Bengali input methods refer to different systems developed to type the characters of the

Bengali script Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

for

Bengali language Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second most widely spoken o ...

and others, using a typewriter or a computer keyboard.

Fixed computer layouts

With the advent of graphical user interfaces and word processing in the 1980s, a number of computer typing systems for Bengali were created. Most of these were originally based on Apple Macintosh systems.

Shahidlipi

Shahidlipi was the first Bengali keyboard developed for the computer by Saifuddahar Shahid in 1985. It was a

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

based layout on

QWERTY QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden ty ...

for

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

computer. This keyboard was popular until the release of Bijoy keyboard. There were about 182

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

and half part of conjunct characters under Normal, Shift, AltGr, and Shift AltGr layer.

Munier keyboard

Munier keyboard layout comes from a Bengali

typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selective ...

layout named ''Munier-Optima''. In 1965,

Munier Choudhury Munier Choudhury (27 November 192514 December 1971) was a Bangladeshi educationist, playwright, literary critic and political dissident. He was a victim of the mass killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals in 1971. He was awarded Independence Day ...

redesigned the keyboard of Bengali typewriter in collaboration with Remington typewriters of the then East Germany. Munier-Optima was the most used typewriter in Bangladesh. So, many software developers implemented this layout on their keyboard. This layout is optimized for

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

by Ekushey.

Unijoy keyboard

UniJoy keyboard is developed by Ekushey. It is also added to

m17n Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Eur ...

database.

Bangla Jatiyo

Bangla Jatiyo Keyboard (National, bn, জাতীয়) Keyboard layout developed by

Bangladesh Computer Council The Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), is a statutory and autonomous government body located in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that aids in the use of information technology and the formulation of related policy. Bangladesh Computer Council operates a tier ...

, is currently the most popular layout and is addressed as the standard layout.

Bengali Inscript

This

keyboard layout A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. is the actu ...

is designed in order to type all the indic scripts with a uniform layout on computer. This layout is officially accepted by

Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washingt ...

and is provided by default in their

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

. It is also available on

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

, alongside Bengali-Qwerty. This layout is mainly popular in India.

Probhat

] Probhat ( bn, প্রভাত) is a free Unicode-based Bengali fixed layout. wmf:commons:File:KB-Bengali-Probhat.svg, Probhat is included in almost all Linux OS(s). Its key mapping is similar to Phonetic pattern but typing method is fully Fixed.

Bijoy

Bijoy keyboard layout is a

proprietary {{Short pages monitor supported Bangla keyboard of

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million pe ...

. It's still under development.

References

External links

{{Keyboard layouts Bengali language Input methods Indic computing