Quote
Is France's unloved AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris
21 January 2016
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Media caption
Hugh Schofield looks at the quirks of the AZERTY keyboard
France's 100 year-old AZERTY keyboard - the equivalent of the English-language QWERTY - is to be reconfigured after the government ruled that it encourages bad writing.
The AZERTY set-up has infuriated generations of writers, because of labour-creating peculiarities like the need for two strokes to make full-stops and numerals.
But official ire is directed less at such inconveniences, and more at certain quirks and oversights which, it says, make it hard to construct proper French.
"Today it is practically impossible to write French correctly using a keyboard that has been bought in France," the ministry intones.
"More surprisingly, certain European countries like Germany and Spain respect French writing better than the French are able to - because their keyboards permit it!"
The culture ministry has commissioned Paris-based consultancy AFNOR to draw up a list of recommendations by the summer.
The aim is to produce a new standard keyboard that will gradually replace the many varieties of AZERTY currently on the market.
What's wrong with AZERTY?
AZERTY was introduced as a French adaptation of the original QWERTY keyboard on US typewriters at the start of the 20th Century.
The main problem identified by the culture ministry is the difficulty for French writers to use "certain accented characters - and especially in upper-case".
Some common lower-case accented letters - like é (e-acute) and è (e-grave) - have dedicated keys on AZERTY.
The letter ù (u-grave) also has its own key, even though it is used in only one word in the entire French language - où, meaning where.
But other accented letters are harder to compose. And accented capital letters require manoeuvres of which, according to the ministry, most people are unaware.
This ignorance, and the consequent growing disuse of accented capitals, has given rise to the widespread belief that good French does not need them. Most people think that ignoring an accent on a capital letter is acceptable.
Not so! says the culture ministry, pointing out that both the Academie Francaise and the National Print have issued guidelines urging the use of accents on capitals.
A similar absence is that of a Ç - a capital C-cedilla, with the curly bit beneath signifying that it is pronounced like an 's'. Again the ministry says people think it is not necessary, but it is.
.....
Full item here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-35365604 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-35365604)
Do we Flemish need to change our keyboards too? Or do we join the Dutch and the Axis of Qwerty
Quote from: Archy on January 21, 2016, 05:21:14 PM
Do we Flemish need to change our keyboards too? Or do we join the Dutch and the Axis of Qwerty
Nonsense, you just go straight to voice recognition/dictation software. :D
It's odd, years ago that software was supposed to revolutionise how we working with computer and yet, outside a few specialist fields, the vast majority of us still use keyboards. :hmm:
mongers the clickbait
Quote from: Archy on January 21, 2016, 05:21:14 PM
Do we Flemish need to change our keyboards too? Or do we join the Dutch and the Axis of Qwerty
There's a modified Belgian Azerty vs QZERTY/QWERTZ/QWERTY? Seems so, after all there's a French Swiss and French Canadian keyboard (modified QWERTY for the latter I believe).
Not to mention the Apple variants of the same keyboards...
I always thought they used qwertz like switzerland.
You learn something every day.
No comment on France. There the situation is a little different sInce they aren't using the international standard. But in the English speaking world there have been studies to find the optimum keyboard (hint: it's not qwerty) yet we stick with our typewriter friendly keyboards just as we stick for floppy disk save icons
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on January 22, 2016, 07:29:54 AM
Quote from: Archy on January 21, 2016, 05:21:14 PM
Do we Flemish need to change our keyboards too? Or do we join the Dutch and the Axis of Qwerty
There's a modified Belgian Azerty vs QZERTY/QWERTZ/QWERTY? Seems so, after all there's a French Swiss and French Canadian keyboard (modified QWERTY for the latter I believe).
Not to mention the Apple variants of the same keyboards...
Yes QWERTY based.
This thread & title are not Siegebreaker-approved. :mad:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY#/media/File:Latin_keyboard_layouts_by_country_in_Europe_map.PNG (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY#/media/File:Latin_keyboard_layouts_by_country_in_Europe_map.PNG)
Map to visualise the keyboard layout(s) in Europe.
AZERTY? I thought French keyboards looked like this:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thepoke.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F01%2Ffrench_kayboard.jpg&hash=77b39d8b66c790e7fb5605d623fc910fb1ee2912)
There's a joke there somewhere, I am sure.
