Question marks

[LIGIA_MURILLO]

I was wondering, Why in English language and some other languages, there
's only one question mark at the end of a sentence?.
In Spanish language we use the question mark in the beggining and at the end too...
eg. En How are you?

Sp ¿Cómo estás?

je, Is this a silly question?

Thanks!


Ligia M.

[Hi_there_Carl]

I think Spanish is the only western language where there is a question mark also at the beginning of a question... This is just the way the language evolved I guess.

[LIGIA_MURILLO]

Hello Carl, could it be this?
I think we add a question mark at the beggining because sometimes that's the only way to create an emphasis when asking something.

Eg.

Hola, estoy harto Affirmative

Hola, ¿estoy harto? Question

Can you see the difference? I don't, the only difference is the question mark. In English you need to change the order to create a question:

Hello, I am fed up. Affirmative

Hello, Am I fed up?. Question

The subject at the beggining will 'act' like the question mark.... Do you think that could be the reason?,

Sorry, like Albert Einstein said: 'I am only passionately curious'.

Thanks Carl.

Ligia

[Soup]

Try here:

Straight Dope Staff Report: What's the origin of the question mark?

[apex2000]

Interesting question, and I note that you are just curious. For the reason Spanish uses an inverted question mark perhaps you would be better answered in Spain.

We have no need to place any emphasis at the beginning of a question. And although the question can be posed in a number of different ways this does not influence how we use the punctuation.
Simply put, a question is a question; hence a question mark.

[LIGIA_MURILLO]

All right apex2000, thanks for your time : )

[LIGIA_MURILLO]

Wow Soup, that was an interesting link, thanks for your help, now I think I'm satisfied with that and all the other links

Thanks to all!.