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This use in dialogue is common in Continental European languages, especially Romance languages. I think it's also common in English among writers who were influenced by other European languages?

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Which languages are you talking about? It looks unfamiliar to me.

Here's someone talking about an example in French: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/fr-em-dash-usage.364...

I believe I've also seen it in Spanish and Portuguese.

Brazilian here. That is indeed the standard way dialogue is represented in literature. We call the em-dash a "travessão".

I think Romanian uses that too and it just occurred to me that "linie de dialog" is not dash, but em dash.

IIRC Joyce was a fan.

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