Guillemets also called angle quotes, are line segments, pointed as if arrows (« or »), sometimes forming a complementary set of punctuation marks used as a form of quotation mark

Quotation mark

Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...

.

The symbol at either end – double « and » or single ‹ and › – is a guillemet. They are used in a number of languages to indicate speech. They resemble (but are not the same as) the symbols for lesser than, greater than (for the single <), and for left and right bit shifts in some programming language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

s, as well as rewind and fast forward

Fast forward

To fast-forward means to move forward through a recording at a speed faster than that at which it would usually be played. The recordings are usually audio, video, or computer data...

 on various media players, such as VCRs, DVD players and MP3 players.

Etymology

The word is a diminutive

Diminutive

In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...

 of the French name Guillaume (the equivalent of which in English is William), after the French printer and punchcutter Guillaume Le Bé

Guillaume Le Bé

Guillaume Le Bé was a French punch cutter and engraver who specialised in Hebrew typefaces.He was born in Troyes to a notable family of paper merchants and apprenticed to Robert Estienne in Paris. After completing his apprenticeship, he was active in Venice from c...

 (1525–1598). Some languages derive their word for guillemets analogously; for example, the Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 term is Liamóg, from Liam 'William' and a diminutive suffix.

Uses

Used pointing outwards («like this») to indicate speech in these languages and regions:

• Albanian
  Albanian language
  Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
  
  
• Arabic
  Arabic language
  Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
  
  
• Armenian
  Armenian language
  The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
  
  
• Belarusian
  Belarusian language
  The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
  
  
• Breton
  Breton language
  Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
  
  
• Bulgarian
  Bulgarian language
  Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
  
   (rarely used, „...“ is official, but "..." prevails)
• Catalan
  Catalan language
  Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
  
  
• Chinese
  Chinese language
  The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
  
   (《 and 》 are used to indicate a book or album title)
• Estonian
  Estonian language
  Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
  
  
• Franco-Provençal
  Franco-Provençal language
  Franco-Provençal , Arpitan, or Romand is a Romance language with several distinct dialects that form a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue d'Oïl and Langue d'Oc. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G.I...
  
  
• French
  French language
  French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
  
   (separated by non-breaking space
  Non-breaking space
  In computer-based text processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space or no-break space is a variant of the space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In certain formats , it also prevents the “collapsing” of multiple consecutive whitespace characters into a...
  
  s « like this », except in Switzerland)
• Galician
  Galician language
  Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
  
  
• Greek
  Greek language
  Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
  
  
• Italian
  Italian language
  Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
  
  
• Khmer
  Khmer script
  The Khmer script is an alphasyllabary script used to write the Khmer language . It is also used to write Pali among the Buddhist liturgy of Cambodia and Thailand....
  
   (Cambodian)
• North Korean
  Korean language
  Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
  
   (in South Korea " is used)
• Latvian
  Latvian language
  Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
  
  
• Lithuanian
  Lithuanian language
  Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
  
  
• Norwegian
  Norwegian language
  Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
  
  
• Persian
  Persian language
  Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
  
  
• Polish
  Polish language
  Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
  
   usually to indicate a quote inside a quote
• Portuguese
  Portuguese language
  Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
  
   (European; now largely replaced by quotation marks)
• Romanian
  Romanian language
  Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
  
  , only to indicate a quotation within a quotation
• Russian
  Russian language
  Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
  
  , and some languages of the former Soviet Union
  Soviet Union
  The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
  
   using Cyrillic
  Cyrillic alphabet
  The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
  
   script
• Spanish
  Spanish language
  Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
  
   (although their use is uncommon outside Spain)
• Swiss languages
• Turkish
  Turkish language
  Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
  
  
• Ukrainian
  Ukrainian language
  Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
  
  
• Vietnamese
  Vietnamese language
  Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
  
  

Used pointing inwards (»like this«) to indicate speech in these languages:

• Croatian
  Croatian language
  Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
  
   (rarely used, „...“ is official, but "..." prevails)
• Czech
  Czech language
  Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
  
   (marked usage, „...“ prevails)
• Danish
  Danish language
  Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
  
   („...“ is also used)
• German
  German language
  German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
  
   (Except in Switzerland. „...“ is more commonly used)
• Hungarian
  Hungarian language
  Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
  
   (only as a secondary quote, inside a section already marked by the usual quotes)
• Serbian
  Serbian language
  Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
  
   (marked usage, „...“ prevails)
• Slovak
  Slovak language
  Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
  
   (marked usage, „...“ prevails)
• Slovene (used alternatively to „...“ and "...")
• Swedish
  Swedish language
  Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
  
   (rarely used; "..." prevails)

Used pointing right (»like this») to indicate speech in these languages:

• Finnish
  Finnish language
  Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
  
  

Direction

A guillemet is sometimes used to indicate direction, for example:

• fast forward button on a media player, or fast rewind indicated by the complementary guillemet
• a chevron on road signage to show road direction, or multiple chevrons pointing in the same direction for emphasis
• as an alternative to an ellipsis in a document, for example to indicate additional content. The guillemet is balanced in the spine height of the line for most fonts, so it is more visible than an ellipsis.

