Why does the Spanish written language use upside down question marks at the start of question sentences?

lanfranco

This practice was adopted in the 18th century (although it took a while to catch on), partly because Spanish syntax doesn't always indicate clearly whether a sentence is a question. The inverted question mark helped address this ambiguity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_question_mark_and_exclamation_point_in_Spanish Feb 28 07, 8:15 AM

jdfeag

This is mainly done so the reader knows that the following sentence is a question and should change the pitch throughout the sentence. Another reason is that in Spanish they occasionally don't change the order of the words in a statement or a question (if that makes sense). Feb 28 07, 9:15 AM

queproblema

Because it's so sensible! It's placed at the beginning of the question, not necessarily the beginning of the sentence. In "That's a new hat, isn't it?" the inverted question mark would come just before "isn't." The First American recommended it for English. Scroll down about half way. http://boston1775.blogspot.com/search/label/Benjamin%20Franklin If Wikipedia is correct, Franklin was right on the cutting edge. I had thought the usage was older. Feb 28 07, 9:35 AM