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A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a
computer keyboard A computer keyboard is a peripheral input device modeled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Replacing early punched cards and paper tape technology, ...
,
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
, or other computer-controlled
typographic Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and ...
keyboard. is the actual positioning of keys on a keyboard. is the arrangement of the legends (labels, markings, engravings) that appear on those keys. is the arrangement of the key-meaning association or keyboard mapping, determined in software, of all the keys of a keyboard; it is this (rather than the legends) that determines the actual response to a key press. Modern computer keyboards are designed to send a
scancode A scancode (or scan code) is the data that most computer keyboards send to a computer to report which keys have been pressed. A number, or sequence of numbers, is assigned to each key on the keyboard. Variants Mapping key positions by row an ...
to the
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 ...
(OS) when a key is pressed or released: this code reports only the key's row and column, not the specific character engraved on that key. The OS converts the scancode into a specific binary character code using a "scancode to character" conversion table, called the keyboard mapping table. This means that a physical keyboard may be dynamically mapped to any layout without switching hardware components—merely by changing the software that interprets the keystrokes. Often, a user can change keyboard mapping in system settings. In addition, software may be available to modify or extend keyboard functionality. Thus the symbol shown on the physical key-top need not be the same as appears on the screen or goes into a document being typed. Some settings enable the user to type supplementary symbols which are not engraved on the keys used to invoke them. Modern USB keyboards are
plug and play In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving reso ...
; they communicate their (default) visual layout to the OS when connected (though the user is still able to reset this at will).


Key types

A
computer keyboard A computer keyboard is a peripheral input device modeled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Replacing early punched cards and paper tape technology, ...
consists of ''alphanumeric'' or ''character keys'' for typing, ''modifier keys'' for altering the functions of other keys, ''navigation keys'' for moving the text cursor on the screen, ''
function key A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard that can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions, a form of soft key. On some keyboards/computers, functi ...
s'' and ''system command keys''—such as and —for special actions, and often a ''
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 n ...
'' to facilitate calculations. There is some variation between different keyboard models in the physical layout—i.e., how many keys there are and how they are positioned on the keyboard. However, differences between national layouts are mostly due to different selections and placements of symbols on the character keys.


Character keys

The core section of a keyboard consists of character keys, which can be used to type
letters Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
and other characters. Typically, there are three rows of keys for typing letters and
punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
, an upper row for typing digits and special symbols, and the on the bottom row. The positioning of the character keys is similar to the keyboard of 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 ...
.


Modifier keys

Besides the character keys, a keyboard incorporates special keys that do nothing by themselves but modify the functions of other keys. For example, the key can be used to alter the output of character keys, whereas the (''control''), (''alternate'') and (''alternative graphic'') keys trigger special operations when used in concert with other keys. (Apple keyboards have differently labelled but equivalent keys, see below). Typically, a modifier key is held down while another key is struck. To facilitate this, modifier keys usually come in pairs, one functionally identical key for each hand, so holding a modifier key with one hand leaves the other hand free to strike another key. An alphanumeric key labelled with only a single letter (usually the capital form) can generally be struck to type either a lower case or capital letter, the latter requiring the simultaneous holding of the key. The key is also used to type the upper of two symbols engraved on a given key, the lower being typed without using the modifier key. The
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
keyboard has a dedicated key for each of the letters A–Z, keys for
punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
and other symbols, usually a row of
function keys A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard that can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions, a form of soft key. On some keyboards/computers, funct ...
, often a
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 n ...
and some system control keys. In most languages except English, additional letters (some with
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s) are required and some are present as standard on each national keyboard, as appropriate for its national language. These keyboards have another modified key, labelled (alternative graphic), to the right of the space-bar. (US keyboards just have a second key in this position). It can be used to type an extra symbol in addition to the two otherwise available with an alphanumeric key, and using it simultaneously with the key usually gives access to a fourth symbol. These third-level and fourth-level symbols may be engraved on the right half of the key top, or they may be unmarked.
Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
and
Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...
keyboards have similar arrangements. Instead of the , and keys seen on
commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a co ...
keyboards,
Apple Keyboard Apple Inc. has designed and released dozens of keyboard models since the introduction of the Apple II in 1977. The current models in use are dual-mode (Bluetooth and USB) keyboards with integrated batteries: Magic Keyboard (silver only), and Mag ...
s have (''command'') and keys. The key is used much like the , and the key like the and , to access menu options and shortcuts. Macs have a key for compatibility with programs that expect a more traditional keyboard layout. It is especially useful when using a terminal,
X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...
(a Unix environment included with OS X as an install option) or MS Windows. The key can generally be used to produce a secondary
mouse click In programming and software design, an event is an action or occurrence recognized by software, often originating asynchronously from the external environment, that may be handled by the software. Computer events can be generated or triggered ...
as well. There is also a key on modern Mac keyboards, which is used for switching between use of the , , etc. keys either as
function key A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard that can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions, a form of soft key. On some keyboards/computers, functi ...
s or for other functions like media control, accessing Spotlight, controlling the volume, or handling Mission Control. key can be also found on smaller Windows and Linux laptops and tablets, where it serves a similar purpose. Many
Unix workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workst ...
s (and also home computers like the
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
) keyboards placed the key to the left of the letter , and the key in the bottom left. This position of the key is also used on the
XO laptop The OLPC XO (formerly known as $100 Laptop, Children's Machine, 2B1) is a low cost laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries around the world, to provide them with access to knowledge, and opportunities to " ...
, which does not have a . The
UNIX Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
keyboard layout also differs in the placement of the key, which is to the left of . Some early keyboards experimented with using large numbers of modifier keys. The most extreme example of such a keyboard, the so-called "
space-cadet keyboard The space-cadet keyboard is a keyboard designed by John L. Kulp in 1978 and used on Lisp machines at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which inspired several still-current jargon terms in the field of computer science and influenced th ...
" found on MIT
LISP machine Lisp machines are general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software and programming language, usually via hardware support. They are an example of a high-level language computer architecture, and in a sense, they ...
s, had no fewer than ''seven'' modifier keys: four control keys, , , , and , along with three shift keys, , , and . This allowed the user to type over 8000 possible characters by playing suitable "chords" with many modifier keys pressed simultaneously.


Dead keys

A dead key is a special kind of a modifier key that, instead of being held while another key is struck, is ''pressed and released'' before the other key. The dead key does not generate a character by itself, but it modifies the character generated by the key struck immediately after, typically making it possible to type a letter with a specific diacritic. For example, on some keyboard layouts, the
grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages usin ...
key is a dead key: in this case, striking and then results in (''a'' with grave accent); followed by results in (''E'' with grave accent). A grave accent in isolated form can be typed by striking and then . A key may function as a dead key by default, or sometimes a normal key can temporarily be altered to function as a dead key by simultaneously holding down the secondary-shift key— or : a typical example might be will produce (assuming the "6" key is also the "^" key). In some systems, there is no indication to the user that a dead key has been struck, so the key appears dead, but in some text-entry systems the diacritical mark is displayed along with an indication that the system is waiting for another keystroke: either the base character to be marked, an additional diacritical mark, or to produce the diacritical mark in isolation. Compared with the secondary-shift modifier key, the dead-key approach may be a little more complicated, but it allows more additional letters. Using AltGr, only one or (if used simultaneously with the normal shift key) two additional letters with each key, whereas using a dead key, a specific diacritic can be attached to a range of different base letters.


Compose key

A Compose key can be characterized as a generic dead key that may in some systems be available instead of or in addition to the more specific dead keys. It allows access to a wide range of predefined extra characters by interpreting a whole sequence of keystrokes following it. For example, striking followed by (
apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...
) and then results in ''á'' (''a'' with
acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed cha ...
), followed by and then results in ''æ'' (''ae''
ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
), and followed by and then results in © (circled ''c'', copyright symbol). The key is supported by the
X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...
(used by most Unix-like
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 ...
s, including most
Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
s). Some keyboards have a key labeled "Compose", but any key can be configured to serve this function. For example, the otherwise redundant right-hand key may, when available, be used for this purpose. This can be emulated in Windows with third party programs, for example WinCompose.


System command keys

Depending on the application, some keyboard keys are not used to enter a printable character but instead are interpreted by the system as a formatting, mode shift, or special commands to the system. The following examples are found on personal computer keyboards.


SysRq and PrtSc

The system request () and print screen ( or on some keyboards e.g. ) commands often share the same key. SysRq was used in earlier computers as a "panic" button to recover from crashes (and it is still used in this sense to some extent by the
Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...
; see Magic SysRq key). The print screen command used to capture the entire screen and send it to the printer, but in the present it usually puts a screenshot in the
clipboard A clipboard is a thin, rigid board with a clip at the top for holding paper in place. A clipboard is typically used to support paper with one hand while writing on it with the other, especially when other writing surfaces are not available. The ...
.


Break key

The
Break key The Break key (or the symbol ⎉) of a computer keyboard refers to breaking a telegraph circuit and originated with 19th century practice. In modern usage, the key has no well-defined purpose, but while this is the case, it can be used by softwar ...
/Pause key no longer has a well-defined purpose. Its origins go back to teleprinter users, who wanted a key that would temporarily interrupt the communications line. The Break key can be used by software in several different ways, such as to switch between multiple login sessions, to terminate a program, or to interrupt a modem connection. In programming, especially old DOS-style BASIC, Pascal and C, Break is used (in conjunction with Ctrl) to stop program execution. In addition to this, Linux and variants, as well as many DOS programs, treat this combination the same as Ctrl+C. On modern keyboards, the break key is usually labeled Pause/Break. In most Microsoft Windows environments, the key combination brings up the system properties.


