What is Quotation Mark?

Paired punctuation marks enclosing direct speech or quotations. Unicode includes straight (""), curly (“”), guillemets (« »), CJK corner brackets (「」), and locale-specific forms.

Quotation Mark — Unicode Glossary

What are Quotation Marks?

Quotation marks are punctuation characters used to indicate direct speech, quotations, titles, or special usage of a word. The typographic diversity of quotation marks across languages and writing systems is remarkable: there are more than a dozen distinct quotation mark styles in active use worldwide, each with its own Unicode code points, directionality, and placement conventions.

The most critical typographic distinction is between straight quotes (" and ') — the marks on your keyboard — and curly/smart quotes (" " and ' ') — the typographically correct forms that curve toward the quoted text. Straight quotes are a typewriter-era compromise; curly quotes are the proper typographic form for body text.

The Main Quotation Mark Characters

Character	Unicode	Name	Used In
"	U+0022	Quotation Mark (straight)	Programming, markup
'	U+0027	Apostrophe (straight)	Programming, markup
"	U+201C	Left Double Quotation Mark	English (primary)
"	U+201D	Right Double Quotation Mark	English (primary)
'	U+2018	Left Single Quotation Mark	English (secondary)
'	U+2019	Right Single Quotation Mark	English (secondary)
„	U+201E	Double Low-9 Quotation Mark	German, Czech (opening)
«	U+00AB	Left-Pointing Double Angle Mark	French, Russian
»	U+00BB	Right-Pointing Double Angle Mark	French, Russian
‹	U+2039	Single Left-Pointing Angle Mark	French (secondary)
›	U+203A	Single Right-Pointing Angle Mark	French (secondary)
「	U+300C	Left Corner Bracket	Japanese, Chinese
」	U+300D	Right Corner Bracket	Japanese, Chinese

Quotation Conventions by Language

Language	Primary	Secondary	Notes
English (US)	"…"	'…'	Comma inside closing quote
English (UK)	'…'	"…"	Reversed nesting
German	„…"	‚…'	Opening marks at baseline
French	«…»	‹…›	Non-breaking space before « and after »
Russian	«…»	„…"	Same as French outer
Japanese	「…」	『…』	Corner brackets
Chinese (simplified)	"…"	'…'	Same shapes as English
Swedish	"…"	'…'	Closing mark used for both

Apostrophes

The right single quotation mark (U+2019, ') also serves as the apostrophe in typographic text. This matters because: - The straight apostrophe (U+0027) is the same character as the straight single quote - Straight apostrophes can cause issues in SQL strings and some programming contexts - Smart apostrophes improve visual quality: don't vs don't

Typing Curly Quotes

macOS: " and " with Option+[ and Option+Shift+[
Word processors: auto-convert straight quotes to curly (smart quotes setting)
HTML entities: “ ” ‘ ’
HTML numeric: “ ” ‘ ’

<blockquote>&ldquo;The quick brown fox&rdquo;</blockquote>
<!-- renders as: "The quick brown fox" -->

Quick Facts

Property	Value
Straight double quote	U+0022 — keyboard `"`
Curly opening double	U+201C "
Curly closing double	U+201D "
German opening mark	U+201E „ (low-9 form)
Guillemets (French)	U+00AB « and U+00BB »
Typographic apostrophe	U+2019 ' (= right single quote)
Japanese quote	U+300C 「 and U+300D 」
HTML left double entity	`“`
HTML right double entity	`”`

Quotation Mark