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showing both Hebrew and English ( QWERTY ) letters.]] Computers and other Typing Devices offer many different keyboard layouts for inputting data in different Languages . The standard English Keyboard layout is known as QWERTY . Various alternatives to the QWERTY layout have been suggested, many claiming advantages such as higher typing speeds. One of the most common alternatives is the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard . KEYBOARD STRUCTURE Keys labelled with only a Capital letter can type both small and capital letters. To type the symbol at the top left of a key, the Shift Key , often labelled "⇧", is used. To type the symbol at the bottom right of a key, the AltGr Key is used. (Further symbols are available on the smaller keyboards of Laptop computers, which require further keystroke combinations.) The standard keyboard structure also includes the Control and Alternative keys. These keys are commonly known as Modifier Key s. There are also Function Key s, with actions set by the currently used program. Dead key A Dead Key produces no output when it is pressed, but modifies the output of the next key pressed after it. Many languages include characters additional to the standard upper and lower case 26-letter alphabet, such as accented characters, that do not easily fit onto a standard English-language keyboard (UK, US or other varieties). Typing accented characters is made easier by using the dead key feature. When a dead key is pressed, nothing happens on the screen, but then pressing the character to be accented makes the desired accented character appear on the screen. For example, typing the acute accent dead key followed by the letter a gives á. To type a Diacritic al mark on its own, it needs to be followed by a space. In the Mac OS US Roman Keyboard Layout, dead keys are accessed with the option (alt) key as follows: which is then followed by the letter the accent is intended for. For example, the keypresses ''option-e e'' results in the é character. In Mac OS X , pressing one of these key combinations creates the accent and highlights it, then produces the finalized character when a supported character is pressed, otherwise it leaves the accent remaining. Some accented vowels, such as '' ŵ '' (used in Welsh ), cannot be accessed without first changing the keyboard layout. Some accented vowels are also unsupported. The US keyboard layout does not support other, less common Diacritic s, such as ''ˇ'' ( Caron ), which are commonly used in many Eastern Europe an languages. NOTE ON KEYBOARD LAYOUTS The following layouts assume that the physical locations of the keys are the same as on a US 102-key PC/AT keyboard. In practice, keyboards from other countries may have keys in different locations. However, on a US 102-key PC/AT keyboard with an Operating System configured for a non-English language, the keys will be placed as follows. "Dead keys" ( See Above ) appear in red. Characters accessed using the AltGr key appear at the bottom right of the corresponding key, or in some images in blue. Another situation takes place with "national" layouts. Keyboards designed for typing in Spanish have some characters shifted, to release the space for Ñ ñ; similarly, those for French and other European languages may have a special key for the character Ç ç . Keyboards designed for Japanese, may have special keys to switch between Japanese typing and English and vice-versa; and the character ¥ instead of \. Using such keyboards for other 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 keys, because the standard keyboard layouts do not share even similar characters of different languages (see the example in the figure above). However, in some special cases (For example, typing English at the English keyboard), the image at the physical key may correspond to the character it generates. Apple Keyboard s have the Alt and AltGr keys replaced by the Command Key , and has an Option Key (which functions as AltGr ) where the Win Key is placed below. Thus it doesn't have an Alt Key , and either the Command or the Option Key has to be reprogrammed when running in a non- Macintosh environment. KEYBOARD LAYOUTS FOR ROMAN SCRIPT IN MICROSOFT WINDOWS Although there are a large number of different keyboard layouts used for different languages written in Roman script, most of these layouts are quite similar. They can be divided into three main families according to where the Q, A, Z, M, and Y keys are placed on the keyboard. These are usually named after the first six letters. While the core of the keyboard, the alphabetic section, remains fairly constant, and the numbers from 1-9 are almost invariably on the top row, keyboards differ vastly in:
QWERTY Vaio Laptop ]] See Also: QWERTY By far the most widespread layout in use, and the only one that is not confined to a particular geographical area. Keys like "enter" and "caps lock" have not been translated to the language of the keyboard in question. Canadian Multilingual Standard :: This keyboard is commonly used in French speaking Canada. English speaking Canadians mostly use the same keyboard layout as in the United States, unless they are in a position where they have to write French on a regular basis. Danish :: Dutch ( Netherlands ) ::
Faroese :: Finnish / Swedish :: Icelandic :: Italian :: Note:
Norwegian :: Portuguese ( Portugal ) See Also: Portuguese keyboard layout :: Portuguese ( Brazil ) See Also: Portuguese keyboard layout :: Spanish (Spain) :: Spanish ( Latin America ) ::
UK and Ireland :: The United Kingdom and Ireland use a keyboard layout similar to the United States.There is a separate Irish Gaelic keyboard layout, but this is rarely used. In all common operating systems that have a different selection for Irish, this refers to the layout that is identical with the UK layout, not the Irish Gaelic layout; the latter tends to be called Gaelic or similar. Hong Kong uses US and Chinese (Traditional) keyboards rather than UK and Ireland ones. See the article British And American Keyboards for details. See also Technical Standards In Colonial Hong Kong . Note:
