Guillemets

Guillemets are a pair of punctuation marks used to enclose quoted text in many languages. The left guillemet is « and the right one is ». They are also known as angle quotation marks or chevrons and are commonly described as double angle quotation marks in English. In Unicode they appear as U+00AB and U+00BB, with single-angle variants ‹ and › at U+2039 and U+203A. In plain text contexts, people sometimes substitute << and >> when the marks are not available.

Origin and name

The term guillemet comes from the French given name Guillaume (William), in reference to a diminutive form used by early French printers. The marks were adopted in Europe as a distinctive quoting convention and remain standard in many non-English traditions, especially in Europe.

Usage and typography

Guillemets are widely used to enclose quotations in languages such as French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, among others. In French typography, spaces are traditionally placed between the opening guillemet and the first word, and between the last word and the closing guillemet (for example: « Bonjour »). For nested quotations, conventions vary by language and style guide. In English-language typography, guillemets may be used for stylistic effect or to imply non-English text, but standard English quotation marks (’ and “) are more common.

Variations and accessibility

Some languages also employ the single-angle guillemets ‹ and › for specific purposes or nested quotes. When digital encoding or fonts are limited, guillemets may be approximated with ASCII characters (<< and >>). Overall, guillemets serve as a widely recognized typographic method to mark quotations outside the English-speaking world.