Escape key

The
escape key On computer keyboards, the Esc key (named ''Escape key'' in the international standard series ISO/IEC 9995) is a key used to generate the escape character (which can be represented as ASCII code 27 in decimal, Unicode U+001B, or ). The esca ...
(often abbreviated Esc) "nearly all of the time" signals ''Stop'' ''QUIT'' let me "get out of a dialog" (or pop-up window):. Another common application today of the key is to trigger the Stop button in many web browsers. ESC was part of the standard keyboard of the
Teletype Model 33 The Teletype Model 33 is an electromechanical teleprinter designed for light-duty office use. It is less rugged and cost less than earlier Teletype machines. The Teletype Corporation introduced the Model 33 as a commercial product in 1963 after ...
(introduced in 1964 and used with many early minicomputers). The DEC
VT50 The VT50 was a CRT-based computer terminal introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in July 1974. It provided a display with 12 rows and 80 columns of upper-case text, and used an expanded set of control characters and forward-only sc ...
, introduced July 1974, also had an Esc key. The TECO text editor (c. 1963) and its descendant
Emacs Emacs , originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor MACroS"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, se ...
() use the Esc key extensively. Historically it also served as a type of shift key, such that one or more following characters were interpreted differently, hence the term
escape sequence In computer science, an escape sequence is a combination of characters that has a meaning other than the literal characters contained therein; it is marked by one or more preceding (and possibly terminating) characters. Examples * In C and ma ...
, which refers to a series of characters, usually preceded by the
escape character In computing and telecommunication, an escape character is a character that invokes an alternative interpretation on the following characters in a character sequence. An escape character is a particular case of metacharacters. Generally, the ...
. On machines running Microsoft Windows, prior to the implementation of the Windows key on keyboards, the typical practice for invoking the "start" button was to hold down the control key and press escape. This process still works in Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10.


Enter key

An "enter" key may terminate a paragraph of text and advance an editing cursor to the start of the next available line, similar to the "carriage return" key of a typewriter. When the attached system is processing a user
command line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...
, pressing "enter" may signal that the command has been completely entered and that the system may now process it.


Shift key

Shift key: when one presses shift and a letter, it will capitalize the letter pressed with the shift key. Another use is to type more symbols than appear to be available, for instance the semi-colon key is accompanied with a colon symbol on the top. To type a semi-colon, the key is pressed without pressing any other key. To type a colon, both this key and the Shift key are pressed concurrently. (Some systems make provision for users with mobility impairment by allowing the Shift key to be pressed first and then the desired symbol key).


Menu key, Command key, Windows key

The
Menu key In computing, the menu key or application key () is a key found on Microsoft Windows-oriented computer keyboards, introduced at the same time as the Windows logo key. Its symbol is usually a small icon depicting a pointer hovering above a menu, ...
or Application key is a key found on Windows-oriented computer keyboards: on Apple keyboard the same function is provided by the Command key (labelled ⌘). It is used to launch a context menu with the keyboard rather than with the usual right mouse button. The key's symbol is usually a small icon depicting a cursor hovering above a menu. On some Samsung keyboards the cursor in the icon is not present, showing the menu only. This key was created at the same time as the Windows key. This key is normally used when the right mouse button is not present on the mouse. Some Windows public terminals do not have a Menu key on their keyboard to prevent users from right-clicking (however, in many Windows applications, a similar functionality can be invoked with the Shift+F10
keyboard shortcut computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...
). The
Windows key The Windows logo key (also known as Windows-, win-, start-, logo-, flag-, or super-key) is a keyboard key which was originally introduced on the Microsoft Natural keyboard in 1994. This key became a standard key on PC keyboards. In Window ...
opens the 'Start' (applications) menu.


History

Keyboard layouts have evolved over time, usually alongside major technology changes. Particularly influential have been: the
Sholes and Glidden typewriter The Sholes and Glidden typewriter (also known as the Remington No. 1) was the first commercially successful typewriter. Principally designed by the American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes, it was developed with the assistance of fello ...
(1874, also known as Remington No. 1), the first commercially successful typewriter, which introduced
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 ...
; its successor, the Remington No. 2 (1878), which introduced the shift key; the
IBM Selectric The IBM Selectric typewriter was a highly successful line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on 31 July 1961. Instead of the "basket" of individual typebars that swung up to strike the ribbon and page in a typical typewriter of the perio ...
(1961), a very influential electric typewriter, which was imitated by computer keyboards; and the
IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
(1981), namely the
Model M Model M designates a group of computer keyboards designed and manufactured by IBM starting in 1985, and later by Lexmark International, Maxi Switch, and Unicomp. The keyboard's many variations have their own distinct characteristics, wit ...
(1985), which is the basis for many modern keyboard layouts. Within a community, keyboard layout is generally quite stable, due to the high training cost of touch-typing, and the resulting
network effect In economics, a network effect (also called network externality or demand-side economies of scale) is the phenomenon by which the value or utility a user derives from a good or service depends on the number of users of compatible products. Ne ...
of having a standard layout and high
switching cost Switching costs or switching barriers are terms used in microeconomics, strategic management, and marketing. They may be defined as the disadvantages or expenses consumers feel they experience, along with the economic and psychological costs of swit ...
of retraining, and the suboptimal QWERTY layout is a case study in switching costs. Nevertheless, significant market forces can result in changes (as in Turkish adoption of QWERTY), and non-core keys are more prone to change, as they are less frequently used and less subject to the lock-in of touch-typing. The main, alphanumeric portion is typically stable, while symbol keys and shifted key values change somewhat, modifier keys more so, and function keys most of all: QWERTY dates to the No. 1 (1874) (though 1 and 0 were added later), shifted keys date in some cases to the No. 2 (1878), in other cases to the Selectric (1961), and modifier key placement largely dates to the Model M (1985); function key placement typically dates to the Model M, but varies significantly, particularly on laptops. The earliest mechanical keyboards were used in musical instruments to play particular notes. With the advent of the
printing telegraph The printing telegraph was invented by Royal Earl House in 1846. House's equipment could transmit around 40 instantly readable words per minute, but was difficult to manufacture in bulk. The printer could copy and print out up to 2,000 words per h ...
, a keyboard was needed to select characters. Some of the earliest
printing telegraph The printing telegraph was invented by Royal Earl House in 1846. House's equipment could transmit around 40 instantly readable words per minute, but was difficult to manufacture in bulk. The printer could copy and print out up to 2,000 words per h ...
machines either used a piano keyboard outright or else a layout similar to a piano keyboard. The Hughes-Phelps printing telegraph piano keyboard laid keys A-N in left-to-right order on the black piano keys, and keys O-Z in right-to-left order on the white piano keys below. In countries using 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 Ita ...
, the center, alphanumeric portion of the modern keyboard is most often based on 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 ...
design by
Christopher Sholes Christopher Latham Sholes (February 14, 1819February 17, 1890) was an American inventor who invented the QWERTY keyboard, and, along with Samuel W. Soule, Carlos Glidden and John Pratt, has been contended to be one of the inventors of the fir ...
. Sholes' layout was long thought to have been laid out in such a way that common two-letter combinations were placed on opposite sides of the keyboard so that his mechanical keyboard would not jam. However, evidence for this claim has often been contested. In 2012, an argument was advanced by two Japanese historians of technology showing that the key order on the earliest Sholes prototypes in fact followed the left-right and right-left arrangement of the contemporary Hughes-Phelps printing telegraph, described above. Later iterations diverged progressively for various technical reasons, and strong vestiges of the left-right A-N, right-left O-Z arrangement can still be seen in the modern QWERTY layout. Sholes' chief improvement was thus to lay out the keys in rows offset horizontally from each other by three-eighths, three-sixteenths, and three-eighths inches to provide room for the levers and to reduce hand-movement distance. Although it has been demonstrated that the QWERTY layout is not the most efficient layout for typing, it remains the standard. Sholes chose the size of the keys to be on three-quarter or 0.75inch centers (about 19 mm, versus musical piano keys which are 23.5 mm or about 0.93 inches wide). 0.75 inches has turned out to be optimum for fast key entry by the average size hand, and keyboards with this key size are called "full-sized keyboards". On a manual typewriter, the operator could press the key down with a lighter touch for such characters as the period or comma, which did not occupy as much area on the paper. Since an electric typewriter supplied the force to the typebar itself after the typist merely touched the key, the typewriter itself had to be designed to supply different force for different characters. To simplify this, the most common layout for electric typewriters in the United States differed from that for the one most common on manual typewriters. Single-quote and double-quote, instead of being above the keys for the digits 2 and 8 respectively, were placed together on a key of their own. The underscore, another light character, replaced the asterisk above the hyphen. The ASCII communications code was designed so that characters on a mechanical teletypewriter keyboard could be laid out in a manner somewhat resembling that of a manual typewriter. This was imperfect, as some shifted special characters were moved one key to the left, as the number zero, although on the right, was low in code sequence. Later, when computer terminals were designed from less expensive electronic components, it was not necessary to have any bits in common between the shifted and unshifted characters on a given key. This eventually led to standards being adopted for the "bit-pairing" and "typewriter-pairing" forms of keyboards for computer terminals. The typewriter-pairing standard came under reconsideration, on the basis that typewriters have many different keyboard arrangements. The U.S. keyboard for the IBM PC, although it resembles the typewriter-pairing standard in most respects, differs in one significant respect: the braces are on the same two keys as the brackets, as their shifts. This innovation predated the IBM Personal Computer by several years. IBM adopted the 101/102 key layout on the
PS/2 The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial p ...
in 1987 (after previously using an 84-key keyboard which did not have separate cursor and numeric key pads). Most modern keyboards basically conform to the layout specifications contained in parts 1, 2, and 5 of the international standard series
ISO/IEC 9995 ISO/IEC 9995 ''Information technology — Keyboard layouts for text and office systems'' is an ISO/IEC standard series defining layout principles for computer keyboards. It does not define specific layouts but provides the base for national and in ...
. These specifications were first defined by the user group at
AFNOR Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR, English: French Standardization Association) is a Paris-based standards organization and a member body for France at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The AFNOR Group develop ...
in 1984 working under the direction of Alain Souloumiac. Based on this work, a well known ergonomic expert wrote a report which was adopted at the ISO Berlin meeting in 1985 and became the reference for keyboard layouts. The 104/105-key PC keyboard was born when two keys and a key were added on the bottom row (originally for the
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 se ...
operating system). Newer keyboards may incorporate even further additions, such as Internet access (World Wide Web navigation) keys and multimedia (access to media players) buttons.


Physical, visual, and functional layouts

As noted before, the ''layout'' of a keyboard may refer to its physical (arrangement of keys), visual (physical labeling of keys), or functional (software response to a key press or release) layout.


