# ¡Ay, caramba! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 3, 2007, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623 "2007-05-03T15:56:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/1 "2007-05-03T15:56:59Z")
¿Why does Spanish require upside-down question marks and exclamation points at the beginnings of questions and exclamations? ¡It seems rather redundant! ---
**Author:** ![ChicanoRojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@ChicanoRojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChicanoRojo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/2 "2007-05-03T16:13:42Z")
[QUOTE=friedo] ¿Why does Spanish require upside-down question marks and exclamation points at the beginnings of questions and exclamations? ¡It seems rather redundant! [/QUOTE] As per [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_question_mark_and_exclamation_point_in_Spanish) : > [@](#): > > The inverted question mark was not adopted until long after the decision of the Real Academia in the second edition of La Ortografía de la Real Academia (1754) to recommend it as the symbol indicating the beginning of a question in written Spanish —¿Cuántos años tienes? (“How old are you?”). The Real Academia also ordered the same system for statements of exclamation using the symbols ‘¡’ and ‘!’. > > […] > > It did finally become standard usage, most likely due to its practicality given that Spanish syntax in many cases does not help the reader determine at what moment a sentence in progress is a question. For example, without any punctuation to indicate if they are questions or not, the sentences ¿Hablas bien el español? (“Do you speak Spanish well?”) and Hablas bien el español (“You speak Spanish well”) are identical in writing. With longer sentences, using the punctuation indicates that a question has started. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/3 "2007-05-03T16:23:50Z")
Still seems superfluous. The sentence “Hablas bien el español” becomes a question when the question mark is added at the end… just as a declarative sentence in English does. Did the Spanish want to distinguish themselves from English in this way (sore about the Spanish Armada’s fate, maybe)? ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/4 "2007-05-03T16:43:55Z")
Yes/no questions are distinguishable from their affirmations only by the question mark. When you are reading a long sentence/question, finding the question mark at the end of the sentence would force you to backtrack if you guessed wrong. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/5 "2007-05-03T17:03:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes/no questions are distinguishable from their affirmations only by the question mark. > > When you are reading a long sentence/question, finding the question mark at the end of the sentence would force you to backtrack if you guessed wrong. Yeah, but that’s frequently true in English as well. They’re free to do whatever they want with their own language, of course, and it is kinda neat to have an indicator that “A Questio is coming”, but English, French, German, Italian, and other languages have gotten along perfectly well without one, which indicates that it isn’t necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/6 "2007-05-03T17:03:36Z")
It’s superfluous in determining whether the sentence is a question at all, but there are times when it’s quite helpful to know if it’s a question at its beginning, such as with very long sentences or when reading aloud. Sometimes I wish English had this convention. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/7 "2007-05-03T17:08:49Z")
As most of us know, “rules” of language, even if decreed by some formal board, are more descriptive than prescriptive. As such, they describe the way the language is used. For the most part, the inverted punctuation marks at the beginning of a sentence are a help to the reader, as well as the writer, and so they’re there because they help us read and write and communicate. Anything that helps get a meaning across, even some sort of what you call a redundancy, is a benefit. In English writing, there are many redundancies that amplify or emphasize an idea, right? (Isn’t that one?). Redundancy alone does not disqualify the legitimacy of a figure of speech or writing automatically. If you read enough Spanish, you’ll see how instrumental these marks are in conveying meaning. xo, C. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/8 "2007-05-03T17:11:28Z")
Or, are you just playing with a new feature of your computer that allows you to do that? If so, it reminds me of a Peanuts strip of many years ago in which Lucy gets a note that reads: “Dear? Lucy? Today? in? class? we? learned? how? to? make? question? marks? From? Charlie? Brown?” ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/9 "2007-05-03T17:22:11Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Yeah, but that’s frequently true in English as well. They’re free to do whatever they want with their own language, of course, and it is kinda neat to have an indicator that “A Questio is coming”, but English, French, German, Italian, and other languages have gotten along perfectly well without one, which indicates that it isn’t necessary. [/QUOTE] It helps in Spanish though because you don’t always change the order of words when you form a question. Spanish: “¿Lees muchos libros?” vs “Lees muchos libros.” English: “Do you read a lot of books?” vs “You read a lot of books.” German: “Liest Du viele Bücher?” vs “Du liest viele Bücher.” You’ll see that the two Spanish sentences are identical other than punctuation. The ¿ tells you it’s a question right off the bat, the same way that the verb coming first does in English and German. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/10 "2007-05-03T17:38:50Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] … and it is kinda neat to have an indicator that “A Questio[n] is coming”, but English, French, German, Italian, and other languages have gotten along perfectly well without one, which indicates that it isn’t necessary. [/QUOTE] True, but English does have the apostrophe to tell you when an “s” is coming. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![ChicanoRojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@ChicanoRojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChicanoRojo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/11 "2007-05-03T18:23:58Z")
[QUOTE=Bambi Hassenpfeffer] The ¿ tells you it’s a question right off the bat, the same way that the verb coming first does in English and German. [/QUOTE] And that’s basically it. It may not sound “correct” or “logical” for native English-speakers, but for us (counting myself as a person who learned Spanish first), it’s very logical and helpful. Of course, it’s a pain in the butt when writing Spanish in an English-based QWERTY key board. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/12 "2007-05-03T18:51:01Z")
