Top Left Half Bracket

It opens an editorial span; the edition's key defines the claim.

⸢ normally opens the upper half-bracket pair ⸢...⸣ in a scholarly edition. The pair signals an editor's decision about the source text, such as marking damage, partly legible traces, reconstruction, or correction; it is not an ordinary quotation mark.

The pair appears in editions of ancient texts, including cuneiform (an ancient wedge-shaped script) written in transliteration and ancient Egyptian material. Editors also use square brackets, angle brackets, braces, and dots for other interventions. The edition's key tells you what this editorial bracket marks there.

Why does ⸢ vary between editions?

Different editorial traditions assign different claims to the same pair.

Modern editorial practice with half-bracket signs appears in epigraphic and papyrological publications by the late nineteenth century. Epigraphy studies inscriptions; papyrology studies ancient documents written on materials such as papyrus. The Leiden Convention sought a shared system in 1931, but individual editions still define their own marks.

For example, some Egyptian transcriptions use the pair for partial destruction, while an Aramaic/Phoenician digital edition may use it for traces that remain partly legible. Some epigraphic and papyrological editions use it for a mistaken or substituted letter corrected by an editor. Follow the edition's key.

How do I type ⸢?

Use Unicode input for the exact character.

If your editor supports Unicode code-point entry, enter 2E22; the keystrokes depend on the software. The ordinary [ and ] keys insert different characters and do not signal the same editorial intervention.

A font or document template without this specialized glyph may show a missing-character box. If the mark looks like ⌈ or ⌜, verify the character identity before publishing the transcription.