Physical layouts

Physical layouts only address tangible differences among keyboards. When a key is pressed, the keyboard does not send a message such as ''the A-key is depressed'' but rather ''the left-most main key of the home row is depressed''. (Technically, each key has an internal reference number, the scan code, and these numbers are what is sent to the computer when a key is pressed or released.) The keyboard and the computer each have no information about what is marked on that key, and it could equally well be the letter ''A'' or the digit ''9''. Historically, the user of the computer was requested to identify the ''functional layout'' of the keyboard when installing or customizing the
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 ...
. Modern USB keyboards are
plug and play In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving reso ...
; they communicate their visual layout to the OS when connected (though the user is still able to reset this at will). Today, most keyboards use one of three different physical layouts, usually referred to as simply ''ISO'' (
ISO/IEC 9995 ISO/IEC 9995 ''Information technology — Keyboard layouts for text and office systems'' is an ISO/IEC standard series defining layout principles for computer keyboards. It does not define specific layouts but provides the base for national and in ...
-2), ''ANSI'' (
ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organi ...
-
INCITS The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), (pronounced "insights"), is an ANSI-accredited standards development organization composed of Information technology developers. It was formerly known as the X3 and NCITS. ...
154-1988), and ''JIS'' ( JIS X 6002-1980), referring roughly to the organizations issuing the relevant worldwide, United States, and Japanese standards, respectively. (In fact, the physical layouts referred such as "ISO" and "ANSI" comply to the primary recommendations in the named standards, while each of these standards in fact also allows the other.) ''Keyboard layout'' in this sense may refer either to this broad categorization or to finer distinctions within these categories. For example, , Apple Inc produces ISO, ANSI, and JIS desktop keyboards, each in both extended and compact forms. The extended keyboards have 110, 109, and 112 keys (ISO, ANSI, and JIS, respectively), and the compact models have 79, 78, and 80.


Visual layouts

The visual layout includes the symbols printed on the physical keycaps. Visual layouts vary by language, country, and user preference, and any one physical and functional layout can be employed with a number of different visual layouts. For example, the "ISO" keyboard layout is used throughout Europe, but typical French, German, and UK variants of physically identical keyboards ''appear'' different because they bear different legends on their keys. Even blank keyboards—with no legends—are sometimes used to learn typing skills or by user preference. Some users choose to attach custom labels on top of their keycaps. This can be, e.g., for masking foreign layouts, adding additional information such as shortcuts, learning aid, gaming controls, or solely for decorational purposes.


Functional layouts

The ''functional layout'' of the keyboard refers to the mapping between the physical keys, such as the key, and software events, such as the letter "A" appearing on the screen. Usually the functional layout is set (in the
system configuration A system configuration (SC) in systems engineering defines the computers, processes, and devices that compose the system and its boundary. More generally, the system configuration is the specific definition of the elements that define and/or prescri ...
) to match the visual layout of the keyboard being used, so that pressing a key will produce the expected result, corresponding to the legends on the keyboard. However, most
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 ...
s have software that allow the user to easily switch between functional layouts, such as the language bar 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 se ...
. For example, a user with a Swedish keyboard who wishes to type more easily in German may switch to a functional layout intended for German—without regard to key markings—just as a Dvorak touch typist may choose a Dvorak layout regardless of the visual layout of the keyboard used.


Customized functional layouts

Functional layouts can be redefined or customized within the operating system, by reconfiguring operating system keyboard driver, or with a use of a separate software application.
Transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...
is one example of that whereby letters in other language get matched to visible Latin letters on the keyboard by the way they sound. Thus, a touch typist can type various foreign languages with a visible English-language keyboard only. Mixed hardware-to-software keyboard extensions exist to overcome above discrepancies between functional and visual layouts. A ''keyboard overlay'' is a plastic or paper masks that can be placed over the empty space between the keys, providing the user with the functional use of various keys. Alternatively, a user applies keyboard stickers with an extra imprinted language alphabet and adds another keyboard layout via language support options in the operating system. The visual layout of any keyboard can also be changed by simply replacing its keys or attaching labels to them, such as to change an English-language keyboard from the common
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 ...
to the Dvorak layout, although for touch typists, the placement of the tactile bumps on the home keys is of more practical importance than that of the visual markings. In the past, complex software that mapped many non-standard functions to the keys (such as a
flight simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...
) would be shipped with a "keyboard overlay", a large sheet of paper with pre-cut holes matching the key layout of a particular model of computer. When placed over the keyboard, the overlay provided a quick visual reference as to what each key's new function was, without blocking the keys or permanently modifying their appearance. The overlay was often made from good-quality laminated paper and was designed to fold up and fit in the game's packaging when not in use.


National variants

The U.S.
IBM PC keyboard The keyboard for IBM PC-compatible computers is standardized. However, during the more than 30 years of PC architecture being frequently updated, many keyboard layout variations have been developed. A well-known class of IBM PC keyboards is the M ...
has 104 keys, while the PC keyboards for most other countries have 105 keys. In an
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 ...
configured for a non-English language, the keys are placed differently. For example, keyboards designed for typing in
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
have some characters shifted, to make room for Ñ/ñ; similarly those for French or Portuguese may have a special key for the character Ç/ç. Keyboards designed for Japanese may have special keys to switch between Japanese and Latin scripts, and the character ¥ (Japanese yen or Chinese yuan currency symbol) instead of \ (backslash, which may be replaced by the former in some codepages). Using a keyboard for alternative languages leads to a conflict: the image on the key does not correspond to the character. In such cases, each new language may require an additional label on the key, because the standard keyboard layouts do not even share similar characters of different languages. The United States keyboard layout is used as default in some
Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
s. Most operating systems allow switching between functional keyboard layouts, using a key combination involving register keys that are not used for normal operations (e.g.
Microsoft 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 ...
reserve or register control keys for sequential layout switching; those keys were inherited from old DOS keyboard drivers). There are keyboards with two parallel sets of characters labeled on the keys, representing alternate alphabets or scripts. It is also possible to add a second set of characters to a keyboard with keyboard stickers manufactured by third parties.


Size variation

Modern keyboard models contain a set number of total keys according to their given standard, described as 104, 105, etc., and sold as "full-size" keyboards. This number is not always followed, and individual keys or whole sections are commonly skipped for the sake of compactness or user preference. Consequently, generic keyboard mappings may not be completely effective on unusual layouts.


Latin-script keyboard layouts

Although there are a large number of keyboard layouts used for languages written with
Latin-script alphabet A Latin-script alphabet (Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet) is an alphabet that uses letters of the Latin script. The 21-letter archaic Latin alphabet and the 23-letter classical Latin alphabet belong to the oldest of this group. The 26-lette ...
s, most of these layouts are quite similar. They can be divided into three main families according to where the , , , , and keys are placed on the keyboard. These layouts are usually named after the first six letters on the first row: AZERTY, QWERTY, QWERTZ, QZERTY and national variants thereof. While the central area of the keyboard, the alphabetic section, remains fairly constant, and the numbers from 1–9 are almost invariably on the row above, keyboards may differ in: *the placement of punctuation, typographic and other special characters, and which of these characters are included, *whether numbers are accessible directly or in a shift-state, *the presence and placement of letters with
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s (In some layouts, diacritics are applied using
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 ...
s but these are rarely engraved). *the presence and placement of a row of
function key A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard that can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions, a form of soft key. On some keyboards/computers, functi ...
s above the number row *the presence and placement of one or two
Alt key The Alt key (pronounced or ) on a computer keyboard is used to change (alternate) the function of other pressed keys. Thus, the Alt key is a modifier key, used in a similar fashion to the Shift key. For example, simply pressing ''A'' will t ...
s, an
AltGr key 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 cu ...
or
Option key The Option key, , is a modifier key present on Apple keyboards. It is located between the Control key and Command key on a typical Mac keyboard. There are two Option keys on modern (as of 2020) Mac desktop and notebook keyboards, one on each s ...
, a
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 ...
or delete key, a
control key In computing, a Control key is a modifier key which, when pressed in conjunction with another key, performs a special operation (for example, ); similar to the Shift key, the Control key rarely performs any function when pressed by itself. ...
or command key, a
compose key A compose key (sometimes called multi key) is a key on a computer keyboard that indicates that the following (usually 2 or more) keystrokes trigger the insertion of an alternate character, typically a precomposed character or a symbol. For insta ...
, an
Esc key On computer keyboards, the Esc key (named ''Escape key'' in the international standard series ISO/IEC 9995) is a key used to generate the escape character (which can be represented as ASCII code 27 in decimal, Unicode U+001B, or ). The escape ...
, and OS-specific keys like the
Windows key The Windows logo key (also known as Windows-, win-, start-, logo-, flag-, or super-key) is a keyboard key which was originally introduced on the Microsoft Natural keyboard in 1994. This key became a standard key on PC keyboards. In Window ...
. The physical keyboard is of the basic ISO, ANSI, or JIS type; pressing a key sends a
scan code A scancode (or scan code) is the data that most computer keyboards send to a computer to report which keys have been pressed. A number, or sequence of numbers, is assigned to each key on the keyboard. Variants Mapping key positions by row an ...
to the operating-system or other software, which in turn determines the character to be generated: this arrangement is known as the
keyboard mapping 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 ...
. It is customary for keyboards to be engraved appropriately to the local default mapping. For example, when the and numeric keys are pressed simultaneously on a US keyboard; "@" is generated, and the key is engraved appropriately. On a UK keyboard this key combination generates the double-quote character, and UK keyboards are so engraved. In the keyboard charts listed below, the primary letters or characters available with each alphanumeric key are often shown in black in the left half of the key, whereas characters accessed using the key appear in blue in the right half of the corresponding key. Symbols representing
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 ...
s usually appear in red.


QWERTY

The QWERTY layout is, by far, the most widespread layout in use, and the only one that is not confined to a particular geographical area. In some territories, keys like and are not translated to the language of the territory in question. In other varieties such keys have been translated, like and , on
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
computer keyboards respectively for the example above. On Macintosh computers these keys are usually just represented by symbols without the word "Enter", "Shift", "Command", "Option/Alt" or "Control", with the exception of keyboards distributed in the US and East Asia.


QÜERTY (Azerbaijani)

Azerbaijani keyboards use a layout known as QÜERTY, where Ü appears in place of W above S, with W not being accessible at all. It is supported by Microsoft Windows.


ÄWERTY (Turkmen)

Turkmen keyboards use a layout known as ÄWERTY, where Ä appears in place of Q above A, Ü appears in place of X below S, Ç appears in place of C, and Ý appears in place of V, with C, Q, V, and X not being accessible at all. It is supported by Microsoft Windows (Vista and later only).


