Halfwidth Left Corner Bracket

It opens a Japanese corner-bracket quote. The matching narrow close is ｣; Japanese writing guidance uses the wide pair 「」 for quoted speech, marked terms, and emphasis.

Conversation marking grew from the ioriten, a mark for sung or chanted lines in jōruri performance scripts. In late Edo and early Meiji print, it merged with an older bracket used for references and emphasis to form modern kagikakko, or Japanese corner brackets. The closing mark’s exact timing is disputed.

A 2025 Unicode proposal describes corner brackets as preferred in horizontal and vertical text in Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, while mainland Chinese practice varies by writing direction. ｢ keeps the same opening-quote role; its distinction is width.

Why does ｢ look narrower than 「?

It is the halfwidth form of the same opening quote.

In the JIS X 0201/Shift JIS character tradition, this punctuation served narrow, fixed-grid text beside Latin characters. Unicode retained the distinction for compatibility. Fonts and layout still affect how narrow it appears.

NFKC converts ｢ to 「. That can help match text, but it removes the width distinction. Preserve the original when fixed-width alignment or exact round-tripping matters.