QWERTZ
Overview
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
and typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
keyboard layout that is mostly used in Central
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. The name comes from the first six letters at the top left of the keyboard: Q, W, E, R, T, and Z.
The QWERTZ layout differs from the QWERTY
QWERTY
QWERTY is the most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six letters appearing in the topleft letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in the...
layout in four major ways:
- The positions of the "Z" and "Y" keys are switched, this change being made for two major reasons:
- "Z" is a much more common letter than "Y" in German; the latter rarely appears outside words whose spellings reflect either their importation from a foreign language or the HellenizationHellenizationHellenization is a term used to describe the spread of ancient Greek culture, and, to a lesser extent, language. It is mainly used to describe the spread of Hellenistic civilization during the Hellenistic period following the campaigns of Alexander the Great of Macedon...
of an older German form under the influence of Ludwig I of BavariaLudwig I of BavariaLudwig I was a German king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states.-Crown prince:...
. - "T" and "Z" often appear next to each other in the German orthographyGerman orthographyGerman orthography, although largely phonemic, shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling, once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the...
, and placing the two keys next to each other minimizes the effort needed for typing the two characters in sequence (cf. the use of a single-block tz ligature in many early mechanical printing pressPrinting pressA printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
es using fraktur typefaces). - Part of the keyboard is adapted to include umlauted vowelsUmlaut (diacritic)The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....
(ä, ö, ü). - The placements of some special symbols and command keys are changed, some of special key inscriptions are changed from an abbreviation to a graphical symbol (for example "Caps Lock" becomes a hollow arrow pointing down, "Backspace" becomes a left-pointing arrow), and most of the other abbreviations are replaced by German abbreviations (thus e.g.
Discussions
