett ), and is labeled accordingly.

An inverted, upside-down question mark for the Spanish language " ¿ " can be entered as follows:

placeholder

When searching with the computer, the question mark is also used as a placeholder for exactly one character (see wildcard ). For example, the name search returns with M? Ier a result Maier and Meier . It is then no longer possible to use it as a separate symbol. For example, MS-DOS and Windows do not allow question marks in file names .

In regular expressions , the question mark “?” Stands for the (one) possible but unnecessary occurrence of the preceding element. The search for genitive? S yields the found places genitive and genitive (in the first case the element “e” preceding the “?” Does not appear, in the second case it occurs exactly once).

Unicode

The Unicode standard contains a number of question marks which visually differ more or less from the normal ASCII question mark and, with certain restrictions, can also be used for file names.

Conditional operator

In some programming languages , the question mark " ?" together with a colon " :" forms the ternary selection operator . Example ( C ++ ): 

std::string ausgabetext = anzahl > 1 ? "Zahlen" : "Zahl";

Syntactic separation

In URLs , the question mark "?" Separates the query string from the path ; additional information can thus be transmitted, e.g. B. 

https://www.example.com/index.php?language=German

Chess notation

In chess notation , the question mark "?" Indicates a weak move:

  • ? - bad move
  • ?? - very bad move or gross mistake
  • ?! - questionable move, but
  • !? - interesting move

comics

In speech or thought bubbles in comics , question marks express uncertainty, possibly in combination with exclamation marks , astonishment.

See also

Web links

Commons : question mark  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: question marks  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Saltzwedel : Standard letters on parchment . Spiegel Online , November 27, 2012; Retrieved December 29, 2012
  2. ^ Truss, Lynne: Eats, Shoots & Leaves . 2003, ISBN 1-59240-087-6 , p. 142.
  3. ^ Roger Chartier: The Author's Hand and the Printer's Mind . Polity Press, Cambridge 2014, ISBN 978-0-7456-5601-4 , pp. 96 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ If the punctuation mark ¿ question mark, which introduces a question mark, is missing on the keyboard of the PC, it can be typed in under Microsoft Windows - (decimal) Unicode - by holding down the Altkey and 168(¿) on the number pad .
  5. ↑ Unicode Character Code Charts: Greek and Coptic (PDF; 300 kB, English)