Significant little things

Punctuation marks are an integral part of any language. The usual comma can drastically change the meaning of a sentence: it suffices to recall the story from “Execute cannot be pardoned.” And the work of translators and editors assumes that they are freely oriented in at least two punctuation systems.



The idea of ​​this post was born when we discussed the translation of the article. In the original material, the percent sign was separated by a space from the number, and it caught my eye - in the Russian text in this case the space is not used (although, all the same, the statement is controversial - the experts did not reach a common opinion on this issue). Then we decided to talk about it. Specialists of the multilingual localization department interviewed our foreign colleagues and prepared material that we now share with you. We hope it will be useful.

At the beginning and at the end

Let's take a look at how the punctuation marks in the sentence are: dots, commas, colons, semicolons, question marks and exclamation marks.



About the Russian language, we hope everyone remembers - punctuation marks that separate sentences from each other, are put only at the end, and full stop. If you want to add expression (especially in personal correspondence), use a combination of characters - "!!!", "?!" And the like. In English, German, Italian, French Canadian, Arabic and Portuguese Brazilian dots, dots and their "comrades" live by the same rules.

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Other rules in French: inseparable spaces are placed before the colon, semicolon, exclamation, and question marks.



The Spanish language is the only one in our collection, in which punctuation marks frame sentences: at the beginning of the phrase, question and exclamation marks are duplicated in a “slightly” inverted form - “¿” and “¡”.



The most unusual from the point of view of the European approach to punctuation in the Chinese. Their dot looks like。, comma - like ，, exclamation mark -！, and question mark - ？. In the sentence, they behave like Russian brethren, the only difference is that the Chinese do not put spaces, since all the punctuation characters are double-byte. The character typed on the keyboard is twice as wide as any letter of the Latin alphabet. Therefore, punctuation marks usually occupy the same space as a hieroglyph. Those who worked in old IMEs running DOS faced this feature when an incorrectly entered character was removed with two presses of Backspace. Mostly spaces are used when separating words and characters from other languages, such as English.

Cute features

In Russian, either a hyphen or a dash is used. The hyphen is a short one, necessary for transferring and concatenating compound words. The dash is much longer; it serves to separate semantic parts: different sentences, two parts of the same sentence, in dialogs, etc. Recall all the subtleties of the use of these signs can be, looking at the textbook of the Russian language.



On similar terms, hyphens and dashes exist in English, German, French and Portuguese Brazilian languages. In this case, in the American English dash is separated from two sides by spaces, and in British there is usually no:

This month is where the lecture will be. (American English)



The zoo had a great many cats — lions, panthers, tigers, jaguars and cheetahs — which made it a great choice. (British English)

In Spanish, Italian, and Arabic, hyphens and dashes look the same: "-". The Chinese do not use hyphens at all - they have only a dash. Although adjacent to the letters of the Latin alphabet can stand and hyphens, and long and medium dashes. The hyphen is a short one, necessary for transferring and concatenating compound words. The dash is much longer; it serves to separate semantic parts

Languages	Hyphen	Long dash (Alt 0151)
Russian	Yes, to transfer and concatenate compound words	Yes, for the separation of semantic parts: different sentences, two parts of one sentence, in dialogs, etc.
English american	Yes, to transfer and concatenate compound words	Yes, for the separation of semantic parts: different sentences, two parts of one sentence, in dialogs, etc.
English British	Yes, to transfer and concatenate compound words	Yes, for the separation of semantic parts: different sentences, two parts of one sentence, in dialogs, etc. Not separated by spaces on both sides.
Deutsch	Yes, to transfer and concatenate compound words	Yes, for the separation of semantic parts: different sentences, two parts of one sentence, in dialogs, etc.
French	Yes, to transfer and concatenate compound words	Yes, for the separation of semantic parts: different sentences, two parts of one sentence, in dialogs, etc.
French canadian	Yes, to transfer and concatenate compound words	Yes, for the separation of semantic parts: different sentences, two parts of one sentence, in dialogs, etc.
Spanish	Yes, in all cases	-
Portuguese Brazilian	Yes, to transfer and concatenate compound words	Yes, for the separation of semantic parts: different sentences, two parts of one sentence, in dialogs, etc.
Italian	Yes, in all cases	-
Arab	Yes, in all cases	-
Chinese	Only next to letters from the Latin alphabet	Yes, in all cases

Pair of letters

Quotes exist in all languages, but look like national costumes in different ways. In Russian there live both traditional “Christmas trees”, which came from French, and German “legs”, which are used in phrases inside quotation marks and by handwriting. In Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian, Italian, and Arabic, “double” quotes are put.



