4 ms·

Really interesting how Turkish and English are the only major languages that predominantly use "" as opposed to anything else (well, UK uses '' too though). I w

Really interesting how Turkish and English are the only major languages that predominantly use "" as opposed to anything else (well, UK uses '' too though). I wonder how that cultural interaction happened or whether it's coincidental. Turkish alphabet is mostly based on German and French alphabets (with a certain dose of creativity) and Turkish language was heavily influenced by French in 19th century. So it's interesting that they don't use ,,'' or <<>>

augusto-moura 6y ago
Outside Europe I rarely see <<>>, in fact I never saw <<>> on the internet even on European sites, truth be told I rarely read any websites from Europe that are not in English so my opinion might be biased
- gnulinux 6y ago
  I've definitely seen ,,'' reading German literature (e.g. Kafka) and <<>> reading French literature. You're right about internet though, that is indeed interesting.
  - MayeulC 6y ago
    While this is the prevalent quotation mark used in France, " starts to catch on a bit. In my opinion, it is mainly due to the fact that « and » are not present on French keyboard layouts (and rather rare in general): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Keyboard_layouts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Keyboard_layout... Another issue is that you are supposed to type a non-braking space inside, which is a hassle, and often not present on keyboards either. Word processors usually take care of both these issues, replacing " with the appropriate (opening or closing) guillemet + space. Spaces are also used in Switzerland, but narrow (&nnbsp; instead of  ).
  - veddox 6y ago
    „“ is standard German usage and taught for handwriting. Angular quotation marks are a bit old-fashioned, and are usually found in (old) books.
    - masswerk 6y ago
      However, sometimes it's nice to have a third and even forth option when you have to deal with laterals, concepts, maybe foreign language expressions, quotes and nested quotes at the same time. So I'm using angular quotes occasionally, but not generally. "…" is genarally ok for casual writing and messaging, while „…“ is still standard for print.
- zdragnar 6y ago
  They're more common in Asian languages, iirc- Chinese at least uses something much like them though far more obtuse (I think it is a different character, not just font anyway)
  - Hasnep 6y ago
    Chinese traditionally uses「X」and『X』for quotation marks but i have also seen “X”.
    - zdragnar 6y ago
      Aha! I just discovered that I confused their use of title marks 《…》with quotation marks, since American English uses quotation marks for both quotes and titles. I would have sworn that I had seen the title marks used for both as well, but it has been 10 years or so since I have had any real exposure.
- Bayart 6y ago
  I systematically use «» for quotation marks regardless of the language I'm writing in. I just feel anything else is wrong, even though I'm the one breaking typographic conventions. Those aren't rare in French-speaking communities (although " is dominant because of how bad the AZERTY layout is), and they're mandatory in press.
rolleiflex 6y ago
You're very close to the truth in a way I (a Turkish speaker) did not even notice until now about my own handwriting. Turns out, I'm using << >> when I quote on pen and paper, and I use "" digitally. I had always thought that it was a weird stylistic choice on the part of the teacher that taught me writing in primary school, or that I had somehow 'corrupted' "" into super-elongated << and >> to be able to more clearly denote the beginning of a quote from its end marker. Only now I'm realising I've in fact been taught to use guillemets and it took me only two and a half decades! In hindsight, my primary school teacher was already about to retire when I was learning to write, so it's likely that she had been brought up in a much earlier school of style than one that is being taught now. Considering that Turkish has been shedding its Francophone writing style [0][1] for a while now, I consider it an echo of a bygone era. That said, Turkish still considers French its 'official' interface to Indo-European words, and there exists a structure that can convert any French word into a valid Turkish one. A simple example: London in Turkish is Londra — it sounds exactly the same as Londres spoken by a French speaker. A more recent example is Pope Francis, whose Turkish name is Papa Fransua, which sounds exactly the same as Papa François as it would be in French. Basically, the 'method' involves saying what you want in French and encoding it with Turkish ortography, and then it's a valid Turkish word. [2] [0] Another one of these Francophone stylings is the tradition to capitalise the surnames, like Amelie POULAIN, or Bora ALTUNİZADE, which has been considered outdated for a decade or two. [1] Writing style is moving towards Britain, but not words — 11% of modern Turkish vocabulary is still directly from French, second only to ancient Turkish from 11th century. [2] Famously, Turkish alphabet contains the letter J solely to be able to encode French words with the correct sound — the J sound does not otherwise appear in any Turkish word, only in words derived from French. Outside of French words, Turkish retains the original Latin J sound that is also used in German, which is a Y sound, so it gets encoded as Y in ortography, removing the need for letter J. For example, Joseph in Turkish becomes Yusuf, Johannes becomes Yuhanna.

