A variation of QWERTZ layout used in Germany.
Xah Lee, 2009-09-16
Recently, am looking at different keyboard layouts used in different countries, in discussion about ErgoEmacs project. See Keyboard layout.
One thing i noticed, is that many of them are idiotically designed.
A variation of QWERTZ layout used in Germany.
For example, the QWERTZ one used in Germany and some other euro countries. It differs from QWERTY by switching Y and Z, presumably because in the German language Z is more commonly used and Y not much, and presumably the position of qwerty Y is more efficient to type than Z. However, the QWERTY's Y is possibly more difficult to type than Z, because it is a key with the longest distance of finger movement for touch typing, and z is just a pinky curl. Of course, pinky is weak. But all things considered, it is questionable that this swap creates more efficiency. Even so, we have to ask how much? By some scientific experiment or just intuition?
A Belgian AZERTY layout.
Similar is the AZERTY layout, used in France and Belgium. It differs from QWERTY, mostly by swapping A and Q, Z and W, and M with “,”, again supposedly for the purpose of efficiency for the French language. Some of these are quite questionable. A is a vow. Is Q really that much more used than A in French? By how much? But also consider the swapping of Z and W. Even if we presume as a fact that Z happens more frequently than Z, but the position of Z again is not necessary worse than the position of W, so the swap may actually make it less efficient.
Consider this in another way. Suppose we are going to create a new layout by make 3 pairs of swapping from QWERTY to improve the efficiency for typing French. Then, is the “AQ”, “ZW”, “M,” are probably far from the best choices. (note: all this should done by methods that is scientifically sound, for example, quantified data of finger movement, distances, letter frequency, and many other aspects, or, as statistical data gathered from social study of some population's experiences.)
In studying these, i wanted to know WHO actually designed these layout, or how were these layout developed. That is, their history. But that's more esoteric info and needs more time to research than i can devote now.
Another major stupidity is related to the Alt Graph key. In many of these layouts, the right Alt is the AltGr key, for typing many letters not in English. However, if you look in detail, you'll notice that vast majority of key spaces in most of these layouts are left empty with the Alt Gr, a egregious waste of spots. And if you look at their choice of placement for the chars, clearly they have paid absolutely no consideration to touch typing efficiency.
Canadian Multilingual
Canadian French
French layout, a AZERTY variation.
When you read Wikipedia articles on them, you also read about some criticism similar to the above, and get the sense that these layouts didn't really came from conscious design. For example, the French in Canada do NOT use the AZERTY used in France, even though their lang is the same. (the variations between France French and Canadian French, with respect to typing (i.e. Grapheme), are basically same, am 99% sure.)
If they gonna swap QWERTY keys that made them incompatible, they might just adopt a modified Dvorak. With modifications to each lang, it'd be some 1.5 more efficient than their modified QWERTY, since all vows are on the home row.
Also, you'll note that there are a lot unnecessary variations of layout. For example, there's Canadian Multilingual Standard, Canadian French, French. There's “Spanish (Spain)” and “Spanish (Latin America)”. There is United Kingdom, United Kingdom Extended, US-International. If you just use Dvorak, with a Alt Graph that fill key spots more with chars, and with ergonomics considerations, it is trivial to arrive at a layout design that can replace much of these variations and yet be more touch-typing efficient than each of the layout.
Spanish (Latin American)
Spanish (Spain)
United Kingdom
US International. Among existing layouts, this design is more close to technical excellency, as it more properly uses Alt Gr spaces. If we re-arrange it to Dvorak, it would close to a good universal layout for majority of Latin-alphabet based languages.
Overall, i think the way things are has little to do with technical reasons, but rather: (1) historical inertia. Much like the story of qwerty and dvorak. (2) Human animal's egotistic pride. Much the same pervasive and perpetual political fight about language, among different countries of different languages, among different countries of the same language, among the same country with different languages, or among regions using the same language but small variations. It's not about technicality of design, but this is MY, that is YOURS.