[QUOTE=ChicanoRojo] And that’s basically it. It may not sound “correct” or “logical” for native English-speakers, but for us (counting myself as a person who learned Spanish first), it’s very logical and helpful. Of course, it’s a pain in the butt when writing Spanish in an English-based QWERTY key board. 😃 [/QUOTE] Look into using the US-International layout. It’s a setting in Windows that makes your keyboard easier to use for ¿tÿÞiñg? ¡ðíäçrìtîcs! ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/13 "2007-05-03T18:57:53Z")
There are many such things in different language, that make little or no sense to one who’s not native. In English I’m forced to remind myself that languages, nationalities, months and weekdays should be capitalized, something not done in Swedish. In German, all nouns are capitalized and I think they write their quotation marks ,like this." ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/14 "2007-05-03T19:25:50Z")
I once knew a professor of German who would react to students having trouble forming questions properly by suggesting they try an unnamed language “for people so dumb they have to put question marks at the beginning of their sentences.” Never did like him. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/15 "2007-05-03T20:10:30Z")
> [@Elendil's Heir](#): > > Still seems superfluous. Not really. You have to know a question is a question from the start, or you’ll say it all wrong. Imagine if someone talked to you like this: “You know, I never tried pesto until just last week at the Italian restaurant down the street–and I _love_ it. I can’t believe I’ve been missing out. Do you like pesto. You do like pesto, right.” Wouldn’t that throw you off? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/16 "2007-05-03T20:16:33Z")
A little, maybe. But spoken questions in American English, anyway, usually are marked by a rise in the speaker’s voice at the end of the sentence. That, along with content and context, are more than sufficient to tell you you’re being asked a question. And in writing, you can just see the question mark at the end of the sentence, a second or two after you begin reading it, just as you would in Spanish if there weren’t one at the beginning. I’m not saying Spanish is _wrong_. How could it be? I studied it in high school, and it is what it is. It just seems redundant to me to have a question mark at the beginning and end of a sentence. ---
**Author:** ![ChicanoRojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@ChicanoRojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChicanoRojo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/17 "2007-05-03T20:24:49Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir] And in writing, you can just see the question mark at the end of the sentence, a second or two after you begin reading it, just as you would in Spanish if there weren’t one at the beginning. [/quote] Again. Look at the examples given. In Spanish, in long sentences, it is very helpful. Sure. Por que no? and ¿Por que no? Seems superfluous. But once you get into longer sentences, at least for my Spanish-reading eyes, makes sense. I am not sure how much Spanish you use now, but as a native speaker and one who still uses Spanish, the use at both ends helps my reading. And vice versa. In English, there are some things that seem superfluous to native-Spanish speakers, but are logical w/i the structure of the language. > [@](#): > > It just seems redundant to me to have a question mark at the beginning and end of a sentence. And in the end. There is a reasonable explanation. But. Human language being the way it is, we will always have opinions on what’s superfluous. That’s why languages evolve or languages are made up (Esperanto, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/18 "2007-05-03T20:28:44Z")
A Spanish teacher told me that the _signo de apertura de interrogación invertido_ is also used so that, when a sentence is read aloud, the vocal inflection that usually goes along with a question starts early in the sentence. This makes it clear from the beginning that a sentence is a question. Try saying the following sentences in English. Are you going to the store? ¿Are you going to the store? With Spanish questions being worded the same way as declarative sentences, it’s helpful to the listener to vocalize a “question inflection”, for lack of a better phrase, from the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/19 "2007-05-03T21:28:35Z")
> [@Elendil's Heir](#): > > A little, maybe. But spoken questions in American English, anyway, usually are marked by a rise in the speaker’s voice at the end of the sentence. That, along with content and context, are more than sufficient to tell you you’re being asked a question. Exactly–_because the speaker knows it’s a question before they start_. In English, the speaker knows it’s a question because of the word it starts with or other contextual clues. In Spanish, the speaker knows it’s a question because of the question mark at the beginning. If you took either of those away in their respective language, people would misread questions all the time and forget that rise in the speaker’s voice. (Which, BTW, isn’t just at the end–it’s at the beginning too. “What does he want?” and “Whatever he wants.” sound different from the first syllable on.) > [@Elendil's Heir](#): > > And in writing, you can just see the question mark at the end of the sentence, a second or two after you begin reading it If that were your first clue that the sentence were a question, you’d fuck it up when you tried to read it out loud. Or in your head, even. Your first clue is the first word. He thinks **it’s** good. **What** does he think? I’m taking **that car**. **Which car** are you taking? Linguists call this “Wh-movement” (and I-movement, but we won’t get into that) and it’s how English speakers know to start questions with a lilt. Every language has Wh-movement (German) or some equivalent (Spanish). Spanish’s equivalent is double punctuation. If you think that’s redundant, try this one on for size: Old English _required_ double negatives, and using a single negative would have gotten you a funny look. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623/20 "2007-05-04T03:58:59Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir] A little, maybe. But spoken questions in American English, anyway, usually are marked by a rise in the speaker’s voice at the end of the sentence. That, along with content and context, are more than sufficient to tell you you’re being asked a question. [/QUOTE] How you uh, how you comin’ on that novel you’re working on? Got a a big stack of papers there? Got a nice litte story you’re working on there? Your big novel you’ve been working on for 3 years? Huh? Got a, got a compelling protaganist? Yeah? Got an obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Got a story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? Yeah, talking about that 3 years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience, yeah? Nah, you deserve some time off. 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ay-caramba/402623.md?page=2)