What is a QWERTY keyboard? Variants of QWERTY keyboard

The QWERTY keyboard is extremely familiar to all users around the world and is very commonly used. The advent of this type of keyboard has made text editing operations easier. So what is a QWERTY keyboard? Join TipsMake to learn more details through the article shared below.

History of the birth of the QWERTY keyboard  

The QWERTY keyboard has been around for 200 years. The keyboard was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1867. However, he sold his invention to Remington in 1873. We can also see that this was the most commonly used type of keyboard at that time. current point. The combination of 6 keys on the top left corner of the keyboard has created the special name of this type of keyboard. Up to now, there is still no reasonable explanation for the arrangement of characters on the keyboard.  

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Before that, people often used typewriters, which were devices created based on the design of piano keys. However, after only a short period of use, users were very hesitant to use the typewriter. Because the letters are located quite close to each other, with high frequency of use, keys often get stuck.

That's why the keyboard is designed in the alphabet ABCDEF style, which has brought many inconveniences and inadequacies during use. The birth of the QWERTY keyboard helped overcome all of those problems and is commonly used to this day.

QWERTY keyboard and accents

The QWERTY keyboard is designed for use in English, a language without accents. Therefore, when used in different countries with different languages, the help of software and typing rules is needed to create appropriate accents.

For example, with the support of Unikey software, you can type Vietnamese words. According to Telex standards, the acute sign will be the S key, the grave accent will be the F key, the question mark will be the R key, the tilde will be the X key, and the grave sign will be the J key. At the same time, special Vietnamese vowels will be typed. by combining keys together, for example: a + a = â, o + o = cell, a + w = ​​ă,.

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To ensure compatibility with all languages ​​of all countries, the keyboard has also been developed into many variations. For example, in France and Belgium, the positions of the Q and A keys will be swapped with the W and Z keys, and the M key will be moved to the right of the L key. This keyboard style is also called AZERTY.

International variations of the QWERTY keyboard

To ensure that the keyboard can respond well to all languages ​​in the world, the QWERTY keyboard has many different variations. Here are the international variations of this keyboard:

Belgium and France

The QWERTY keyboard for Belgian and French will have a change in position between the Q key with A and W key with Z. At the same time, the M key will also move to the right of L. This keyboard is called a keyboard. AZERTY. However, French-speaking Canadians still use the QWERTY keyboard today.

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Czech Republic

The keyboard used for the Czech Republic also has a change in the position of the keys, specifically the Z and Y keys will be swapped, similar to the German keyboard. In particular, this keyboard also uses an additional 'kroužek' u (ů) to the right of L and (ú) next to P. The sequence of keys commonly used for numbers in other keyboard types will be used to create symbols. accents ě, š, č, ř, ž, it, á, í, é. The SHIFT key is also used to generate numbers in this system. 

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At the same time, letters with capitalization marks will be typed by holding down the shift key, pressing the equal sign and then the character to be typed. Therefore, the combination SHIFT + =, SHIFT + Z will produce Ž. In particular, the accents and symbols are completely different from the English version. Besides, there are also some variations that are different or more similar to the American QWERTY style.

Danish and Norwegian

For Danish and Norwegian keyboards there is a simple change between Æ and Ø only. Meanwhile, Swedish and Finnish keyboards have Ä and Ö keys respectively.

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Faroese

The keyboard used for Faroese will add the Æ and Ø keys next to the L key, the Å and D keys next to P. At the same time, the tilde, caret and alliteration are pressed Alt Gr + D, Å respectively and Ø.

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German

German keyboards add the Ü inflection to the right of the P key, with Ö and Ä to the right of L, and alternate the position between Z and Y because Z is a more common character than Y in German. Because T and Z often appear next to each other in German, it is called a QWERTZ keyboard.

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Hungarian

The Hungarian keyboard is used in the same style as the English keyboard. In particular, the middle row will be longer than usual, including the keys ASDFGHJKLÉÁŰ, although the character Ű will sometimes be at the end of the number row. 

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Icelandic

Keyboards for the Icelandic language add D to the right of P, add Æ to the right of L, add Ö to the right of 0 in the first row, and add Þ to the far right of the last row.