QWERTZ

The QWERTZ layout is the normal keyboard layout in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is also fairly widely used in Czechia, Slovakia and other parts of Central Europe. The main difference between it and QWERTY is that and are swapped, and some special characters such as brackets are replaced by diacritical characters like Ä, Ö, Ü, ß. In Czechia and Slovakia diacritical characters like Ě, Š, Č, Ř, Ž, Ý, Á, Í also replace numbers. ''Caps lock'' can be a ''shift lock'' as in AZERTY (see below).


AZERTY

The AZERTY layout is used in France, Belgium, and some African countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout thus: * and are swapped, * and are swapped, * is moved to the right of , (taking place of the / or colon/semicolon key on a US keyboard), *The digits 0 to 9 are on the same keys, but to be typed the shift key must be pressed. The unshifted positions are used for accented characters, * Caps lock is replaced by ''Shift lock'', thus affecting non-letter keys as well. However, there is an ongoing evolution towards a ''Caps lock'' key instead of a ''Shift lock''.


ĄŽERTY (Lithuanian)

As standardized in LST 1582,
Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Lithuanians * Lithuanian language * The country of Lithuania * Grand Duchy of Lithuania * Culture of Lithuania * Lithuanian cuisine * Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...
keyboards have a defined layout known as ĄŽERTY, where Ą appears in place of Q above A, Ž in place of W above S, and Ū in place of X below S, with Q, W, and X being available either on the far right-hand side or by 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 cu ...
key. However instead of ĄŽERTY, the Lithuanian QWERTY keyboard is universally used.


QZERTY

The QZERTY layout was used mostly in Italy, where it was the traditional
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 ...
layout. In recent years, however, a modified QWERTY layout with stressed keys such as à, è, ò, has gained widespread usage throughout Italy. Computer keyboards usually have
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 ...
, although non-
alphanumeric Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are a combination of alphabetical and numerical characters. More specifically, they are the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits. An alphanumeric code is an identifier made of alphanumeric c ...
characters vary. * and are swapped * is moved from the right of to the right of , as in AZERTY *Number keys are shifted Apple supported QZERTY layout in its early Italian keyboards, and currently
iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...
also has it available.


Sámi Extended

Sámi The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Rus ...
keyboards use a layout known as the Sámi Extended, where Á appears in place of Q above A, Š appears in place of W above S, Č appears in place of X to the left of C, and Ŧ appears in place of Y to the right of T, with Q, W, X, and Y being available by 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 cu ...
key. Also, Å is to the right of P (to match the Norwegian and Swedish/Finnish keyboards), Ŋ is to the right of Å, and Đ is to the right of Ŋ. It is different in Norway than in Sweden and Finland, because of the placement of the letters different between Norwegian and Swedish/Finnish ( Ä, Æ, Ö, and Ø), which are placed where they match the standard keyboard for the main language spoken in the country. It is supported by Microsoft Windows (Windows XP SP2 and later only). Microsoft Windows also has Swedish with Sami, Norwegian with Sami and Finnish with Sami layouts, which match the normal Swedish, Norwegian, or Finnish keyboards, but has additional Sami characters as AltGr-combinations.


Other Latin-script keyboard layouts

There are also keyboard layouts that do not resemble traditional typewriter layouts very closely, if at all. These are designed to reduce finger movement and are claimed by some proponents to offer higher typing speed along with
ergonomic Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...
benefits.


Dvorak

The Dvorak layout was named after its inventor,
August Dvorak August Dvorak (May 5, 1894 – October 10, 1975) was an American educational psychologist and professor of education at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. He and his brother-in-law, William Dealey, are best known fo ...
. There are also numerous adaptations for languages other than English, and single-handed variants. Dvorak's original layout had the numerals rearranged, but the present-day layout has them in numerical order. Dvorak has numerous properties designed to increase typing speed, decrease errors, and increase comfort. Research has found a 4% average advantage to the end user in typing speed. The layout concentrates the most used English letters in the home row where the fingers rest, thus having 70% of typing done in the home row (compared to 32% in QWERTY). The Dvorak layout is available out-of-the-box on most
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 ...
s, making switching through software very easy. "Hardwired" Dvorak keyboards are also available, though only from specialized hardware companies.


Colemak

The Colemak layout is another popular alternative to the standard QWERTY layout, offering a more familiar change for users already accustomed to the standard layout. It builds upon the QWERTY layout as a base, changing the positions of 17 keys while retaining the QWERTY positions of most non-alphabetic characters and many popular
keyboard shortcuts computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...
, supposedly making it easier to learn than Dvorak for people who already type in QWERTY without sacrificing efficiency. It shares several design goals with the Dvorak layout, such as minimizing finger path distance and making heavy use of the home row. An additional defining (albeit optional) feature of the Colemak layout is the lack of a caps lock key; an additional
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 occupies the position typically occupied by Caps Lock on modern keyboards.
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 ...
s such as
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 computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...
,
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which in ...
, Android,
ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfac ...
, and
BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berke ...
allow a user to switch to the Colemak layout. A program to install the layout is available for
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 se ...
, as well as a
portable Portable may refer to: General * Portable building, a manufactured structure that is built off site and moved in upon completion of site and utility work * Portable classroom, a temporary building installed on the grounds of a school to provide a ...
AutoHotKey AutoHotkey is a free and open-source custom scripting language for Microsoft Windows, initially aimed at providing easy keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys, fast macro-creation and software automation that allows users of most levels of computer skil ...
implementation. Colemak variants exist, including Colemak Mod-DH, which seeks to rectify concerns that the layout places too much emphasis on the middle-row centre-column keys (D and H), leading to awkward lateral hand movements for certain common English bigrams such as HE. Others seek to have more compatibility with other keyboard layouts.


Workman

Workman is an English layout supported out-of-the-box in Linux/X11 systems. The Workman layout employs a hypothesis about the preferential movement of each finger rather than categorically considering the lowest letter row to be least accessible. Specifically, the index finger prefers to curl inwards rather than stretch outwards. So for the index finger, the position of second preference goes to the bottom row rather than the top row. Contrarily, the middle and ring fingers are relatively long and prefer to stretch out rather than curl in. Based on this, weighting is allotted to each key specifically rather than each row generically. Another principle applied is that it is more natural and less effort to curl in or stretch out fingers rather than rotate one's wrist inwards or outwards. Thus the Workman layout allots a lower priority to the two innermost columns between the home keys (G and H columns on a QWERTY layout), similarly to the Colemak-DH or "Curl" mods. Workman also balances the load quite evenly between both hands. The Workman layout is found to achieve overall less travel distance of the fingers for the English language than even Colemak. It does however generally incur higher same-finger n-gram frequencies; or in other words, one finger will need to hit two keys in succession more often than in other layouts.


Other English layouts

There are many other layouts for English, each developed with differing basic principles. The ''Norman Layout'', like Workman, deprioritizes the central columns but gives more load to the right hand with the assumption that the right hand is more capable than the left. It also gives importance to retaining letters in the same position or at least the same finger as QWERTY. ''MTGAP's Layout'' for a Standard Keyboard / an Ergonomic Keyboard has the lowest finger travel for a standard keyboard, and travel distance for an ergonomic keyboard second only to Arensito keyboard layout. Further variations were created using the keyboard layout optimizer. Other layouts lay importance on minimal key deviation from QWERTY to give a reasonable increase in typing speed and ergonomics with minimal relearning of keys. ''Qwpr'' is a layout that changes only 11 basic keys from their QWERTY positions, with only 2 keys typed with different fingers. Minimak has versions which changes four, six, eight, or twelve keys, all have only 3 keys change finger. These intend to offer much of the reduced finger movement of Dvorak without the steep learning curve and with an increased ability to remain proficient with a QWERTY keyboard. The Qwpr layout is also designed for programmers and multilingual users, as it uses Caps Lock as a "punctuation shift", offering quicker access to ASCII symbols and arrow keys, as well as to 15 dead keys for typing hundreds of different glyphs such as accented characters, mathematical symbols, or
emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversa ...
. In Canada, the CSA keyboard is designed to write several languages, especially French.


Sholes 2nd Layout

Christopher Latham Sholes Christopher Latham Sholes (February 14, 1819February 17, 1890) was an American inventor who invented the QWERTY keyboard, and, along with Samuel W. Soule, Carlos Glidden and John Pratt, has been contended to be one of the inventors of the fir ...
, inventor of the QWERTY layout, created his own alternative, and patented it in 1896. Similar to Dvorak, he placed all the vowels on the home row, but in this case on the right hand. The layout is right-hand biased with both the vowels and many of the most common consonants on the right side of the layout.


JCUKEN (Latin)

The JCUKEN layout was used in the USSR for all computers (both domestically produced and imported such as Japan-made
MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...
-compatible systems) except IBM-compatible ES PEVM due to its phonetic compatibility with Russian ЙЦУКЕН layout (see right). The layout has the advantage of having punctuation marks on Latin and Cyrillic layouts mapped on the same keys. This Russian Typewriter layout can be found on many Russian typewriters produced before the 1990s, and it is the default Russian keyboard layout in the
OpenSolaris OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around th ...
operating system.


Neo

The Neo layout is an optimized German keyboard layout developed in 2004 by the Neo Users Group, supporting nearly all Latin-based alphabets, including the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of ...
, the
Vietnamese language Vietnamese ( vi, tiếng Việt, links=no) is an Austroasiatic language originating from Vietnam where it is the national and official language. Vietnamese is spoken natively by over 70 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Au ...
and some African languages. The positions of the letters are not only optimized for German letter frequency, but also for typical groups of two or three letters. English is considered a major target as well. The design tries to enforce the alternating usage of both hands to increase typing speed. It is based on ideas from de-ergo and other ergonomic layouts. The high frequency keys are placed in the home row. The current layout, Neo 2.0, has unique features not present in other layouts, making it suited for many target groups such as programmers, mathematicians, scientists or
LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...
authors. Neo is grouped in different layers, each designed for a special purpose. Most special characters inherit the meaning of the lower layers—the character is one layer above the , or the Greek is above the character. Neo uses a total of six layers with the following general use: # Lowercase characters # Uppercase characters, typographical characters # Special characters for programming, etc. # WASD-like movement keys and number block # Greek characters # Mathematical symbols and Greek uppercase characters


BÉPO

The BÉPO layout is an optimized French keyboard layout developed by the BÉPO community, supporting all Latin-based alphabets of the European Union,
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...
. It is also designed to ease programming. It is based on ideas from the Dvorak and other ergonomic layouts. Typing with it is usually easier due to the high frequency keys being in the home row. Typing tutors exist to ease the transition. In 2019, a slightly modified version of the BÉPO layout is featured in a French standard developed by
AFNOR Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR, English: French Standardization Association) is a Paris-based standards organization and a member body for France at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The AFNOR Group develop ...
, along with an improved version of the traditional
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 to ...
layout.


