Unfortunately, not all writing systems are as well tailored as Dutch. Instead of relying on combinations of existing Roman letters to reproduce particular sounds, like the former, many languages choose special markings. So, I see people complaining, as I was time ago, when they are abroad and cannot find the character they desire in a foreign computer, or struggling to write exotic names or sentences in their own. If you strive to write ‘ñ’ in your Spanish e-mails or some wunderschön German citations in your papers this might be of your interest.
The history of why a keyboard has its keys distributed as they are nowadays goes back to the origins of the typewriter 1 and shall not be discussed here. As many other gadgets or conventions we have, we are just stuck with them. The different keyboard layouts 2 are probably the biggest barrier when you have to change between them. A disposition QWERTZ or AZERTY become a big trouble when first encountered in a new country. You can buy different keyboards for your PC, but in a laptop you are stuck with the one that comes from factory. So be wise choosing.
QWERTY is the most employed layout, mainly because is the one used in English language, and also Spanish and Portuguese, being a total of a billion potential users. But QWERTYs can also have US or ISO layouts. The main difference, so you can tell them apart, is that the first has a horizontal ‘enter’ key whereas in the second it comes as an inverted weird L shaped key. ISO keyboards are manufactured with keys adapted for different languages, as German (in Switzerland is even different than the standard German keyboard) or Scandinavian languages. That is, plenty of different typesets.
Many people use ISO keyboards and change the letter input through the operative system. Basically, in Windows, you have a language bar and you can switch between keyboard inputs depending on the language you want to use. It may be OK while you have only 2 or 3, or one of them is not in Latin script (like Greek or Russian). But if you change often between languages, or worst, in the same text you are writing, it becomes a horrid waste of time, especially if swapping between QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ.
So, for having all characters at your disposal in the same keyboard while writing, there is one easy solution:
- Order your computer with US layout (if you don’t reside there). If you are in the Netherlands, India or other countries US keyboards also come by default.
- Set the keyboard entry as US International 3. You can also set an ISO keyboard as US International but many common keys (except for the letters) will be changing places. If using an input language other than English US, choose in ‘other’ or ‘show more’ keyboards, and United States – International will be listed.
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| All characters in the keyboard. Source: Wikipedia, open license. |
No more need to continually go to ‘insert character’ in word processors, or press Alt + number combinations. Now, with just AltGr you will have at your hands all the characters for all major Western languages, including ñ, ß, ø, å, x², and of course all kind of accented vowels and umlauts. Those characters, even if you see them in the layout depicted above, are not shown (imprinted) in a normal US keyboard. You may memorize them, print a guide or buy some cheap stickers to place on the keys.
No more excuses fellow expatriates and researchers!
References:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter#Keyboard_layouts
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#US-International
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