The English use 'single' and “double” quotes: the first - for the designation of headings, the second - when quoting. Dots and commas are inside quotes. The French text is inhabited by “Christmas trees”, with one difference from the Russian one: an unbreakable space is placed between the beginning of the quoted text and the open quote, as well as between the end of the phrase and the closing quote.



In Chinese, there are three types of quotes that serve different purposes. Here in 《such conclude the names of books, films and other copyright works. For all other cases, the Chinese use 「such」. Quotes from the European tradition (be it Christmas trees, feet, single or double) can be found only in translation or in the vicinity of phrases from European languages. In traditional Chinese, they have not gained popularity.



Quotes exist in all languages, but look like national costumes in different ways.

Languages	"..."	"..."	“...”	'...'	《...》	「...」
Russian	Standard, dots and commas outside	Alternative in a phrase inside quotes and by handwriting	Alternative by handwriting	-	-	-
English American	-	-	Quoting standard, periods and commas inside	Standard for headlines	-	-
English British	-	-	Quoting standard, periods and commas inside	Standard for headlines	-	-
Deutsch	-	Standard	-	-	-	-
French	Standard, non-breaking space before opening and closing quotes	-	-	-	-	-
Spanish	-	-	Standard	-	-	-
Portuguese Brazilian	-	-	Standard	-	-	-
Italian	-	-	Standard	-	-	-
Arab	-	-	Standard	-	-	-
Chinese	Only in translations or in the vicinity of phrases from European languages	Only in translations or in the vicinity of phrases from European languages	Only in translations or in the vicinity of phrases from European languages	Only in translations or in the vicinity of phrases from European languages	Standard for titles of books, films and other copyright works	Standard for the remaining cases

Symbolism

Percentages and ppm are also not very standard. In German, French and Spanish, these signs must be separated by non-breaking spaces. And in Russian, English, Italian, Arabic and Portuguese Brazilian write immediately after the number. Although with the Russian, as we remember, the situation is ambiguous.



Degrees and inches are usually located after the number without any spaces.



An interesting fact: when the French write large numbers, they separate the blocks of three digits with spaces - for example: 987 654 321.12.



The Chinese have their own symbols for designating degrees (度) and percent (百分比 and 百分之). However, the familiar ° and% without spaces before them are used along with them.

Set the dialogue

The design of the dialogs also varies from language to language. In Russian before each remark we put a long dash. Portuguese Brazilian carriers do the same.



In English, “double” and 'single' quotes are used, for example:

'Here is a million pounds,' said Marina, handing Simon a suitcase.



Marina continued: "I spoke with him and he said,"

In German, dialogues are also drawn up with the help of traditional quotes - "paws". The French put "Christmas trees", as well as short dashes in cases where the author of the replica changes. Parts of the dialogue are repulsed with short dashes in Spanish.



In Italian and Arabic, double direct quotes are used for dialogs.



The Chinese usually put in their dialogs only 「quotes or their English“ analogue ”.

Big or small

In English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian and Italian, everything is simple and familiar for native Russian speakers - uppercase letters are used at the beginning of sentences, for abbreviations and proper names.



German is much more fun. Nouns, names and names, a polite form of address (Sie) in all case forms (Ihr, Ihre, Ihrer, Ihres, Ihrem, Ihren) are written with a capital letter. An uppercase letter is given to adjectives, participles and infinitives, which are used in the sentence as nouns in conjunction with a definite (das Gute) or indefinite (ein Lächeln) article, a preposition (in Blau), a pronoun (dein Stottern), a numeral (nichts Aufregendes) or adjective in inclined form (lautes Sprechen). Just :-)



The Arabic alphabet does not distinguish between lowercase and uppercase, but most of the letters have two, three or four different spellings: for the beginning, the middle and the end of a word, and sometimes for a single letter outside the word. A similar situation exists in the Chinese language - it is unlikely to be able to identify lowercase or uppercase hieroglyphs. And if Chinese authors need to highlight some part of the text, then it is underlined or used in bold.

Bonus

It's funny that many of the speakers of European languages ​​that we interviewed indicated that they use capital letters according to the same rules that exist in English, but not in such numbers. One of the interviewed colleagues formulated it like this:

WE TRY NOT TO CAPITALIZE TOO MUCH.

I wonder what that would mean? ;-)



Material from the blog Translate .



PS Our blog has already been a post of 57ded authorship, which may be of interest to those who have read this far.