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Italian

Keyboard used for Italian, usually QZERTY style. The keyboard has also changed slightly, Z is replaced with W and M will be located to the right of the letter 'L'. However, this is not the type of keyboard used by most computers. Computers often use the QWERTY keyboard with the character è located to the right of the P key and ò to the right of the L key. To use a semicolon (;), you can press the combination shift + comma (,).

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Lithuanian

Keyboards for the Lithuanian language use the ĄŽERTY style, where the letter A is above Q, Q above A, Ž is in W above S and Q and W are on the far right. Depending on the type Using software, Lithuanian symbols can also be placed in place of numbers: 1 is Ą, 2 is Č, 3 is Ę, 4 is Ė, 5 is Į, 6 is Š, 7 is Ų, 8 is Ū and = is Ž.

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Norwegian

Keyboards using Norwegian insert Å to the right of P, insert Ø to the right of L and Æ to the right of Ø. Therefore, the order of appearance of the remaining parts of the keyboard will not change.

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Portuguese

The Portuguese keyboard still retains the QWERTY style but has a few additional keys, including: The letter C has a clavicle (Ç) after the L. In this position, the Spanish version has the letter N with The tilde (Ñ), the letter Ç, is not commonly used in the Spanish language, but it is still part of the linguistic relatives of French, Catalan and Portuguese. In particular, on the far right in the second row, in addition to the diacritic key, there are also keys such as inverted exclamation mark (¡), question mark (?), and inverted question mark (¿).

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Romanian

The keyboard used for Romanian will be QWERTZ, alternating between Y and Z. The characters ă and î are added to the right of the letter P, while the characters ş and ţ are added to the right of the letter. L. The character â will replace the backslash character. Besides, there are also some changes to the number keys above, the numbers will remain the same, but some symbols will be swapped. In particular, the most notable change is that the hyphen is changed to a slash (/).

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Turkish

The Turkish language keyboard has a slight variation, adding Ğ and Ü to the right of P, Ş and adding İ to the right of L, adding Ö and Ç to the right of M. Carets can also be used. is added by typing the key combination shift + 3 before the letter that needs to be added with an accent. In Turkey, QWERTY keyboards are not used, because this keyboard is not common to them and the layout of the F key is also a mandatory standard in Turkish keyboards. 

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Other types of keyboards

The QWERTY keyboard is the most commonly used keyboard, but there are also several other types of keyboards in use. This diversity helps users freely choose the type of keyboard that best suits their needs. Here are some other types of keyboards that you can refer to:

AZERTY keyboard

The AZERTY keyboard is a type of keyboard designed with many features similar to the QWERTY keyboard. If you live in a French-speaking country in Africa or Europe, you are already familiar with this type of keyboard.

The biggest difference between the AZERTY keyboard and the QWERTY keyboard is the location of the keys. Specifically, the Q key will be replaced by the A key, the W key will be replaced by the Z key in the top row. In the second row of the keyboard, the M key will replace the ; key.

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QWERTZ keyboard

The QWERTZ keyboard has been transformed from the QWERTY keyboard into its own type of keyboard by countries such as Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, etc. A simple change to better suit the language and user needs. 

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DVORAK Keyboard

Different from the AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboards, this type of keyboard was created by August Dvorak. Because the QWERTY keyboard did not meet his needs well, he directly designed a keyboard style that suited him. People used the inventor's name to name this keyboard, so they are called DVORAK.

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MALTRON keyboard

MALTRON keyboard is designed very specifically and is completely different from other keyboards. With this type of keyboard, the number keys are located in the middle and the letter keys are completely separate from each other on both sides.

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JCUKEN keyboard

JCUKEN keyboard is used in Russian-speaking countries. Because these countries do not use the Latin system, they need to have a separate keyboard with their own language symbols. Therefore, this keyboard was born to serve the needs of users.

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Epilogue

Because of the convenience that the QWERTY keyboard brings to users, this type of keyboard is being used very commonly. Hopefully the information TipsMake provides in the above article can help you better understand this type of keyboard. If you find the article useful, please share it with everyone.

Samuel Daniel

Update 03 October 2023