QWERTZ keyboard layout
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The QWERTZ or QWERTZU
keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mu ...
is a
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 selectivel ...
and
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 actua ...
widely used in
Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...
. The name comes from the first six letters at the top left of the keyboard: ( ).


Overview

The main difference between QWERTZ and
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 ...
is that the positions of the and keys are switched (hence the nickname "kezboard"). This change was made for three major reasons: * is a much more common letter than in German; the latter rarely appears outside words whose spellings reflect either their
importation An import is the receiving country in an export from the sending country. Importation and exportation are the defining financial transactions of international trade. In international trade, the importation and exportation of goods are limited ...
from a foreign language or the
Hellenization Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in the ...
of an older German form under the
influence Influence or influencer may refer to: *Social influence, in social psychology, influence in interpersonal relationships ** Minority influence, when the minority affect the behavior or beliefs of the majority *Influencer marketing, through individ ...
of
Ludwig I of Bavaria en, Louis Charles Augustus , image = Joseph Karl Stieler - King Ludwig I in his Coronation Robes - WGA21796.jpg , caption = Portrait by Joseph Stieler, 1825 , succession=King of Bavaria , reign = , coronation ...
. * and often appear next to each other in the
German orthography German orthography is the orthography used in writing the German language, which is largely phonemic. However, it shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of al ...
, and typewriter jamming would be reduced by placing the two keys so they could be typed with separate hands. * and are also next to each other. , meaning "to" in German, and also a very common prefix can also be written very easily. Similar to many other non-English keyboards: * Part of the keyboard is adapted to include language-specific characters, e.g. umlauted vowels (''ä'', ''ö'', ''ü'') in German and Austrian keyboards. * QWERTZ keyboards usually change the right key into an key to access a third level of key assignments. This is necessary because the language-specific characters leave no room to have all the special symbols of
ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
, needed by programmers among others, available on the first or second (shifted) levels without unduly increasing the size of the keyboard. * The placements of some special symbols are changed when compared to the English (UK and US) versions of QWERTY. Some of the special key inscriptions are often changed from an abbreviation to a graphical symbol (for example becomes a hollow arrow pointing up, becomes a left-pointing arrow). In German and Austrian keyboards, most of the other abbreviated labels are in German: (control) is
translated Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...
to its German equivalent "Strg" for ', and is abbreviated "Entf" ('). and on the
numeric keypad A numeric keypad, number pad, numpad, or ten key, is the palm-sized, usually-17-key section of a standard computer keyboard, usually on the far right. It provides calculator-style efficiency for entering numbers. The idea of a 10-key nu ...
are not translated, however. (See: Key labels)


Variants

The QWERTZ layout is fairly widely used in Germany and in the majority of
Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...
an and
Balkan The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
countries that use the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
. Many German-speaking regions use this layout, but the German-speaking
East Cantons Eupen-Malmedy is a small, predominantly German-speaking region in eastern Belgium. It consists of three administrative cantons around the towns of Eupen, Malmedy, and Sankt Vith which encompass some . Elsewhere in Belgium, the region is common ...
of Belgium use the
AZERTY AZERTY () is a specific layout for the characters of the Latin alphabet on typewriter keys and computer keyboards. The layout takes its name from the first six letters to appear on the first row of alphabetical keys; that is, ( ). Similar t ...
instead. Many of the other countries were historically a part of
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
or under the influence of Nazi German occupation (and its underlying culture and technology), so they used German typewriters with the QWERTZ layout.


Albanian

QWERTZ is the default keyboard layout for the
Albanian language Albanian ( endonym: or ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is spoken by the Albanians in the Balkans and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Eur ...
in
Microsoft 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 ...
.


Austria and Germany

The PC keyboard layout commonly used in
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
and
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
is based on one defined in a former edition (October 1988) of the German standard
DIN DIN or Din or din may refer to: People and language * Din (name), people with the name * Dīn, an Arabic word with three general senses: judgment, custom, and religion from which the name originates * Dinka language (ISO 639 code: din), spoken by ...
2137-2. The current edition DIN 2137:2012-06 standardizes it as the first (basic) one of three layouts, calling it “T1” (', or “keyboard layout 1”). It employs
dead key A dead key is a special kind of modifier key on a mechanical typewriter, or computer keyboard, that is typically used to attach a specific diacritic to a base letter. The dead key does not generate a (complete) character by itself, but modifies t ...
s to type accented characters like “é”, and the key to access characters in the
third level Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...
(e.g. “ , “, “@”, the
euro sign The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...
“€”, or the micro- “µ”). The “T2” layout as specified in the 2012 edition of the German standard also uses the
group selection Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene. Early authors such as V. C. Wynne-Edwards and Konrad Lorenz argued that the behavi ...
to access special characters like the
long s The long s , also known as the medial s or initial s, is an archaic form of the lowercase letter . It replaced the single ''s'', or one or both of the letters ''s'' in a 'double ''s sequence (e.g., "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness" and "po ...
, or foreign characters like “ Æ” or “ Ə”.


