Urdu keyboard - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Urdu keyboardاردو is any keyboard layout

Keyboard layout

A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key–meaning associations of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard....

for an Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

computer

Computer keyboard

In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...

and typewriter keyboards. Since the first Urdu 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...

was made available in 1911, the layout has gone through various phases of evolution. With time, the variety of layouts introduced in the 1950s for mechanised

Mechanization

Mechanization or mechanisation is providing human operators with machinery that assists them with the muscular requirements of work or displaces muscular work. In some fields, mechanization includes the use of hand tools...

compositions have reduced to very few that are compatible with the new digital age. Modern improvements in Urdu keyboard were pioneered by the National Language Authority

National Language Authority

The National Language Authority is an autonomous regulatory institution established in 1979 to support the advancement and promotion of Urdu which is the national language of Pakistan. Initially it was aimed at creating a synergy between national and provincial governments and institutions for...

(Muqtadra-e-Qaumi Zaban) in Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, which standardised the linguistic aspects such as orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

and lexicography

Lexicography

Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....

. These developments helped the keyboard layout to evolve from the typewriter

Typewriter

s to be compatible with computer

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...

s, to increase the productivity

Productivity

Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...

and textual efficiency of the language, especially through modern electronic media

Electronic media

Electronic media are media that use electronics or electromechanical energy for the end-user to access the content. This is in contrast to static media , which today are most often created electronically, but don't require electronics to be accessed by the end-user in the printed form...

Evolution of the Urdu keyboard

Urdu is a versatile language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

with the potential to expand and grow to fulfil the needs of modern communications technologies

Communication

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

. When it was declared as the national language

National language

A national language is a language which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country...

of the independent Pakistan in 1947, a variety of keyboard designs were quickly brought into the market by various individuals and organisations. However, differences remained in the order of the keys and the number of characters. This underscored an urgent need for a standard form of keyboard adaptable for diverse users..

First generation

In 1963, the newly established Central Language Board in Pakistan standardardised the typewriter keyboard. The new standard keyboard also incorporated special characters of other provincial

Divisions of Pakistan

Divisions are the third tier of government in Pakistan, between the provinces and districts. They were abolished in 2000 by the government of former president Pervez Musharraf to make way for local governance via district governments...

languages, such as Sindhi

Sindhi language

Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of Pakistan that is spoken by the Sindhi people. In India, it is among 22 constitutionally recognized languages, where Sindhis are a sizeable minority. It is spoken by 53,410,910 people in Pakistan, according to the national government's Statistics Division...

and Pushto

Pashto language

Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...

. Languages spoken in Punjab

Punjab (Pakistan)

Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...

and Balochistan

Balochistan (Pakistan)

Balochistan is one of the four provinces or federating units of Pakistan. With an area of 134,051 mi2 or , it is the largest province of Pakistan, constituting approximately 44% of the total land mass of Pakistan. According to the 1998 population census, Balochistan had a population of...

could be easily accommodated within the Urdu characters.

Second generation

The keyboard was again modified in 1974. This time the layout was based on the frequency tables

Frequency distribution

In statistics, a frequency distribution is an arrangement of the values that one or more variables take in a sample. Each entry in the table contains the frequency or count of the occurrences of values within a particular group or interval, and in this way, the table summarizes the distribution of...

and bifurcation (balancing load on typist's fingers) techniques, and the characters relating to other languages were replaced with the numeral

Numeral system

A numeral system is a writing system for expressing numbers, that is a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using graphemes or symbols in a consistent manner....

Third generation

In 1980, the National Language Authority of Pakistan developed a new keyboard layout for typewriters based on Naskh

Naskh (script)

Naskh is a specific calligraphic style for writing in the Arabic alphabet, thought to be invented by the Iranian calligrapher Ibn Muqlah Shirazi . The root of this Arabic term means "to copy". It either refers to the fact that it replaced its predecessor, Kufic script, or that this style allows...

script. The keyboard had 46 keys to type 71 Urdu consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...

s, vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

s, diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...

s, and punctuation

Punctuation

Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences...

marks, and 21 key symbols for arithmetic

Arithmetic

Arithmetic or arithmetics is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations. It involves the study of quantity, especially as the result of combining numbers...

calculations and digits

Numerical digit

A digit is a symbol used in combinations to represent numbers in positional numeral systems. The name "digit" comes from the fact that the 10 digits of the hands correspond to the 10 symbols of the common base 10 number system, i.e...

