Quotation Mark Symbols Complete Guide

Quotation marks are among the most linguistically varied characters in Unicode. English uses curly double quotes " ", French uses guillemets << >>, German opens with low-9 marks ,, and closes with high marks '', and Japanese uses corner brackets. The ASCII typewriter gave us a single ambiguous character — the straight quote — but Unicode restores the typographic richness that centuries of printing established. This guide catalogs every quotation mark character in Unicode, maps out which languages use which marks, and provides practical guidance for developers working with multilingual text.

Quick Copy-Paste Table

Language-Specific Quotation Conventions

Different languages have deeply entrenched conventions for quotation marks. Using the wrong style in a localized application is a typographic error equivalent to misspelling:

Note: The table above uses ASCII approximations for readability. In actual text, use the proper Unicode characters from the copy-paste table.

French Guillemets

French quotation marks «...» (guillemets) are distinctive because they include a non-breaking space between the guillemet and the quoted text. This is a strict typographic rule in French:

<!-- Correct French quotation -->
<p>Il a dit&nbsp;&laquo;&nbsp;bonjour&nbsp;&raquo;.</p>

<!-- Using CSS for automatic spacing -->
<style>
q:lang(fr) { quotes: "\00AB\00A0" "\00A0\00BB" "\2039\00A0" "\00A0\203A"; }
</style>
<p lang="fr"><q>Bonjour</q></p>

The non-breaking spaces (U+00A0) prevent line breaks between the guillemet and the first/last word of the quotation.

German Low-9 Quotes

German opens with a low quotation mark „ (U+201E) that sits on the baseline, and closes with a standard left double quotation mark " (U+201C) — which looks like the opening mark in English. This is a common source of confusion for developers:

German uses what English considers the "opening" quote as its closing quote.

CJK Corner Brackets

Japanese and Traditional Chinese use corner brackets 「...」 for primary quotation and double corner brackets 『...』 for nested quotation or titles. These characters are full-width and part of the CJK Symbols and Punctuation block (U+3000–U+303F):

<p lang="ja">彼女は「こんにちは」と言った。</p>
<p lang="ja">『源氏物語』は日本の古典文学です。</p>

Straight vs Curly Quotes

The ASCII character set provides only two quote characters: " (U+0022, QUOTATION MARK) and ' (U+0027, APOSTROPHE). These are "straight" or "typewriter" quotes — vertically neutral characters that do not distinguish between opening and closing.

Typographic ("curly" or "smart") quotes distinguish direction:

When to Use Straight Quotes

• Source code: Programming languages use straight quotes as string delimiters. Curly quotes in code will cause syntax errors.
• Data formats: JSON, CSV, XML attributes all require straight quotes.
• URLs: Query parameters and path segments use straight quotes.

When to Use Curly Quotes

• Prose and articles: Published text should always use curly quotes.
• UI labels: App interfaces in natural language should use typographic quotes.
• Email: Professional correspondence benefits from proper quotation marks.

The Apostrophe Problem

The right single quotation mark ' (U+2019) doubles as the typographic apostrophe in English. This dual role creates a well-known problem: in the word "don't", the apostrophe should be U+2019, but many systems insert U+0027 instead. Meanwhile, at the start of abbreviated years like '90s, smart-quote algorithms often incorrectly insert the left single quote ' (U+2018) because they assume any quote after a space is an opening quote.

# Common smart-quote mistake
text = "'90s music"
# Naive algorithm produces: \u2018 90s music (wrong - opening quote)
# Correct result: \u2019 90s music (apostrophe / closing quote)

Unicode Technical Standard #39 and the CLDR project provide locale-aware quotation mark data that helps resolve these ambiguities programmatically.

CSS Quotes Property

CSS provides the quotes property for controlling quotation marks in the <q> element:

/* English */
q:lang(en) { quotes: "\201C" "\201D" "\2018" "\2019"; }

/* French (with non-breaking spaces) */
q:lang(fr) { quotes: "\00AB\00A0" "\00A0\00BB" "\2039\00A0" "\00A0\203A"; }

/* German */
q:lang(de) { quotes: "\201E" "\201C" "\201A" "\2018"; }

/* Japanese */
q:lang(ja) { quotes: "\300C" "\300D" "\300E" "\300F"; }

The <q> element automatically inserts the appropriate quotation marks based on the document's language, making it the semantic choice for inline quotations:

<p lang="en">She said <q>hello</q>.</p>
<p lang="fr">Elle a dit <q>bonjour</q>.</p>
<p lang="de">Sie sagte <q>hallo</q>.</p>

Prime Marks vs Quotation Marks

Another common confusion: prime marks (for feet/inches and minutes/seconds) are distinct from both straight quotes and curly quotes:

The correct way to write measurements is with prime marks: 5′10″ (five feet ten inches), not 5'10" (straight quotes) or 5'10" (curly quotes).

Key Takeaways

• Unicode defines 20+ distinct quotation mark characters covering the typographic traditions of every major language.
• Straight quotes (" ') are for code and data; curly quotes (" " ' ') are for prose.
• Each language has its own quotation convention — French uses «guillemets», German uses „low-9 opening marks", Japanese uses 「corner brackets」.
• The right single quotation mark ' (U+2019) doubles as the apostrophe, creating challenges for smart-quote algorithms in words like 'twas and '90s.
• Use the CSS quotes property with the <q> element for automatic locale-aware quotation marks in HTML.
• Prime marks (′ ″) for measurements are distinct from all quotation mark characters.