Left Corner Bracket

It begins quoted or set-apart text.

Japanese brackets do more than give characters speaking parts: 「」 can enclose cited wording, article titles, text you should enter, or emphasis. Read the enclosed words in context rather than assuming someone said them aloud. For a quotation inside a quotation, Japanese uses 『』.

How did 「 become a quote mark?

The modern pair evolved through Japanese writing and printing.

Near-modern marks set off quoted or emphasized wording in the eighteenth century. Another strand involved the ioriten, a dialogue-related mark in jōruri scripts for narrated performances. In the early Meiji period of Japanese history, movable-type printing helped these practices converge. A 1906 punctuation draft listed dialogue, quotations, titles, and other set-apart wording.

Why does 「 look different in vertical text?

Vertical layout changes its orientation, not its meaning. Let your typesetting system handle the change. Line-breaking rules also keep 「 with the following text rather than stranded at a line's end.

Chinese conventions change the nesting order too. Taiwan uses 「」 outside and 『』 inside. Mainland guidance uses curved quotation marks horizontally; vertically, it uses 『』 outside and 「」 inside. Match the convention of the document you are editing.