Dvorak-fr

Th
Dvorak-fr layout
is a Dvorak like layout specific to the French language, without concession to the use of programming languages, and published in 2002 by Francis Leboutte. Version 2 was released in June 2020. Its design meets the need to maximize comfort and prevent risks when typing in French. Unlike Azerty, the characters needed for good French typography are easily accessible: for example, the quotation marks (« ») and the curved apostrophe are available directly. More than 150 additional characters are available via dead keys.


Turkish (F-keyboard)

The Turkish language uses the Turkish Latin alphabet, and a dedicated keyboard layout was designed in 1955 by İhsan Sıtkı Yener ( tr). During its design, letter frequencies in the
Turkish language Turkish ( , ), also referred to as Turkish of Turkey (''Türkiye Türkçesi''), is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 80 to 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant smal ...
were investigated with the aid of
Turkish Language Association The Turkish Language Association ( tr, Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK) is the regulatory body for the Turkish language, founded on 12 July 1932 by the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and headquartered in Ankara, Turkey. The Institution acts as the of ...
. These statistics were then combined with studies on bone and muscle anatomy of the fingers to design the Turkish F-keyboard ( tr, F klavye). The keyboard provides a balanced distribution of typing effort between the hands: 49% for the left hand and 51% for the right. With this scientific preparation, Turkey has broken 14 world records in typewriting championships between 1957 and 1995. In 2009, Recep Ertaş and in 2011, Hakan Kurt from Turkey came in first in the text production event of the 47th (Beijing) and 48th (Paris) Intersteno congresses respectively. Despite the greater efficiency of the Turkish F-keyboard however, the modified QWERTY keyboard (" Q-keyboard") is the one that is used on most computers in Turkey. The reason for the popularity of QWERTY in Turkey is that they were overwhelmingly imported since the beginning of the 1990s.


ŪGJRMV

The ŪGJRMV layout is specifically designed for the
Latvian language Latvian ( ), also known as Lettish, is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken in the Baltic region. It is the language of Latvians and the official language of Latvia as well as ...
.


HCESAR

The HCESAR layout was a layout created in 1937 for typewriters during Portugal's Estado Novo. It was specifically designed for the
Portuguese language Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, ...
. It is no longer used.


Malt

The Malt layout—named for its inventor, South African-born Lilian Malt—is best known for its use on molded,
ergonomic Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...
Maltron PCD Maltron Ltd, trading as Maltron, is a manufacturer of ergonomic special-needs keyboards. It was founded by South African-born inventor Lillian Malt and manufacturer Stephen Hobday. Maltron specialises in making keyboards for the prevention an ...
keyboards. Nevertheless, it has been adapted as well for flat keyboards, with a compromise involved: a flat keyboard has a single, wide space-bar, rather than a space button as on Maltron keyboards, so the E key was moved to the bottom row.


Modified Blickensderfer

The
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 unve ...
, designed by George Canfield Blickensderfer in 1892, was known for its novel keyboard layout, its interchangeable font, and its suitability for travel. The Blickensderfer keyboard had three banks (rows of keys), with special characters being entered using a separate Shift key; the home row was, uniquely, the bottom one (i.e., the typist kept her hands on the bottom row). A computer or standard typewriter keyboard, on the other hand, has four banks of keys, with home row being second from bottom. To fit on a Sholes-patterned (typewriter or computer) keyboard, the Blickensderfer layout was modified by Nick Matavka in 2012, and released for both
Mac OS X 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 ...
and
Windows Windows is a group of several Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, W ...
. To accommodate the differences between Blickensderfer and Sholes keyboards (''not'' the layouts, but the keyboards themselves), the order of the rows was changed and special characters were given their own keys. The keyboard drivers created by Nick Matavka for the modified Blickensderfer layout (nicknamed the 'Blick') have several variations, including one that includes the option of switching between Blick and another keyboard layout and one that is internationalised, allowing the entry of diacritics.


Hexagon

The honeycomb layout has
hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A '' regular hexagon'' has ...
keys and was invented by Typewise in cooperation with the
ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , aca ...
in 2015 for smartphones. It exists for 40+ languages including
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, German,
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, French and
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans grad ...
. The keys are arranged like those of the respective traditional keyboard with a few changes. Instead of the there are two smaller space bars in the middle of the keyboard. The is replaced by swiping up on keys and by swiping to the left on the keyboard.
Diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
characters can be accessed by holding on a key.


Alphabetical layout

A few companies offer "ABC" (alphabetical) layout keyboards. The layout can also be useful for people who do not type often or where using both hands is not practical, such as
touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...
s.


Chorded keyboards and mobile devices

Chorded keyboard A keyset or chorded keyboard (also called a chorded keyset, ''chord keyboard'' or ''chording keyboard'') is a computer input device that allows the user to enter characters or commands formed by pressing several keys together, like playing a " c ...
s, such as the
Stenotype A steno machine, stenotype machine, shorthand machine, stenograph or steno writer is a specialized chorded keyboard or typewriter used by stenographers for shorthand use. In order to pass the United States Registered Professional Reporter test, ...
and
Velotype Velotype is the trademark for a type of keyboard for typing text known as a syllabic chord keyboard, an invention of the Dutchmen Nico Berkelmans and Marius den Outer. History Marius den Outer invented the Tachotype in 1933. Herman Schweigma ...
, allow letters and words to be entered using combinations of keys in a single stroke. Users of stenotype machines regularly reach rates of 225 words per minute. These systems are commonly used for real-time transcription by court reporters and in live closed captioning systems. Ordinary keyboards may be adapted for this purpose using
Plover Plovers ( , ) are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae. Description There are about 66 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or " dotterel". The closely related lapwing sub ...
. However, due to hardware constraints, chording three or more keys may not work as expected. Many high-end keyboards support ''n''-key rollover and so do not have this limitation. The multi-touch screens of mobile devices allow implementation of virtual on-screen
chorded keyboard A keyset or chorded keyboard (also called a chorded keyset, ''chord keyboard'' or ''chording keyboard'') is a computer input device that allows the user to enter characters or commands formed by pressing several keys together, like playing a " c ...
s. Buttons are fewer, so they can be made larger. Symbols on the keys can be changed dynamically depending on what other keys are pressed, thus eliminating the need to memorize combos for characters and functions before use. For example, in the chorded
GKOS keyboard A keyset or chorded keyboard (also called a chorded keyset, ''chord keyboard'' or ''chording keyboard'') is a computer input device that allows the user to enter characters or commands formed by pressing several keys together, like playing a " c ...
which has been adapted for the
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. I ...
Android, Apple iPhone, MS
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...
, and Intel
MeeGo MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin (produced by Intel) and Maemo (produced by Nokia). Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances in ...
/Harmattan platforms, thumbs are used for chording by pressing one or two keys at the same time. The layout divides the keys into two separate pads which are positioned near the sides of the screen, while text appears in the middle. The most frequent letters have dedicated keys and do not require chording. Some other layouts have also been designed specifically for use with mobile devices. The
FITALY FITALY is a keyboard layout specifically optimized for stylus or touch-based input. The design places the most common letters closest to the centre to minimize distance travelled while entering a word. The name, FITALY, is derived from the letters ...
layout is optimised for use with a stylus by placing the most commonly used letters closest to the centre and thus minimising the distance travelled when entering words. A similar concept was followed to research and develop the MessagEase keyboard layout for fast text entry with stylus or finger. The ATOMIK layout, designed for stylus use, was developed by IBM using the
Metropolis Algorithm A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big ci ...
to mathematically minimize the movement necessary to spell words in English. The ATOMIK keyboard layout is an alternative to QWERTY in ShapeWriter's WritingPad software. ASETNIOP is a keyboard layout designed for
tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being compu ...
s that uses 10 input points, eight of them on the
home row Touch typing (also called blind typing, or touch keyboarding) is a style of typing. Although the phrase refers to typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys—specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard thro ...
.


Other original layouts and layout design software

Several other alternative keyboard layouts have been designed either for use with specialist commercial keyboards (e.g.
Maltron PCD Maltron Ltd, trading as Maltron, is a manufacturer of ergonomic special-needs keyboards. It was founded by South African-born inventor Lillian Malt and manufacturer Stephen Hobday. Maltron specialises in making keyboards for the prevention an ...
and
PLUM A plum is a fruit of some species in ''Prunus'' subg. ''Prunus'.'' Dried plums are called prunes. History Plums may have been one of the first fruits domesticated by humans. Three of the most abundantly cultivated species are not found i ...
) or by hobbyists (e.g. Asset, Arensito, Minimak, Norman, Qwpr, Workman as well as symmetric typing layouts Niro and Soul); however, none of them are in widespread use, and many of them are merely proofs of concept. Principles commonly used in their design include maximising use of the home row, minimising finger movement, maximising hand alternation or inward rolls (where successive letters are typed moving towards the centre of the keyboard), minimising changes from QWERTY to ease the learning curve, and so on. Maltron also has a single-handed keyboard layout. Programs such as the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (basic editor, free, for use on MS Windows), SIL Ukelele (advanced editor, free, for use on Apple's Mac OS X), KbdEdit (commercial editor, for Windows) and Keyman Developer (free, open source editor for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, or for sites on the web as virtual keyboards) make it easy to create custom keyboard layouts for regular keyboards; users may satisfy their own typing patterns or specific needs by creating new ones from scratch (like the IPA or pan-Iberian layouts) or modify existing ones (for example, the Latin American Extended or Gaelic layouts). Such editors can also construct complex key sequences using
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 ...
s or the key. Certain virtual keyboards and keyboard layouts are accessible online. With no hardware limitations, those online keyboards can display custom layouts, or allow the user to pre-configure or try out different language layouts. Resulting text can then be pasted into other web sites or applications flexibly with no need to reprogram keyboard mappings at all. Some high end keyboards allow users flexibility to reprogram keyboard mappings at the hardware level. For example, the Kinesis Advantage contoured keyboard allows for reprogramming single keys (not key combinations), as well as creating macros for remapping combinations of keys (this however includes more processing from the keyboard hardware, and can therefore be slightly slower, with a lag that may be noticed in daily use). Non-QWERTY layouts were also used with specialized machines such as the 90-key Linotype type setting machine.


Keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scripts

Some keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scripts, most notably the Greek layout, are based on the QWERTY layout, in that glyphs are assigned as far as possible to keys that bear similar-sounding or appearing glyphs in QWERTY. This saves learning time for those familiar with QWERTY, and eases entry of Latin characters (with QWERTY) as well for Greek users. This is not a general rule, and many non-Latin keyboard layouts have been invented from scratch. All non-Latin computer keyboard layouts can also input Latin letters as well as the script of the language, for example, when typing in
URLs A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...
or names. This may be done through a special key on the keyboard devoted to this task, or through some special combination of keys, or through software programs that do not interact with the keyboard much.


Abugida


Brahmic scripts

*


=Baybayin

= It is possible to type directly from one's keyboard without the need to use
web applications A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serv ...
which implement an
input method An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse o ...
. The Philippines Unicode Keyboard Layout includes different sets of layout for different keyboard users: QWERTY, Capewell-Dvorak, Capewell-QWERF 2006, Colemak, and Dvorak, all of which work in both Microsoft Windows and Linux. This keyboard layout with can be downloade
here


=Bengali

= There are many different systems developed to type
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 of ...
characters using a typewriter or a computer keyboard and mobile device. There were efforts taken to standardize the input system for Bengali in Bangladesh ( Jatiyo layout), but still no input method has still been effectively adopted widely.


=Dhivehi

= Dhivehi Keyboards have two layouts. Both are supported by Microsoft Windows (Windows XP and later only).


=InScript

= InScript is the standard keyboard for 12
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n scripts including
Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
, Bengali, Gujarati,
Gurmukhi Gurmukhī ( pa, ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ, , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). It is used by Punjabi Sikhs to write the language, commonly re ...
,
Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native sp ...
,
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...
, Oriya,
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...
, and Telugu etc. Most Indian scripts are derived from
Brahmi Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' ...
, therefore their alphabetic order is identical. On the basis of this property, the InScript keyboard layout scheme was prepared. So a person who knows InScript typing in one language can type in other scripts using dictation even without knowledge of that script. An InScript keyboard is inbuilt in most modern
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 ...
s including
Windows Windows is a group of several Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, W ...
,
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which in ...
, and
Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...
. It is also available in some
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
s.


=Khmer

= Khmer uses its own layout designed to correspond, to the extent practicable, to its QWERTY counterpart, thus easing the learning curve in either direction. For example, the letter is typed on the same key as the letter L on the English-based qwerty. It also has many specifics due to its record number of vowels, consonants and punctuation signs as well as its cluster structure which bundles letters together in one.


=Thai

= The Thai Kedmanee keyboard layout predominates. The Thai Pattachote keyboard layout is also used, though it is much less common. Infrequently used characters are accessed via the Shift key. Despite their wide usage in Thai, Arabic numerals are not present on the main section of the keyboard. Instead they are accessed via 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 n ...
or by switching to the Latin character set on keyboards without dedicated numeric keys.


=Lao

= The keyboard layout used for
Lao language Lao, sometimes referred to as Laotian (, 'Lao' or , 'Lao language'), is a Kra–Dai language of the Lao people. It is spoken in Laos, where it is the official language for around 7 million people, as well as in northeast Thailand, where i ...
.


=Sinhala

= The Sinhala keyboard layout is based on the Wijesekara typewriter for
Sinhala script The Sinhala script ( si, සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව, Siṁhala Akṣara Mālāva), also known as Sinhalese script, is a writing system used by the Sinhalese people and most Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to write ...
.


=Tibetan

=


Tibetan (China)

The Chinese National Standard on Tibetan Keyboard Layout standardises a layout for the
Tibetan language Tibetan language may refer to: * Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard * Lhasa Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dialect * Any of the other Tibetic languages See also * Old Tibetan, the languag ...
in China. The first version of Microsoft Windows to support the Tibetan keyboard layout is MS
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
. The layout has been available in Linux since September 2007.


Tibetan (International)

Mac OS-X introduced Tibetan Unicode support with OS-X version 10.5 and later, now with three different keyboard layouts available: Tibetan-Wylie, Tibetan QWERTY and Tibetan-Otani.


Dzongkha (Bhutan)

The Bhutanese Standard for a Dzongkha keyboard layout standardizes the layout for typing
Dzongkha Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script. The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 n ...
, and other languages using the Tibetan script, in
Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...
. This standard layout was formulated by the Dzongkha Development Commission and Department of Information Technology in Bhutan. The Dzongkha keyboard layout is very easy to learn as the key sequence essentially follows the order of letters in the Dzongkha and Tibetan alphabet. The layout has been available in Linux since 2004.


Inuktitut

Inuktitut Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...
has two similar, though not identical, commonly available keyboard layouts for Windows. Both contain a basic Latin layout in its base and shift states, with a few Latin characters in the AltGr shift states. The
Canadian Aboriginal syllabics Canadian syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of writing systems used in a number of Indigenous Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and (formerly) Athabaskan language families. These languages had no formal writing sy ...
can be found in the Capslock and AltGr shift states in both layouts as well. The difference between the two layouts lies in the use of as an alternate to AltGr to create the dotted, long vowel syllables, and the mapping of the small plain consonants to the Caps + number keys in the "Naqittaut" layout, while the "Latin" layout does not have access to the plain consonants, and can only access the long vowel syllables through the AltGr shift states.


Abjad


Arabic

This layout was developed by Microsoft from the classic Arabic typewriter layout and is used by . There is also a 102-key variant and a 102-key phonetic variant that maps to AZERTY. For Apple keyboards there is a different layout. For Chrome a 1:1 layout also exists.


Hebrew

All keyboards in Israel are fitted with both Latin and
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
letters. Trilingual editions including either Arabic or Cyrillic also exist. Note that in the standard layout (but not all keyboards), paired delimiters—parentheses (), brackets [], and braces , as well as less/greater than <>—are in the opposite order from the standard in other left-to-right languages. This results in "open"/"close" being consistent with right-to-left languages (Shift-9 always gives "close parenthesis" U+0029, which visually looks like "open parenthesis" in left-to-right languages). This is shared with
Arabic keyboard The Arabic keyboard ( ar, لوحة المفاتيح العربية, ''lawḥat al-mafātīḥ al-`Arabīyyah'') is the Arabic keyboard layout used for the Arabic alphabet. All computer Arabic keyboards contain both Arabic letters and Latin letter ...
s. Certain Hebrew layouts are extended with
niqqud In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...
symbols (vowel points), which require Alt+Shift or similar key combination in order to be typed.


Tifinagh

The
Royal institute of the Amazigh culture The Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (french: Institut royal de la culture amazighe (IRCAM); zgh, ⴰⵙⵉⵏⴰⴳ ⴰⴳⵍⴷⴰⵏ ⵏ ⵜⵓⵙⵙⵏⴰ ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ, Asinag Ageldan n Tussna Tamazight (SGSM); ar, المعه� ...
(IRCAM) developed a national standard Tifinagh layout for Tamazight (Berber) in Morocco. It is included in Linux and Windows 8, and is availabl
from IRCAM
for the Mac and older versions of Windows. A compatible, international version of this layout, called "Tifinagh (International)" exists for typing a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, and includes support for Tuareg variants. It was designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and is available from its page on
SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirroring ...
.


Urdu

Urdu has a standardized layout present, developed by the National Authority Language. More commonly, however, th
phonetic keyboard
is used on smartphones and desktops which align the Urdu letters with their Latin counterparts (for example, Pressing Q will write ق) Another version of the keyboard, developed by Designer and Engineer Zeerak Ahmed, has witnessed an increase in usage among the younger generations. The keyboard
Matnsāz
is currently under development and available for beta testing in iOS.


Alphabetic


Armenian

The Armenian language keyboard is similar to the Greek in that in most (but not all) cases, a given Armenian letter is at the same location as the corresponding Latin letter on the QWERTY keyboard. The illustrated keyboard layout can be enabled on Linux with: . Western and Eastern Armenian have different layouts. In the pre-computer times Armenian keyboards had quite a different layout, more suitable for producing letter combinations inherent to the language. Several attempts have been made to create innovative ergonomical layouts, some of them inspired by Dvorak.


Cyrillic


=Bulgarian

= The current official Bulgarian keyboard layout for both typewriters and computer keyboards is described in BDS (Bulgarian State/National Standard) 5237:1978. It superseded the old standard, BDS 5237:1968, on 1 January 1978. Like the Dvorak layout, it has been designed to optimize typing speed and efficiency, placing the most common letters in the Bulgarian language— О, Н, Т, and А—under the strongest fingers. In addition to the standard 30 letters of the
Bulgarian alphabet The Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet is used to write the Bulgarian language. The Cyrillic alphabet was originally developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th – 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School. It has been used in Bulgaria ...
, the layout includes the non-Bulgarian
Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
symbols Э and ы and the
Roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...
I and V (the X is supposed to be represented by the Cyrillic capital Х, which is acceptable in typewriters but problematic in computers). There is also a second, informal layout in widespread use—the so-called "
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. ...
" layout, in which Cyrillic letters are mapped to the QWERTY keys for Latin letters that "sound" or "look" the same, with several exceptions ( Я is mapped to Q, Ж is mapped to V, etc.—see the layout and compare it to the standard QWERTY layout). This layout is available as an alternative to the BDS one in some
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 ...
s, including
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 se ...
, Apple
Mac OS X 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 ...
and
Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which in ...
. Normally, the layouts are set up so that the user can switch between Latin and Cyrillic script by pressing ''Shift + Alt'', and between BDS and Phonetic by pressing ''Shift + Ctrl''. In 2006, Prof.
Dimiter Skordev Dimiter Skordev ( bg, Димитър Скордев) (born 1936 in Sofia) is a professor in the Department of Mathematical Logic and Applications, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Sofia. Chairman of the department ...
from the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of
Sofia University Sofia University, "St. Kliment Ohridski" at the University of Sofia, ( bg, Софийски университет „Св. Климент Охридски“, ''Sofijski universitet „Sv. Kliment Ohridski“'') is the oldest higher education ...
and Dimitar Dobrev from the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (abbreviated BAS; bg, Българска академия на науките, ''Balgarska akademiya na naukite'', abbreviated ''БАН'') is the National Academy of Bulgaria, established in 1869. The Academy ...
proposed a new standard, prBDS 5237:2006, including a revised version of the old BDS layout, which includes the letter Ѝ and the capital Ы and replaces the letters I and V with the currency symbols of $ and € respectively, and a standardization of the informal "phonetic" layout. After some controversy and a public discussion in 2008, ''the proposal was not accepted'', although it had been already used in several places—the "Bulgarian Phonetic" layout in MS
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
is based on it. There is a new "Bulgarian Phonetic" layout in MS
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
.