KEYBOARD LAYOUTS FOR NON-ROMAN ALPHABETIC SCRIPTS Some keyboard layouts for non-Roman 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. This is not a general rule, and many non-Roman keyboard layouts have been invented from scratch. Most non-Roman keyboard layouts have the capacity to be used to input Roman letters as well as the script of the language, for example, when typing in URLs 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. Arabic :: Armenian :: Greek :: Hebrew See Also: Hebrew keyboard :: Russian :: People who do not have a Cyrillic keyboard sometimes use a phonetic (transliterated) layout where ‘А’ is obtained by pressing ‘A’, ‘Б’ by pressing ‘B’, ‘О’ by pressing ‘O’ etc. Also there were some alternative (e.g. ‘ЯВЕРТЫ’, ‘ЧШЕРТЫ’ ) keyboard layouts extinct by now. See also Russian keyboard: standard and phonetic . Bulgarian :: The Bulgarian BDS layout. This new version of the standard was accepted on 5 December 2006 . :: The new Bulgarian Phonetic layout, accepted as Bulgarian National Standard (BDS) on 5 December 2006 . Earlier versions of this layout were widespread because of its similarity to the QWERTY layout. It is a Phonetic not Transliteration layout, and produces Cyrillic symbols. layout Both layouts are in widespread use. The new standard added the Euro sign and some other characters to both layouts. Transliteration using Roman Script is used only in informal electronic written communication, mainly because of a long history of compatibility issues with different encodings, history of lack of native OS support and user laziness. Devanāgarī :: A lot of different layouts exists for Devanāgarī . Look at Devanāgarī to see some of them. Khmer :: EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES Chinese , Japanese , and Korean require special input methods, often abbreviated to CJK IME s, due to the thousands of possible characters in these languages. Various methods have been invented to fit all these possibilities into a normal 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, first the range of possibilities is narrowed down (most often by entering the desired character’s pronunciation), then, if there remains more than one possibility, selecting the desired Ideogram either by typing the number before the character, or using a graphical menu to select it. The computer assists the typist by using Heuristic s to guess which character is most likely desired. Although this may sound clumsy, East Asian input methods are today sufficiently sophisticated that, for both beginners and experts, typing in these languages is only slightly slower than typing English. In Japanese, the QWERTY-based JIS keyboard layout is used, and the pronunciation of each character is entered using Hepburn Romanization or Kunrei-shiki romanization. There are several Kana -based typing methods. ''See also'' Japanese Language And Computers . Chinese has the most complex and varied input methods. Characters can be entered by pronunciation (like Japanese and Korean) or by structure. Most of the structural methods are the most difficult to learn, but they are extremely fast for experienced typists, as they do away with the need for selecting characters from a menu. For a detailed treatment, see Chinese Input Methods For Computers . There exist a variety of other, slower ways 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, Radical s, and Stroke count. Also, many input systems include a "drawing pad" permitting "handwriting" of a character using a Mouse . Finally, if the computer does not have CJK software installed, it may be possible to enter a character directly through its Encoding number (e.g. Unicode ). In contrast to Chinese and Japanese, Korean is typed the same way as Western languages. There are two major kinds of keyboard layouts: dubeolsik and sebeolsik. Dubeolsik, based on the QWERTY keyboard, is more commonly used. While Korean consonants and vowels ('' Jamo '') are grouped together into syllabic grids when written, the script is essentially alphabetical, and therefore typing in Korean is quite simple for someone who understands the Korean alphabet Hangul . 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 this grouping is done seamlessly by the computer, with the result that Korean can be typed in the same way as English or any other alphabetical language. Chinese =Chinese (traditional) Computers in the Republic Of China (Taiwan) often use Zhuyin (bopomofo) style keyboards (US keyboards with bopomofo labels), many also with Cangjie Method key labels, as Changjie is the standard method for speed-typing in Traditional Chinese. The bopomofo style keyboards are in Lexicographical Order , top-to-bottom left-to-right. :: The codes of three input methods are typically printed on the Chinese (traditional) keyboard: Zhuyin (upper right); Cangjie (lower left); and Dayi (lower right). In Hong Kong , both Chinese (Traditional) and US keyboards are found. Japan ese keyboards are occasionally found, but UK keyboards are rare. See also British And American Keyboards , Technical Standards In Colonial Hong Kong A Chinese (Traditional) keyboard has a US layout with Chinese input method labels printed on the keys. These keyboards can be used for Roman characters, provided that US Keyboard Layout is selected in the Operating System . =Chinese (simpified) Keyboards used in the Mainland of the People’s Republic Of China typically use a US keyboard and input Chinese characters using Hanyu Pinyin , which represents the sounds of Chinese characters using Latin letters. See the section on Chinese languages above, and also Chinese Input Methods For Computers . Hangul (for Korean ) =Dubeolsik :: Dubeolsik (두벌식) is the most common Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea. Pressing the Ha/En(한/영) key once switches between Hangul as shown, and English. There is another key to the left of the space bar for Hanja input. If using a standard 104-key keyboard, the right Alt key will become the Ha/En key, and the right Ctrl key will become the Hanja key. Alternate keyboard styles exist, such as those used by IBM mainframes, but these are rarely used. Consonant s occupy the left side of the layout, while Vowel s are on the right. =Sebeolsik 390 :: Sebeolsik 390 (세벌식 390) was released in 1990, hence its name. It is based on Dr. Kong’s earlier work. This layout is notable for its compatibility with the QWERTY layout; almost all QWERTY symbols 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) is another Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea. 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 . Japanese :: Usually the JIS keyboard is used. Some people type Hiragana directly, but most people prefer typing Latin alphabets, which are automatically converted to Hiragana. In both cases, the Alt+Zen/Han key combination is used to switch on Japanese Input Methods . Some people prefer the US layout, in which case Alt+` does the role, or Cmd -Space for Macs. See the section on East Asian Languages above, also Japanese Language And Computers and Japanese input methods. |
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