What „ means
It marks the start of quoted text. Czech and Slovak also use low-opening quotes. In English prose, follow your publication’s quotation style rather than mixing low and high openings.
Quotation punctuation evolved from marks drawing attention to text in the margins, including the ancient Greek diple, and later comma-shaped printing marks. Printed examples occur in Strasbourg in 1516; that dates the broader tradition, not this exact low-opening form.
Don't confuse it with
3,,
“Two separate commas, not a substitute for the quotation character.
Left Double Quotation Mark
Closes the German pair „…“, despite opening quotations in English.
Single Low-9 Quotation Mark
The single low quotation mark, not the double.
Questions people ask
1Why does „ show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type „
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 201E, then Alt+X to get „.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “double low-9 quotation mark”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 201e, then Enter or Space.
HTML
„CSS
\201EKeyboard
Entry depends on your keyboard layout. Use a character picker if your layout does not provide „.
„ HTML
Write „ in HTML source.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
„
HTML hex
„
CSS content
content: "\201E";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%80%9E
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.