Keyboard layouts
Laptop keyboard hardware
The team from Pentagram finalized the keyboard design for the B-Test machines. Six different versions of the keyboard are being made: Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Nigerian (for Hausa, Ìgbo, Yorùbá, Ẹdo, Ẹfik, Fulani, Kanuri, etc.), and US International.
Soft keyboard layouts
It is obvious that each typable writing system has to have its own keyboard layouts. In addition, there are numerous rearrangements of keyboards for specific languages and countries. Many languages require specific letters not used in other languages. As a result, most locales have their own keyboard layouts, in some cases several.
The following examples, from Debian Linux keyboard layouts, are all incomplete. For alphabets with upper- and lower-case, only the lower-case is shown. No attempt has been made to indicate combining diacritics and other composed characters. See the images linked from the various language names for further details.
See also Keyboard Files for an explanation of Linux keyboard definitions, and Debian keyboards for a list of keyboard layouts included in Debian Linux. Where a Debian keyboard file exists, its name is appended to the layout names below.
Latin Alphabet
Latin keyboards mostly fall into a few basic arrangements, with many lesser variations to accommodate special characters. The most common are
QWERTY
US
Standard English-language keyboard en_US
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
q w e r t y u i o p [ ] \
a s d f g h j k l ; ´
z x c v b n m , . /
Azerbaijani az
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
q ü e r t y u i o p ö ğ \
a s d f g h j k l ı ə
z x c v b n m ç ş .
Vietnamese vn
` ă â ê ô ` ~' đ - ₫
q w e r t y u i o p ư ơ \
a s d f g h j k l ; '
z x c v b n m , . /
Dvorak dvorak
US Alternate Standard Keyboard (ASK)
ANSI X3.207:1991 (previously X4.22-1983), "Alternate Keyboard Arrangement for Alphanumeric Machines"
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 [ ]
' , . p y f g c r l / = \
a o e u i d h t n s -
; q j k x b m w v z
` [ ] p f m l j 4 3 2 1 \
; q b y u r s o ^ 6 5 =
k c d t h e a z 8 7 -
' x g v w n i , 0 9
` 1 2 3 4 j l m f p / [ ]
5 6 q > o r s u y b ; =
7 8 z a e h t d c k -
9 0 x , i n w v g '
Norwegian Dvorak
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 + \
å , . p y f g c r l ' ~ <
a o e u i d h t n s -
æ q j k x b m w v z
Swedish Dvorak
§ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 +
å ä ö p y f g c r l , "'
a o e u i d h t n s -
. q j k x b m w v z
French AZERTY fr_FR
² & é " ' ( - è _ ç à ) =
a z e r t y u i o p ^$ *
q s d f g h j k l m ù
w x c v b n , ; : !
German QWERTZ de
^ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ß
q w e r t z u i o p ü + #
a s d f g h j k l ö ä
y x c v b n m , . -
Congo cd
` & ́ ̀ ( { } ) ̂ ̌ ̈ - =
a w e r t y u i o p ɛ * "
q s d f g h j k l m ɔ
z x c v b n , ; ! '
Greek el
Follows various Latin layouts to some degree. There are a number of other Greek layouts, including Polytonic Greek for Classical literature.
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
; ς ε ρ τ υ θ ι ο π [ ] \
α σ δ φ γ η ξ κ λ
ζ χ ψ ω β ν μ , . /
Cyrillic
There are four keyboard layouts for Russian, with variants for other languages written in Cyrillic. During the Soviet period, there were more than 200 of them. Several of the newly independent states of Central Asia have changed to other alphabets, according to national preference, including Arabic, Latin, and Mongolian. (The independent former Soviet republic of Mongolia returned to Cyrillic soon thereafter. The Chinese province of Mongolia continues to use its traditional alphabet.)
Russian ru
This is the standard Russian layout for Linux systems.
ё 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
й ц у к е н г ш щ з х ъ \
ф ы в а п р о л д ж э
я ч с м и т ь б ю /
Ukrainian ua
' 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
й ц у к е н г ш щ з х ї ґ
ф і в а п р о л д ж є
я ч с м и т ь б ю /
Mongolian mn
= 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 е щ
ф ц у ж э н г ш ү з к ъ !
й ы б ө а х р о л д п
я ч ё с м и т ь в ю
Uzbek uz
ё 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ў қ
й ц у к е н г ш х ъ ғ ҳ \
ф з в а п р о л д ж э
я ч с м и т ь б ю .