=Russian

=


JCUKEN

The most common keyboard layout in modern Russia is the so-called ''Windows'' layout, which is the default
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries * Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and p ...
layout used in the MS Windows operating system. The layout was designed to be compatible with the hardware standard in many other countries, but introduced compromises to accommodate the larger alphabet. The full stop and comma symbols share a key, requiring the shift key to be held to produce a comma, despite the high relative frequency of comma in the language. There are some other Russian keyboard layouts in use: in particular, the traditional Russian Typewriter layout (punctuation symbols are placed on numerical keys, one needs to press Shift to enter numbers) and the Russian ''DOS'' layout (similar to the Russian Typewriter layout with common punctuation symbols on numerical keys, but numbers are entered without Shift). The Russian Typewriter layout can be found on many Russian typewriters produced before the 1990s, and it is the default Russian keyboard layout in the
OpenSolaris OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around th ...
operating system. Keyboards in Russia always have Cyrillic letters on the keytops as well as Latin letters. Usually Cyrillic and Latin letters are labeled with different colors.


Russian QWERTY/QWERTZ-based phonetic layouts

The Russian
phonetic keyboard layout A phonetic keyboard layout is a setup in which the letters of a language correspond to the keys in the keyboard layout for another language and assumes a one-to-one correspondence between letters in the languages that is based on their sound. Ph ...
(also called homophonic or transliterated) is widely used ''outside'' Russia, where normally there are no Russian letters drawn on keyboard buttons. This layout is made for typists who are more familiar with other layouts, like the common English QWERTY keyboard, and follows the Greek and Armenian layouts in placing most letters at the corresponding Latin letter locations. It is famous among both native speakers and people who use, teach, or are learning Russian, and is recommended—along with the Standard Layout—by the linguists, translators, teachers and students of AATSEEL.org. The earliest known implementation of the Cyrillic-to-QWERTY homophonic keyboard was by former AATSEEL officer Constance Curtin between 1972 and 1976, for the
PLATO Plato ( ; grc-gre, wikt:Πλάτων, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greeks, Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thou ...
education system's Russian Language curriculum developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Curtin's design sought to map phonetically related Russian sounds to QWERTY keys, to map proximate phonetic and visual cues nearby one another, as well as to map unused positions in a mnemonically ideal way. Peter Zelchenko worked under Curtin at UIUC, and his later modifications to the number row for Windows and Macintosh keyboards follow Curtin's original design intent. There are several different Russian phonetic layouts, for example YaZhERT (яжерт), YaWERT (яверт), and YaShERT (яшерт) suggested by AATSEEL.org and called "Student" layout. They are named after the first several letters that take over the 'QWERTY' row on the Latin keyboard. They differ by where a few of the letters are placed. For example, some have Cyrillic 'B' (which is pronounced 'V') on the Latin 'W' key (after the German transliteration of B), while others have it on the Latin 'V' key. The images of AATSEEL "Student", YaZhERT (яжерт) and YaWERT (яверт) are shown o
this page
There are also variations within these variations; for example the Mac OS X Phonetic Russian layout is YaShERT but differs in placement of ж and э. Windows 10 includes its own implementation of a mnemonic QWERTY-based input method for Russian, which does not fully rely on assigning a key to every Russian letter, but uses the sh, sc, ch, ya (ja), yu (ju), ye (je), yo (jo) combinations to input ш, щ, ч, я, ю, э, and ё respectively. Virtual (on-screen) keyboards allow entering Cyrillic directly in a browser without activating the system layout.


=Serbian (Cyrillic)

= Apart from a set of characters common to most Cyrillic alphabets, the Serbian Cyrillic layout uses six additional special characters unique or nearly unique to the
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet ( sr, / , ) is a variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language, updated in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write standard modern Serbian, th ...
: Љ, Њ, Ћ, Ђ, Џ, and Ј. Due to the bialphabetic nature of the language, actual physical keyboards with the Serbian Cyrillic layout printed on the keys are uncommon today. Typical keyboards sold in Serbian-speaking markets are marked with Serbian Latin characters and used with both the Latin (
QWERTZ The QWERTZ or QWERTZU keyboard is a typewriter and keyboard layout widely used in Central Europe. The name comes from the first six letters at the top left of the keyboard: ( ). Overview The main difference between QWERTZ and QWERTY is tha ...
) and Cyrillic layout configured in the software. What makes the two layouts this readily interchangeable is that the non-alphabetic keys are identical between them, and alphabetic keys always correspond directly to their counterparts (except the Latin letters Q, W, X, and Y that have no Cyrillic equivalents, and the Cyrillic letters Љ, Њ and Џ whose Latin counterparts are digraphs LJ, NJ and DŽ). This also makes the Serbian Cyrillic layout a rare example of a non-Latin layout based on QWERTZ. The Macedonian
dze Dze (Ѕ ѕ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script, used in the Macedonian alphabet to represent the voiced alveolar affricate , similar to the pronunciation of in "needs" or "kids" in English. It is derived from the letter ''dzelo'' or ''ze ...
is on this keyboard despite not being used in Serbian Cyrillic. The
gje Gje (or ) (Ѓ ѓ; italics: ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. Ѓ is used in Macedonian to represent the voiced palatal plosive . Ѓ is most commonly romanised using the Latin letter G with acute . When the Socialist Republic of Macedo ...
and
kje Kje (Ќ ќ; italics: ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script, used only in the Macedonian alphabet, where it represents the voiceless palatal plosive , or the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate . Kje is the 24th letter in this alphabet. It is ...
can be typed by striking the apostrophe key then striking the G or K key. There is also a dedicated Macedonian keyboard that is based on QWERTY (LjNjERTDz) and uses Alt Gr to type the dje and tshe. However, the capital forms are next to the small forms. An alternative version of the layout is quite different and has no dje or tshe access. This alternative was not supported until Windows Vista.


=Ukrainian

= Ukrainian keyboards, based on a slight modification of Russian Standard Layout, often also have the Russian Standard ("Windows") layout marked on them, making it easy to switch from one language to another. This keyboard layout had several problems, one of which was the omission of the letter Ґ, which does not exist in Russian. The other long-standing problem was the omission of the
apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...
, which is used in Ukrainian almost as commonly as in English (though with a different meaning), but which also does not exist in Russian. Both of these problems were resolved with the "improved Ukrainian" keyboard layout for Windows available with Vista and subsequent Windows versions. There also exists an adapted keyboard for Westerners learning Ukrainian (mostly in the diaspora) which closely matches the qwerty keyboard, so that the letters either have the same sound or same shape, for example pressing the "v" on the Latin QWERTY produces the Cyrillic в (which makes roughly the same sound) and pressing the qwerty "w" key gives the Cyrillic ш (based on the similar shape). This is usually called a homophonic or phonetic layout.


Georgian

All keyboards in
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
are fitted with both Latin and Georgian letters. As with the Armenian, Greek, and phonetic Russian layouts, most Georgian letters are on the same keys as their Latin equivalents. During the Soviet era, the Georgian alphabet was adapted to the Russian JCUKEN layout, mainly for typewriters. Soviet computers did not support Georgian keyboards. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union a large variety of computers were introduced to post-Soviet countries. The keyboards had QWERTY layout for Latin alphabet and JCUKEN for Cyrillic both printed on keys. Georgia started to adopt the QWERTY pattern. In both cases the letters which did not exist in the Cyrillic or Latin alphabets were substituted by letters that did not exist in Georgian alphabet. Today the most commonly used layout follows the QWERTY pattern with some changes.


Greek

The usual
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
layout follows the US layout for letters related to Latin letters (ABDEHIKLMNOPRSTXYZ, ΑΒΔΕΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΡΣΤΧΥΖ, respectively), substitutes phonetically similar letters (Φ at F; Γ at G) and uses the remaining slots for the remaining Greek letters: Ξ at J; Ψ at C; Ω at V; Θ at U). Greek has two fewer letters than English, but has two
diacritic marks A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
which, because of their frequency, are placed on the home row at the U.K. ";" position; they are
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 ...
s. Word-final
sigma Sigma (; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; grc-gre, σίγμα) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used a ...
has its own position as well, replacing W, and semicolon (which is used as a question mark in Greek) and colon move to the position of Q. The Greek Polytonic layout has various dead keys to input the accented letters. There is also the Greek 220 layout and the Greek 319 layout.


Syllabic


Cherokee

The
Cherokee language file:Cherokee Speakers by County, 2000.png, 200px, Number of speakers Cherokee or Tsalagi ( chr, ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ, ) is an endangered-to-Moribund language, moribund Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian language and the native language o ...
uses an 86-character
Syllabary In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (optiona ...
. The keyboard is available for the iPhone and
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...
and is supported by
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. I ...
.