. However, with the arrival of the digital age, the layout became inadequate for computerised processing that required software backup to select the shape of the character appropriate to the context, and the ability to store multiple language character sets

Character encoding

A character encoding system consists of a code that pairs each character from a given repertoire with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the transmission of data through telecommunication networks or storage of text in...

. These issues were addressed through the standardisation of keyboard for a bilingual teleprinter

Teleprinter

A teleprinter is a electromechanical typewriter that can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point and point to multipoint over a variety of communication channels that range from a simple electrical connection, such as a pair of wires, to the use of radio and microwave as the...

to use both English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

and Urdu. The new layout was found appropriate for use in computer-based applications and was immediately adopted with modifications for word processor

Word processor

A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....

Fourth generation

In 1998 National Language Authority, under Dr. Attash Durrani

Attash Durrani

Dr. Attash Durrani , T.I., is a Linguist, Scholar, terminologist, translatologist, educationist, theorist, language/ Knowledge Manager/ Engineer, and Pakistani author. He is Chairman of INKSOFT Inc., Islamabad, Pakistan, for the Localization for Urdu, Pakistani, Persian, Dari and Arabic languages...

's supervision started working on a research and development project to standardise the Urdu encoding. This resulted in the formation of Urdu Zabta Takhti (اردو ضابطہ تختی) (UZT). In July 2000, UZT 1.01 was standardised for all kinds of electronic computing, communications, and storage. Based on this version, Urdu language support was incorporated into the Versions 3.1 and 4.0 of Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

. The Keyboard version 1 was finalized by NLA on Dec.14 , 1999 .In 2001, the National Database and Registration Authority

National Database and Registration Authority

National Database and Registration Authority is a federal department of the Government of Pakistan that is responsible for issuing identification cards to the citizens of Pakistan. Employing more than 11,000 member of staff and having more than 400 domestic offices and five international offices,...

of Pakistan fully adopted this keyboard for Data Entry operations of the Computerised National Identity Cards. Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

included this keyboard along with Urdu Language Locale in its Windows XP

Windows XP

Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...

operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

for personal computer

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

s. This keyboard is now standard for the Urdu language.
Developments in earlier part of 2008, led to the introduction of the 'ghost character theory' at the NLA, which allows for computerised orthographic representation of Perso-Arabic script

Perso-Arabic script

The Persian or Perso-Arabic alphabet is a writing system based on the Arabic script. Originally used exclusively for the Arabic language, the Arabic alphabet was adapted to the Persian language, adding four letters: , , , and . Many languages which use the Perso-Arabic script add other letters...

. This enables wider scope of editing with the option of switching between the languages such as Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

, Balochi

Balochi language

Balochi is a Northwestern Iranian language. It is the principal language of the Baloch of Balochistan, Pakistan, eastern Iran and southern Afghanistan. It is also spoken as a second language by some Brahui. It is designated as one of nine official languages of Pakistan.-Vowels:The Balochi vowel...

, Pashto

Pashto language

, Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, Punjabi

Shahmukhi script

Shahmukhi is a local variant of the Urdu alphabet, which itself is a Perso-Arabic derivation that has used to write and record the Urdu language in the Indian subcontinent for centuries. Nastaʿlīq is a portmanteau word of naskh of Arabic and ta'aliq,...

, and Sindhi

Sindhi language

respectively.

Phonetic Keyboard

With the UZT keyboard the other keyboard that is used common is the phonetic
keyboard. Phonetic keyboards works with the sound of the words. e.g. 'a' button of
the English keyboard contain an Urdu word which is similar to the sound of 'a' and
same is the case for other characters. This was not mostly used in the past but
currently it is gaining pace and is considered a better and easy to use layout.
CRULP (Center for research for Urdu language processing) has been working on phonetic keyboard designs for URDU and other local languages of Pakistan. CRULP Urdu Phonetic Keyboard Layout v1.1 for Windows is
very famous and considered as a standard now for typing Urdu on Microsoft platform.
This version is widely accepted by local language community and has been finalized
after valuable feedback from users.
Rashid 14:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

External links

Urdu Keyboard Installer
Online Urdu Keyboard
Urdu keyboard at OLPC
National Language Authority, Pakistan
Urdu on Mac
MS Office 2003 Urdu Interface
Urdu Language phonetic keyboard
English to Urdu Dictionary with Urdu Keyboard
Download entire English to Urdu dictionary, editable, 24000 words, urdu script
Easily write Urdu letters online without having Urdu keyboard
Urdu computer setup, on ur.wikipedia.org (English)

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