Sorbian

Sorbian QWERTZ is practically identical to the German layout, but the additional Sorbian characters can be entered with dead keys; it has three different layouts: Standard, Legacy, and Extended. All are supported by Microsoft Windows (Windows 7 and later only).


Czech

The QWERTZ keyboard layout is commonly used in the
Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
, but the
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 ...
variant is an unofficial option. The characters from the American keyboard (@#$&\, []<>^`~*) and some other characters and diacritic, diacritic signs (÷פ€ßĐ𣳰˘˝·˛¸) that are missing on the Czech mechanical typewriter keyboard can be accessed with the AltGr key. The layout on the picture is supported by Microsoft Windows. The QWERTZ layout is more efficient for Czech, as the Z letter is slightly more common than the Y letter, but only 4% more efficient than QWERTY. An internet poll in 2013 stated that 56% of Czech users used QWERTZ and 44% used QWERTY, but in 2020 57% of Czech users used QWERTY and 43% used QWERTZ.


Hungary

On some keyboards, the "" key is located to the left of the Enter key, while on others it is placed to the left of the backspace key (see the two pictures on the right). An unusual feature of this Hungarian keyboard layout is the position of the 0 (zero): it is located to the left of the 1, so that most of the accented characters can be together on the right side of the keyboard. The official layout is of type QWERTZ, which is therefore the most widely used keyboard layout in the country.
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 ...
used to be widespread due to there not being a dedicated Hungarian layout commonly available for older computers, but since this is no longer an issue, virtually everyone uses QWERTZ in everyday computing. On " ISO" keyboards (as in the first picture) and "BAE" keyboards (as in the second), the key is positioned on the key to the right of the left key. To adapt to 101/104-key (ANSI) keyboards which do not have that key, the MS Windows QWERTY layout has put the Í on the usual key for the 0 (zero) while the 0 has been moved to that key's tertiary () layer; on Macintosh computers, both layouts (QWERTY and QWERTZ) have this adaptation.


Poland

A variant of the QWERTZ keyboard has been used in
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, but
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 ...
keyboards have been dominant since the early 1990s.


Romanian

The standard keyboard layout as established by the standard SR 13392:2004 is QWERTY. However, a Romanian QWERTZ keyboard (corresponding to older standards) was set up on Windows 3.1 and renamed "Romanian (Legacy)" on all versions since Windows Vista, because of the introduction of the two standard QWERTY layouts with the correct diacritics. Since it was devised before the disunification of "Ș" (
S-comma S-comma (majuscule: Ș, minuscule: ș) is a letter which is part of the Romanian alphabet, used to represent the sound , the voiceless postalveolar fricative (like ''sh'' in ''shoe''). History The letter was proposed in the ''Buda Lexicon' ...
) and "Ț" (
T-comma T-comma (majuscule: Ț, minuscule: ț) is a letter which is part of the Romanian alphabet, used to represent the Romanian language sound , the voiceless alveolar affricate (like the letter C in Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet). It is ...
) with "Ş" (S-
cedilla A cedilla ( ; from Spanish) or cedille (from French , ) is a hook or tail ( ¸ ) added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation. In Catalan language, Catalan, French language, French, and Portuguese language, ...
; used in Turkic languages) and "Ţ" (T cedilla), the characters with cedilla were used in the layout (and these are still used in the default 1250 encoding). In 2012, a version with commas was made and it is available as a custom layout to be installed by the interested end-user.


Slovak

Typewriters in Slovakia have used the QWERTZ layout quite similar to the layout used on the Czech typewriters. Slovak QWERTZ layout differs from the Czech one in using the letter instead of the Czech on the same position, also the letter is on the position of Czech and the letter is on the position of Czech . There are 2 more keys that differ in these 2 languages: Slovak key replaces the Czech key and Slovak key replaces the Czech key. There are 17 characters from American keyboard (@#$&\, []<>^`~*') that are missing on the Slovak keyboard because of the presence of the Slovak letters (ľščňťžôúáíýéä°´ˇ§). Users can access them with the key, however, position of these characters varies between different operating systems. Besides the QWERTZ keyboard layout inherited from the typewriter era, QWERTY layout is also used by computer users in Slovakia. The only difference is that the and keys are swapped.


