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WorldSmart: Punctuation Marks

Each nation applies its own type of punctuation marks in its written form. Below you will find examples of different punctuation marks utilized in countries around the world.

SYMBOL	DESCRIPTION	LANGUAGES	COMMON USE
	Arabic comma	Arabic	Standard
	Arabic question mark	Arabic	Standard
	Arabic semicolon	Arabic	Standard
	Ideographic comma	Chinese, Japanese	Standard in both
	Ideographic period	Chinese, Japanese	Standard in both
	Left and right quotation marks	Chinese	Standard
or	Ideographic quotation marks	Chinese, Japanese	Standard
„ "	Quotation marks	Czech, German	Commonly used in both
„ "	Quotation marks, low-high pair	Danish, Hungarian, Polish, Russian	Used in Russian to mark a quotation within a quotation Standard in Hungarian and Polish
" "	Quotation marks	Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish	Most commonly used quotation marks in Danish, Finnish, and Swedish. Used occasionally in Norwegian
' '	Single quotation marks	Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Norwegian, Swedish	Used in Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish to mark a quotation within a quotation. Used in Hungarian in philological texts
" "	Straight quotation marks	Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish	Occasionally used in Swedish instead of standard single smart quotation marks. Occasionally used in Finnish instead of quotation marks
' '	Single straight quotation marks	Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish	Used to mark a quotation within a quotation
“ ”	Smart quotation marks	Dutch, English, Italian, Spanish	Commonly used in all
‘ ’	Single smart quotation marks	Dutch, English, Italian, Spanish	Used in English, Spanish, and Italian to mark a quotation within a quotation. Standard in Dutch
;	Question mark	Greek	Standard
.	Semicolon	Greek	Standard
–	En dash	Most European languages	Some languages, such as Czech, Danish, Dutch, and Swedish, use the en dash instead of the em dash. Spanish uses the en dash for hyphenated words and compound terms.
—	Em dash	All European languages except Danish and Swedish	The en dash and the em dash are not typically used together in a single document. In Spanish, the em dash is some times used for incidental clauses or text in dialog boxes.