For a command I used the argument specifier d<> (which I thought was a good idea), which doesn’t work properly in combination with ‚babel‘ and the language option ‚spanish‘: \documentclass[spanish]{scrartcl} \usepackage{babel} \usepackage{xparse} \NewDocumentCommand \Something { d<> m } { Optional: #1 \\ Mandatory: #2 } \begin{document} \Something<Hello>{World} \end{document} Which gives Optional: -NoValue- Mandatory: ¡Hello¿World instead of Optional: Hello Mandatory: World I know that I can use e.g. \deactivatequoting, but is there a way in ‚xparse‘ (or ‚expl3') so that I can use this construction without worrying about such things? Greetings, Ben