Kysymysmerkki

Kysymysmerkki, in Finnish kysymysmerkki, is the punctuation mark used to indicate direct questions. It is the Finnish term for the symbol "?" that marks inquiry or uncertainty in written text.

In Finnish writing, the kysymysmerkki is placed at the end of a direct question. Indirect questions do not receive a question mark, for example in subordinate clauses introduced by verbs of thinking or asking. The mark may be combined with an exclamation mark to express strong emotion or surprise, forming "?!" or "!?" in informal style, though many style guides prefer a single punctuation mark in formal writing.

The kysymysmerkki is also used in quotations and titles. When a quoted question is the direct question being reported, the question mark is placed inside the quotation marks; if the overall sentence is a question but the quotation itself is not, the placement follows the surrounding punctuation rules.

Typography and encoding follow general punctuation practices: the symbol is a standard part of the Latin alphabet set and is encoded as question mark in Unicode (U+003F). On Finnish keyboards, it is produced in the same way as in other Latin-script layouts, with no special treatment beyond regular keyboard input.

Etymology-wise, the term kysymysmerkki is a compound of kysymys (question) and merkki (mark), mirroring the common Finnish naming convention for punctuation. The concept is shared with many languages that use a question-mark character, with the Finnish usage aligning with standard punctuation practices for direct questions.