Tajik tj
ё 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
й ц у к е н г ш ¸ з х ъ \
ф ы в а п р о л д ж э
я ч с м и т ь б ю /
Indic
- Bengali bd, ben
- Devanagari dev
- Gujarati guj
- Gurmukhi gur
- Kannada kan
- Malayalam ml
- Oriya ori
- Tamil tml
- Telugu tel
Other
Armenian am
՝ ֆ ձ – , ։ ՞ ․ ՛ ) օ է ղ
ճ փ բ ս մ ո ւ կ ը թ ծ ց »
ջ վ գ ե ա ն ի տ հ պ ր
ժ դ չ յ զ լ ք խ շ ռ
Thai
_ ๅ / - ภ ถ ุ ึ ค ต จ ข ช
ๆ ไ ำ พ ะ ั ี ร น ย บ ล ฃ
ฟ ห ก ด เ ้ ่ า ส ว ง
ผ ป แ อ ิ ื ท ม ใ ฝ
Pattachote th_pat
_ = ๒ ๓ ๔ ๕ ู ๗ ๘ ๙ ๐ ๑ ๖
็ ต ย อ ร ่ ด ม ว แ ใ ฌ ๅ
้ ท ง ก ั ี า น เ ไ ข
บ ป ล ห ิ ค ส ะ จ พ
TIS-820.2538 th_tis
๏ ฿ / - ภ ถ ุ ึ ค ต จ ข ช
ๆ ไ ำ พ ะ ั ี ร น ย บ ล ฅ
ฟ ห ก ด เ ้ ่ า ส ว ง
ผ ป แ อ ิ ื ท ม ใ ฝ
Lao lo
ຢ ຟ ໂ ຖ ຸ ູ ຄ ຕ ຈ ຂ ຊ ໍ ົ ໄ ຳ ພ ະ ິ ີ ຣ ນ ຍ ບ ລ ໜ ັ ຫ ກ ດ ເ ້ ່ າ ສ ວ ງ ຜ ປ ແ ອ ຶ ື ທ ມ ໃ ຝ
Burmese mm
` ၁ ၂ ၃ ၄ ၅ ၆ ၇ ၈ ၉ ၀ - ၒ
ဪ ဲ ာ ီ ူ ဗ ဟ ဂ ဒ ဇ ဍ ည ၎
ဩ ဧ ္ ိ ု ပ ရ က တ စ ဋ
၌ ့ မ န ဗ လ သ , . /
Dzongkha/Tibetan bt
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Dzongkha is the principal language of Bhutan.
༉ ༡ ༢ ༣ ༤ ༥ ༦ ༧ ༨ ༩ ༠ ༔ །
ཀ ཁ ག ང ི ུ ེ ོ ཅ ཆ ཇ ཉ ཝ
ཏ ཐ ད ན པ ཕ བ མ ཙ ཚ ཛ
ཞ ཟ འ ཡ ར ལ ཤ ས ཧ ཨ
Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics iu
Inuktitut
ᕻ ᖕ ᑉ ᕐ ᒃ ᑦ ᖅ ᒻ ᓐ ᓪ ᔾ - ᕝ
ᖏ ᐃ ᕿ ᑭ ᑎ ᓯ ᒥ ᓂ ᓕ ᔨ ᒡ ˙\
ᖑ ᐅ ᖁ ᑯ ᑐ ᓱ ᒧ ᓄ ᓗ ; '
ᖓ ᐊ ᖃ ᑲ ᑕ ᓴ ᒪ , . ᔭ
Hebrew il
; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = / 'פ ם ן ו ט א ר ק , ף ך ל ח י ע כ ג ד ש . ץ ת צ מ נ ה ב ס ז ז
Sinhala lk
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
ඍ ඇ එ ර ට ය උ ඉ ඔ ප [ ] \
අ ස ඩ ෆ ග හ ජ ක ල ; '
ඤ ඬ ච ව බ න ම , . /
Georgian ge
Latin phonetic layout ge_la
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
ქ წ ე რ ტ ყ უ ი ო პ [ ] \
ა ს დ ფ გ ჰ ჯ კ ლ ; '
ზ ხ ც ვ ბ ნ მ , . /
Russian phonetic layout ge_ru
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
ღ ც უ კ ე ნ გ შ წ ზ ხ ჯ \
ფ თ ვ ა პ რ ო ლ დ ჟ ძ
ჭ ჩ ს მ ი ტ ქ ბ ყ ჰ
Chinese Zhuyin (Bopomofo)
This is one of several Zhuyin layouts. The letters ㄅㄆㄇㄈ down the left-hand side are roughly equivalent to "bpmf", and are commonly read Bopomofo, giving the alternate name of this writing system.
ㄅ ㄉ ˇ ˋ ㄓ ˊ ˙ ㄚ ㄞ ㄢ ㄦ = ㄆ ㄊ ㄍ ㄐ ㄔ ㄗ ㄧ ㄛ ㄟ ㄣ [ ㄇ ㄋ ㄎ ㄑ ㄕ ㄘ ㄨ ㄜ ㄠ ㄤ ; ㄈ ㄌ ㄏ ㄒ ㄖ ㄙ ㄩ ㄝ ㄡ ㄥ
Cambodian kh
«១២៣៤៥៦៧៨៩០ឥឲ
ឆឹេរតយុិោផ
ាសដថងហ្កលើ់
ឋខចវបនម។៊
More keyboards needed.
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- Mongolian traditional alphabet
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- Japanese hiragana and katakana
See also Input methods for typing languages whose character sets will not fit on a single keyboard layout.
External Links
- Keyboard stickers for numerous languages. Images of keyboard maps are provided for most supported languages.