Quotative

Sinhala

In the following English sentence:

John said, "Wow,"

,there is no word indicating that we are dealing with quoted speech. This is only indicated typographically. In Sinhala on the other hand, the equivalent sentence is:

John Wow kiyalaa kivvaa

This sentence has an overt indication of quoted speech after the quoted string Wow, the quotative kiyalaa.

Dutch

In Dutch, the preposition van can be used to introduce direct speech:

Ik zei er van Japie sta still (a line from a children's song). I said, 'Japie [colloquial diminutive of Jaap], stand still.'

Quotative van can be used in combination with a verb of speech, as in the above example, a noun designating something with message-carrying content, or a light verb, e.g. a copula (like for English quotative like).

In the specific colloquial combination zoiets hebben van (literally, "have something suchlike of"), the subsequent quoted speech conveys a (possibly unspoken) feeling:

De ouders hadden zoiets van laten we het maar proberen, wie weet lukt het. The parents were like, let's try it, who knows it will work.

English

In English colloquial speech, forms of the verb be like are used as a quotative:

He was like, 'You'll love it.'  And I was like, 'You can't be serious!'

In speech, the word like in this use is typically followed by a brief pause, indicated here with a comma. This quotative construction is particularly common for introducing direct speech indicating someone's attitude.

Japanese

In Japanese, the quotative と [to] is used to indicate direct speech in this sentence:

The following example shows the preservation of both grammatical person and the tense in a quoted utterance using the quotative particle:

See Japanese grammar for more examples of when と (to) is used.

Georgian

Georgian marks quoted speech with one of two suffixes depending on the grammatical person of who made the original utterance, -მეთქი for the first person and -ო for the second and third person.

The following sentences show the use of the first person and non-first person quotative particles respectively. Note the preservation of both the person and tense of the original utterances:

Second and third person quotative

Note that this second sentence omits an overt verbum dicendi since the original speaker is already known, and context makes it clear that the speaker was the original addressee.

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek can mark quoted speech in prose with the subordinating conjunction ὅτι:

Turkish

In Turkish, direct speech is marked by following it by a form of the verb demek ("to say"), as in

'Hastayım' dedi. 'I am ill', he said.

In particular, the word diye (literally "saying"), a participle of demek, is used to mark quoted speech when another verb of utterance than demek is needed:

'Hastayım mı?' diye sordu. 'Am I ill?', he asked.

In contrast, indirect speech uses the opposite order. The reported utterance is preceded by the verb of utterance and introduced by the conjunctive particle ki, comparable to English "that":

Dedi ki hastaydı. He said that he was ill.

Sanskrit

In Sanskrit, the quotative marker iti is used to convey the meaning of someone (or something) having said something. The word iti is widely believed to be borrowed from the existing Dravidian language of the Indian Subcontinent when the Indo-Aryans arrived.

Telugu

In Telugu, traditionally the words andi (for female and neuter singular), meaning she said that or it said, annāḍu (for male singular), meaning he said that and annāru (for plural), meaning They said are used as quotative markers. However, in recent times, many Telugu speakers are resorting to use the Latin quotation marks ("...") to convey speech.

For Example,
తను ఇంటికి వెళదాము అన్నాడు (tanu iṃṭiki veḻadāmu annāḍu)
means, He said that we will go to home, literally, He Said, "We'll go home".