East Asian languages

The orthography used for
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
,
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
, and
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...
("
CJK characters In internationalization, CJK characters is a collective term for the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages, all of which include Chinese characters and derivatives in their writing systems, sometimes paired with other scripts. Collectively, ...
") require special
input method An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse o ...
s, due to the thousands of possible characters in these languages. Various methods have been invented to fit every possibility into a QWERTY keyboard, so East Asian keyboards are essentially the same as those in other countries. However, their input methods are considerably more complex, without one-to-one mappings between keys and characters. In general, the range of possibilities is first narrowed down (often by entering the desired character's pronunciation). Then, if there remains more than one possibility, the desired
ideogram An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarit ...
is selected, either by typing the number before the character, or using a graphical menu to select it. The computer assists the typist by using
heuristic A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, ...
s to guess which character is most likely desired. Although this may seem painstaking, East Asian input methods are today sufficient in that, even for beginners, typing in these languages is only slightly slower than typing an
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letter (alphabet), letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character ...
ic language like English (where each
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
is represented by one
grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemics' ...
). In Japanese, the QWERTY-based JIS keyboard layout is used, and the pronunciation of each character is entered using various approximations to Hepburn romanization or
Kunrei-shiki is the Cabinet-ordered romanization system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Its name is rendered ''Kunreisiki rômazi'' in the system itself. Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English b ...
romanization. There are several
kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most p ...
-based typing methods. . Of the three, Chinese has the most varied input options. Characters can either be entered by pronunciation (like Japanese and Hanja in Korean), or by structure. Most of the structural methods are very difficult to learn but extremely efficient for experienced typists, as there is no need to select characters from a menu. There exist a variety of other, slower methods in which a character may be entered. If the pronunciation of a character is not known, the selection can be narrowed down by giving its component shapes, radicals, and
stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop funct ...
count. Also, many input systems include a "drawing pad" permitting "handwriting" of a character using a
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus'' ...
. Finally, if the computer does not have CJK software installed, it may be possible to enter a character directly through its
encoding In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
number (e.g.,
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, whic ...
). In contrast to Chinese and Japanese, Korean is typed similarly to Western languages. There exist two major forms of keyboard layouts: Dubeolsik (두벌식), and Sebeolsik (세벌식). Dubeolsik, which shares its symbol layout with the QWERTY keyboard, is much more commonly used. While Korean consonants and vowels ('' jamo'') are grouped together into syllabic grids when written, the script is essentially
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letter (alphabet), letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character ...
ical, and therefore typing in Korean is quite simple for those who understand the Korean alphabet
Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The let ...
. Each ''jamo'' is assigned to a single key. As the user types letters, the computer automatically groups them into syllabic characters. Given a sequence of ''jamo'', there is only one unambiguous way letters can be validly grouped into syllables, so the computer groups them together as the user types.


Hangul (for Korean)

Pressing the Han/Eng() key once switches between Hangul as shown, and QWERTY. There is another key to the left of the space bar for
Hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...
( or ) input. If using an ordinary keyboard without the two extra keys, the right Alt key will become the Ha/En key, and the right Ctrl key will become the Hanja key.
Apple Keyboard Apple Inc. has designed and released dozens of keyboard models since the introduction of the Apple II in 1977. The current models in use are dual-mode (Bluetooth and USB) keyboards with integrated batteries: Magic Keyboard (silver only), and Mag ...
s do not have the two extra keys.


Dubeolsik

Dubeolsik (두벌식; 2-set) is by far the most common and the sole national standard of Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea since 1969. Consonants occupy the left side of the layout, while
vowel A vowel is a Syllable, syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in Vowel ...
s are on the right.


Sebeolsik 390

Sebeolsik 390 (세벌식 390; 3-set 390) was released in 1990. It is based on Dr. Kong Byung Woo's earlier work. This layout is notable for its compatibility with the QWERTY layout; almost all QWERTY symbols that are not alphanumeric are available in Hangul mode. Numbers are placed in three rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right (shown green in the picture), and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left (shown red). Some consonant clusters are not printed on the keyboard; the user has to press multiple consonant keys to input some consonant clusters, unlike Sebeolsik Final. It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.


Sebeolsik Final

Sebeolsik Final (세벌식 최종; 3-set Final) is another Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea. It is the final Sebulsik layout designed by Dr. Kong Byung woo, hence the name. Numbers are placed on two rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right, and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left. Vowels are in the middle. All consonant clusters are available on the keyboard, unlike the Sebeolsik 390 which does not include all of them. It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.


Sebeolsik Noshift

Sebeolsik Noshift is a variant of sebeolsik which can be used without pressing the
shift key The Shift key is a modifier key on a keyboard, used to type capital letters and other alternate "upper" characters. There are typically two shift keys, on the left and right sides of the row below the home row. The Shift key's name originated f ...
. Its advantage is that people with
disabilities Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, se ...
who cannot press two keys at the same time will still be able to use it to type in Hangul.


Chinese

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
keyboards are usually in US layout with/without Chinese input method labels printed on keys. Without an
input method An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse o ...
handler activated, these keyboards would simply respond to Latin characters as physically labelled, provided that the US keyboard layout is selected correctly in the
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 ...
. Most modern input methods allow input of both simplified and traditional characters, and will simply default to one or the other based on the locale setting.


People's Republic of China

Keyboards used in the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
are standard or slightly modified English US (QWERTY) ones without extra labelling, while various IMEs are employed to input Chinese characters. The most common IMEs are
Hanyu pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
-based, representing the pronunciation of characters using Latin letters. However, keyboards with labels for alternative structural input methods such as
Wubi method The Wubizixing input method (), often abbreviated to simply Wubi or Wubi Xing,This is the name used in Mac OS X is a Chinese input methods for computers, Chinese character input method primarily for inputting Simplified Chinese character, sim ...
can also be found, although those are usually very old products and are extremely rare, as of 2015.


Taiwan

Computers in
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
often use
Zhuyin Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...
(bopomofo) style keyboards (US keyboards with bopomofo labels), many also with
Cangjie method The Cangjie input method (Tsang-chieh input method, sometimes called Changjie, Cang Jie, Changjei or Chongkit) is a system for entering Chinese characters into a computer using a standard computer keyboard. In filenames and elsewhere, the name Can ...
key labels, as Cangjie is a popular method for typing in Traditional Chinese. The bopomofo style keyboards are in
lexicographical order In mathematics, the lexicographic or lexicographical order (also known as lexical order, or dictionary order) is a generalization of the alphabetical order of the dictionaries to sequences of ordered symbols or, more generally, of elements of a ...
, top-to-bottom left-to-right. The codes of three input methods are typically printed on the Chinese (traditional) keyboard:
Zhuyin Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...
(upper right);
Cangjie Cangjie () is a legendary ancient Chinese figure said to have been an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes, and that when he invented the characters, the deities a ...
(lower left); and Dayi (lower right).


Hong Kong and Macau

In
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta ...
, both Chinese (Taiwan) and US keyboards are found. Japanese keyboards are occasionally found, and UK keyboards are rare. For Chinese input, Shape-based input methods such as
Cangjie Cangjie () is a legendary ancient Chinese figure said to have been an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes, and that when he invented the characters, the deities a ...
(pronounced ''cong1 kit3'' in Cantonese) or Chinese handwriting recognition are the most common input method. The use of phonetic-based input method is uncommon due to the lack of official standard for Cantonese romanisation and people in Hong Kong almost never learn any romanisation schemes in schools. An advantage of phonetic-based input method is that most Cantonese speakers are able to input Traditional Chinese characters with no particular training at all where they spell out the Cantonese sound of each character without tone marks, e.g. 'heung gong' for 香港(; Hong Kong) and to choose the characters from a list. However,
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 se ...
, which is the most popular operating system used in desktops, does not provide any Cantonese phonetic input method, requiring users to find and install third-party input method software. Also, most people find the process of picking characters from a list being too slow due to homonyms so the Cangjie method is generally preferred. Although thorough training and practice are required to use
Cangjie Cangjie () is a legendary ancient Chinese figure said to have been an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes, and that when he invented the characters, the deities a ...
, many Cantonese speakers have taken Cangjie input courses because of the fast typing speed availed by the input method. This method is the fastest because it has the capability to fetch the exact, unambiguous Chinese character which the user has in mind to input, pinpointing to only one character in most cases. This is also the reason why no provision for an input of phonetic accent is needed to complement this Input Method. The Cangjie character feature is available on both Mac OS X and Windows. On Mac OS X,
handwriting recognition Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other dev ...
input method is bundled with the OS. Macau utilizes the same layouts as Hong Kong, with the addition of the Portuguese layout used in Portugal.


Japanese

The JIS standard layout includes Japanese
kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most p ...
in addition to a QWERTY style layout. The shifted values of many keys (digits, together with ) are a legacy of
bit-paired keyboard A bit-paired keyboard is a keyboard where the layout of shifted keys corresponds to columns in the ASCII (1963) table, archetypally the Teletype Model 33 (1963) keyboard. This was later contrasted with a typewriter-paired keyboard, where the layou ...
s, dating to ASCII telex machines and terminals of the 1960s and 1970s. For entering Japanese, the most common method is entering text phonetically, as
romanized Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
(transliterated) kana, which are then converted to
kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequen ...
as appropriate by an
input method editor An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse o ...
. It is also possible to type kana directly, depending on the mode used. To type , "Takahashi", a Japanese name, one could type either () in Romanized (
Rōmaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...
) input mode, or in kana input mode. Then the user can proceed to the conversion step to convert the input into the appropriate kanji. The extra keys in the bottom row ( muhenkan, henkan, and the
Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contras ...
/
Katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fro ...
switch key), and the special keys in the leftmost column (the hankaku/zenkaku key at the upper left corner, and the eisū key at the Caps Lock position), control various aspects of the conversion process and select different modes of input. The Oyayubi Shifuto (Thumb Shift) layout is based on kana input, but uses two modifying keys replacing the space bar. When a key is pressed simultaneously with one of the keys, it yields another letter. Letters with the "dakuten" diacritic are typed with the opposite side "thumb shift". Letters with "handakuten" are either typed while the conventional pinky-operated shift key is pressed (that is, each key corresponds to a maximum of 4 letters), or, on the "NICOLA" variation, on a key which does not have a dakuten counterpart. The key in the QWERTY layout individually yields は, but with the () key, yields み. Simultaneous input with () yields ば, which is the individually mapped letter with the aforementioned dakuten. While the pinky-operated key is pressed, the same key yields ぱ. (This same letter must be typed with () + on the NICOLA variant.)


Layout changing software

The character code produced by any key press is determined by the keyboard driver software. A key press generates a
scancode A scancode (or scan code) is the data that most computer keyboards send to a computer to report which keys have been pressed. A number, or sequence of numbers, is assigned to each key on the keyboard. Variants Mapping key positions by row an ...
which is interpreted as an alphanumeric character or control function. Depending on operating systems, various application programs are available to create, add and switch among keyboard layouts. Many programs are available, some of which are language specific. The arrangement of symbols of specific language can be customized. An existing keyboard layout can be edited, and a new layout can be created using this type of software. For example, for Mac,
AutoHotkey AutoHotkey is a free and open-source custom scripting language for Microsoft Windows, initially aimed at providing easy keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys, fast macro-creation and software automation that allows users of most levels of computer skil ...
or The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator for Windows, and open-source Avro Keyboard provide the ability to customize the keyboard layout as desired.


See also

* Half-keyboard * Telephone keypad letter mapping


Notes


References


External links

* *
How to identify an Apple keyboard layout by country or region
{{Keyboard layouts