South Slavic Latin

The Serbo-Croatian Latin and Slovene keyboard layout has five additional special characters Č, Ć, Ž, Š and Đ. This keyboard layout was standardized in the 1980s in
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...
. Characters Ć and Đ are only part of
Gaj's Latin alphabet Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Serb ...
but not part of the
Slovene alphabet The Slovene alphabet ( sl, slovenska abeceda, or ''slovenska gajica'' ) is an extension of the Latin script used to write Slovene. The standard language uses a Latin alphabet which is a slight modification of the Croatian Gaj's Latin alphabet ...
, nevertheless they remain in Slovenian keyboards (for economic reasons, for historical reasons and for writing words in the closely related South Slavic languages). The Ž is on the right side of the Ć key on keyboards which have a longer
backspace Backspace () is the keyboard key that originally pushed the typewriter carriage one position backwards and in modern computer systems moves the display cursor one position backwards,"Backwards" means to the left for left-to-right languages. delete ...
key, and the usual inverted L shaped Enter key. The layout makes heavy use of the
AltGr AltGr (also Alt Graph) is a modifier key found on many computer keyboards (rather than a second Alt key found on US keyboards). It is primarily used to type characters that are not widely used in the territory where sold, such as foreign cur ...
(right Alt) key for non-alphabetic characters and
dead key A dead key is a special kind of modifier key on a mechanical typewriter, or computer keyboard, that is typically used to attach a specific diacritic to a base letter. The dead key does not generate a (complete) character by itself, but modifies t ...
combinations for adding diacritics to Latin characters. It is possible to type
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
and
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
using only the Serbo-Croatian keyboard layout. There is a proposed variant of new Slovene keyboard layout, which would remove Ć and Đ from top layout and add @ instead. The command keys would also become translated into Slovene and some minor second level layout changes would be made. For Serbian, there is also a Cyrillic keyboard variant, in which and are replaced with Љ (Lj) and Њ (Nj) respectively. However, the
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...
keyboards for Croatian are QWERTY.


Swiss (German, French, Italian, Romansh), Liechtenstein, Luxembourg

The layout of the Swiss keyboard is established by the national standard SN 074021:1999. It is designed to allow easy access to frequently used accents of the French, German and Italian languages and major currency signs. It was designed from the beginning for usage with multiple languages, also beyond Swiss languages, in mind. The difference between the Swiss German () and the Swiss French () layout is that the German variety has the German umlauts (ä, ö, ü) accessible in the unshifted state, while the French version has some French accented characters (é, à, è) accessible in the unshifted state. The actual keyboards have the keys engraved for both variations; the difference is only in the driver (software) settings. In the latest versions of Windows there are also separately listed driver settings for Swiss Italian and Swiss Romansh, but they correspond to the Swiss French and Swiss German layout, respectively. In Mac OS X 10.6 and Linux, only Swiss French and Swiss German are available, and on iPadOS, the only layout is Swiss German. (The Swiss German layout is not available for anything else.) On Windows, Swiss German does not include the esszett (ß) ligature, which is only used in Germany and Austria, meaning that that letter is unimportant in Switzerland, and is therefore not found on the keyboard. Linux typically assigns ß to . On Windows, Swiss French does not include the ù accent, which is only used in France and Belgium, meaning that that letter is unimportant in Switzerland, and is therefore not found on the keyboard. Mac typically assigns ù to . While the German keyboard uses German labels for its keys (e.g. instead of ), Swiss keyboards use the English abbreviations as a "neutral" solution, as they are used for all the national
languages of Switzerland The four national languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian, and Romansh. German, French, and Italian maintain equal status as official languages at the national level within the Federal Administration of the Swiss Confederation, ...
.
Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
does not have a keyboard layout of its own. Public education and administration use the Swiss-French keyboard which also represents the Microsoft Windows standard keyboard layout for Luxembourg, while some of the private sector prefer the Belgian layout . Other places may use the US layout.
Liechtenstein Liechtenstein (), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (german: link=no, Fürstentum Liechtenstein), is a German language, German-speaking microstate located in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is a semi-constit ...
, which mostly speaks
Swiss German Swiss German (Standard German: , gsw, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch Mundart,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no defined orthography for any of them, many different spelling ...
and the
Liechtenstein German High Alemannic is a dialect of Alemannic German spoken in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg and in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Language area The High Alemannic dialects are spoken in Liechtenstein and in most of German-speaking S ...
dialect, also use the Swiss German layout without an ß character.


See also

*
AZERTY AZERTY () is a specific layout for the characters of the Latin alphabet on typewriter keys and computer keyboards. The layout takes its name from the first six letters to appear on the first row of alphabetical keys; that is, ( ). Similar t ...
*
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 ...
* QZERTY *
German keyboard layout The German keyboard layout is a QWERTZ keyboard layout commonly used in Austria and Germany. It is based on one defined in a former edition (October 1988) of the German standard DIN 2137-2. The current edition DIN 2137-1:2012-06 standardizes it a ...
*
Blickensderfer typewriter The Blickensderfer Typewriter was invented by George Canfield Blickensderfer (1850–1917) and patented on August 4, 1891. Blickensderfer was the nephew of John Celivergos Zachos the inventor of the stenotype. Two models were initially un ...
*
Dvorak keyboard layout Dvorak is a keyboard layout for English patented in 1936 by August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, William Dealey, as a faster and more ergonomic alternative to the QWERTY layout (the ''de facto'' standard keyboard layout). Dvorak proponents ...
*
Neo Neo or NEO may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * Neo (''The Matrix''), the alias of Thomas Anderson, a hacker and the protagonist of the Matrix film series * Neo (''Marvel Comics'' species), a fictional race of superhumans * ...
, an optimized German keyboard layout


References

{{Keyboard layouts Computer keyboard types Latin-script keyboard layouts