Programming languages

The Perl 6

Perl 6

Perl 6 is a major revision to the Perl programming language. It is still in development, as a specification from which several interpreter and compiler implementations are being written. It is introducing elements of many modern and historical languages. Perl 6 is intended to have many...

 programming language uses « » and < > to combine quoting and subscripting. %table<name> has the same meaning as %table{'name'}, and %table«name» has the same meaning as %table{"name"}.

In the RPL programming language, guillemets are used to demarcate the beginning and end of a program block.

In user Interface such as button in software development environments

The 'buttons' that you see in most user interfaces in software development environment such as VB, Visual Studio, MS Access etc carry these symbols sometimes singly (> or <) and more often doubly together with "Next" or "Previous" as in {Next>>) or (<

Typing "«" and "»" on computers

Windows users can create the guillemet "«" by holding Alt + 0171 or Alt + 7598 or Alt + 174 or Alt + 686 and "»" by holding Alt + 0187 or Alt + 7599 or Alt + 175 or Alt + 687. With a US International Keyboard Alt Gr + [ and Alt Gr + ] can also be used. The characters are standard on French Canadian

French Canadian

French Canadian or Francophone Canadian, , generally refers to the descendents of French colonists who arrived in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries...

 keyboards and some others.

Macintosh users can type "«" as Option-Backslash and "»" as Option-Shift-Backslash. (This applies to all English-language keyboard layouts supplied with the operating system, e.g. "Australian", "British", "Canadian", "Irish", "Irish Extended", "U.S." and "U.S. Extended". Other language layouts may differ.)

For users of Unix-like

Unix-like

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....

 operating systems running the X Window System

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

, creation of the guillemet depends on a number of factors including the keyboard layout

Keyboard layout

A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key–meaning associations of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard....

 that is in effect. For example, with US International Keyboard layout selected a user would type Alt Gr + [ for "«" and Alt Gr + "]" for "»". On some configurations they can be written by typing "«" as Alt Gr + z and "»" as Alt Gr + x. With the compose key, press Compose + < + < and Compose + > + >. Additionally with the ibus input method framework enabled, users may enter these characters into those applications that accept it by using Ctrl + Shift + U followed by their unicode codepoints: either AB or BB, respectively.

On computers, operating systems, or keyboards without support for guillemets, these characters are sometimes produced with double inequality characters (<< or >>) or double chevrons (〈〈 or 〉〉).

Unicode

In Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

, the characters are encoded at and at . Despite their names, the characters are mirrored when used in right-to-left contexts.

UML

Guillemets are used in Unified Modeling Language

Unified Modeling Language

Unified Modeling Language is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of object-oriented software engineering. The standard is managed, and was created, by the Object Management Group...

 to indicate a stereotype of a standard element.

Mail merge

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...

 uses guillemets when creating mail merge

Mail merge

Mail merge is a software function which allows to create multiple documents from a single template form and a structured data source.-History:This technique of merging data to create gave rise to the term mail merge....

s. Microsoft use these punctuation marks to denote a mail merge "field", such as «Title», «AddressBlock» or «GreetingLine». Then on the final printout, the guillemet-marked tags are replaced by the corresponding data outlined for that field by the user.

Guillemet vs. guillemot

In Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...

 font software, its file format specifications, and in all fonts derived from these that contain the characters, the word is incorrectly spelled ‘guillemot’ (a malapropism

Malapropism

A malapropism is an act of misusing or the habitual misuse of similar sounding words, especially with humorous results. An example is Yogi Berra's statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes".-Etymology:...

: guillemot

Guillemot

Guillemots is the common name for several species of seabird in the auk family . In British use, the term comprises two genera: Uria and Cepphus. In North America the Uria species are called "murres" and only the Cepphus species are called "guillemots"...

 is actually a species of seabird) in the names of the two glyphs: guillemotleft and guillemotright. Adobe acknowledges the error.

Likewise, X11

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

 mistakenly calls them ‘XK_guillemotleft’ and ‘XK_guillemotright’ in the file keysymdef.h.

See also

• Bracket
  Bracket
  Brackets are tall punctuation marks used in matched pairs within text, to set apart or interject other text. In the United States, "bracket" usually refers specifically to the "square" or "box" type.-List of types:...
  
  
• Chevron
• Keyboard (computing)
  Keyboard (computing)
  In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...
  
  
• Quotation mark
  Quotation mark
  Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...
  
  

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.