augusto-moura 6y ago

Outside Europe I rarely see <<>>, in fact I never saw <<>> on the internet even on European sites, truth be told I rarely read any websites from Europe that are not in English so my opinion might be biased

gnulinux 6y ago
I've definitely seen ,,'' reading German literature (e.g. Kafka) and <<>> reading French literature. You're right about internet though, that is indeed interesting.
- MayeulC 6y ago
  While this is the prevalent quotation mark used in France, " starts to catch on a bit. In my opinion, it is mainly due to the fact that « and » are not present on French keyboard layouts (and rather rare in general): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Keyboard_layouts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Keyboard_layout... Another issue is that you are supposed to type a non-braking space inside, which is a hassle, and often not present on keyboards either. Word processors usually take care of both these issues, replacing " with the appropriate (opening or closing) guillemet + space. Spaces are also used in Switzerland, but narrow (&nnbsp; instead of  ).
- veddox 6y ago
  „“ is standard German usage and taught for handwriting. Angular quotation marks are a bit old-fashioned, and are usually found in (old) books.
  - masswerk 6y ago
    However, sometimes it's nice to have a third and even forth option when you have to deal with laterals, concepts, maybe foreign language expressions, quotes and nested quotes at the same time. So I'm using angular quotes occasionally, but not generally. "…" is genarally ok for casual writing and messaging, while „…“ is still standard for print.
zdragnar 6y ago
They're more common in Asian languages, iirc- Chinese at least uses something much like them though far more obtuse (I think it is a different character, not just font anyway)
- Hasnep 6y ago
  Chinese traditionally uses「X」and『X』for quotation marks but i have also seen “X”.
  - zdragnar 6y ago
    Aha! I just discovered that I confused their use of title marks 《…》with quotation marks, since American English uses quotation marks for both quotes and titles. I would have sworn that I had seen the title marks used for both as well, but it has been 10 years or so since I have had any real exposure.
Bayart 6y ago
I systematically use «» for quotation marks regardless of the language I'm writing in. I just feel anything else is wrong, even though I'm the one breaking typographic conventions. Those aren't rare in French-speaking communities (although " is dominant because of how bad the AZERTY layout is), and they're mandatory in press.

rolleiflex 6y ago

You're very close to the truth in a way I (a Turkish speaker) did not even notice until now about my own handwriting. Turns out, I'm using << >> when I quote on pen and paper, and I use "" digitally. I had always thought that it was a weird stylistic choice on the part of the teacher that taught me writing in primary school, or that I had somehow 'corrupted' "" into super-elongated << and >> to be able to more clearly denote the beginning of a quote from its end marker. Only now I'm realising I've in fact been taught to use guillemets and it took me only two and a half decades! In hindsight, my primary school teacher was already about to retire when I was learning to write, so it's likely that she had been brought up in a much earlier school of style than one that is being taught now. Considering that Turkish has been shedding its Francophone writing style [0][1] for a while now, I consider it an echo of a bygone era. That said, Turkish still considers French its 'official' interface to Indo-European words, and there exists a structure that can convert any French word into a valid Turkish one. A simple example: London in Turkish is Londra — it sounds exactly the same as Londres spoken by a French speaker. A more recent example is Pope Francis, whose Turkish name is Papa Fransua, which sounds exactly the same as Papa François as it would be in French. Basically, the 'method' involves saying what you want in French and encoding it with Turkish ortography, and then it's a valid Turkish word. [2] [0] Another one of these Francophone stylings is the tradition to capitalise the surnames, like Amelie POULAIN, or Bora ALTUNİZADE, which has been considered outdated for a decade or two. [1] Writing style is moving towards Britain, but not words — 11% of modern Turkish vocabulary is still directly from French, second only to ancient Turkish from 11th century. [2] Famously, Turkish alphabet contains the letter J solely to be able to encode French words with the correct sound — the J sound does not otherwise appear in any Turkish word, only in words derived from French. Outside of French words, Turkish retains the original Latin J sound that is also used in German, which is a Y sound, so it gets encoded as Y in ortography, removing the need for letter J. For example, Joseph in Turkish becomes Yusuf, Johannes becomes Yuhanna.