Inverted Question Mark

Commonly referred to as the inverted question mark, this punctuation mark serves as an opening delimiter for interrogative sentences. It is categorized within the Latin 1 Supplement block as Other Punctuation and functions as a silent grammatical marker rather than a voiced sound. By appearing at the start of a query, it signals the rising intonation of a question before the reader reaches the end of the phrase.

Practical applications for this symbol are found primarily in Spanish-language typography and orthography, where it is mandatory to pair it with a standard question mark. You will frequently see it used in literature, formal correspondence, and social media posts to frame inquiries correctly. Outside of linguistics, it occasionally appears in creative branding or as a placeholder character in computer programming and data encoding when certain scripts are not properly recognized.