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 22, 2016, 10:00:32 AM
There's a joke there somewhere, I am sure.
:yes:
OOOHLALALA = Ouh là là
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0zlaopw6qo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0zlaopw6qo)
'merica!
Hey, it's the German guy that made the joke.
Quote from: Syt on January 22, 2016, 09:44:07 AM
AZERTY? I thought French keyboards looked like this:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thepoke.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F01%2Ffrench_kayboard.jpg&hash=77b39d8b66c790e7fb5605d623fc910fb1ee2912)
they'd never write "backspace"
Space de posterior then
Quote from: Tyr on January 22, 2016, 07:46:57 AM
But in the English speaking world there have been studies to find the optimum keyboard (hint: it's not qwerty) yet we stick with our typewriter friendly keyboards just as we stick for floppy disk save icons
The qwerty layout was designed to slow down typing so the letters didn't hit one another as you typed on a typewriter. It is the exact opposite of the optimum layout.
Quote from: grumbler on January 23, 2016, 11:41:45 AM
Quote from: Tyr on January 22, 2016, 07:46:57 AM
But in the English speaking world there have been studies to find the optimum keyboard (hint: it's not qwerty) yet we stick with our typewriter friendly keyboards just as we stick for floppy disk save icons
The qwerty layout was designed to slow down typing so the letters didn't hit one another as you typed on a typewriter. It is the exact opposite of the optimum layout.
Stereo. :)
Quote from: grumbler on January 23, 2016, 11:41:45 AM
Quote from: Tyr on January 22, 2016, 07:46:57 AM
But in the English speaking world there have been studies to find the optimum keyboard (hint: it's not qwerty) yet we stick with our typewriter friendly keyboards just as we stick for floppy disk save icons
The qwerty layout was designed to slow down typing so the letters didn't hit one another as you typed on a typewriter. It is the exact opposite of the optimum layout.
Uh, no. It was intended to
speed up typing by preventing the keys from hitting one another. That caused jams on early typewriters and jams slow down typing. You got the correct information, but you jumbled it in you head and it came out backwards. Better luck next time.
Now the DVORAK keyboard is designed to be a faster, though there's not much evidence that it actually is.
I expect any "best typing layout" will be highly dependent on the language being used, so there won't be a one size fits all solution.
Standardization is probably a good thing here.
Quote from: celedhring on January 23, 2016, 04:16:26 PM
I expect any "best typing layout" will be highly dependent on the language being used, so there won't be a one size fits all solution.
Standardization is probably a good thing here.
I agree that standardization is generally a good thing, but am not sure this is true for computer keyboards. I'm trying to think of the disadvantages to having different keyboards for different language structures (as we do now) and they escape me (cost savings are insignificant).
In any case, we probably wouldn't want to standardize on a layout explicitly designed to be make people type more slowly.
Quote from: grumbler on January 23, 2016, 05:19:12 PM
In any case, we probably wouldn't want to standardize on a layout explicitly designed to be make people type more slowly.
http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html
According to the article linked above, it isn't clear that the QWERTY layout was designed with a goal of reducing speed.
Quote from: grumbler on January 23, 2016, 05:19:12 PM
I agree that standardization is generally a good thing, but am not sure this is true for computer keyboards. I'm trying to think of the disadvantages to having different keyboards for different language structures (as we do now) and they escape me (cost savings are insignificant).
It makes them a pain in the ass to use unless you like memorizing multiple layouts. <_<
Quote from: garbon on January 23, 2016, 05:34:55 PM
It makes them a pain in the ass to use unless you like memorizing multiple layouts. <_<
Why would I ever want to memorize multiple layouts? I don't write often enough in languages other than English to need specialized keyboards for those languages. Right now there are multiple keyboard layouts and I've never had to memorize more than one. <_<
Quote from: grumbler on January 23, 2016, 06:02:22 PM
Quote from: garbon on January 23, 2016, 05:34:55 PM
It makes them a pain in the ass to use unless you like memorizing multiple layouts. <_<
Why would I ever want to memorize multiple layouts? I don't write often enough in languages other than English to need specialized keyboards for those languages. Right now there are multiple keyboard layouts and I've never had to memorize more than one. <_<
You are right, I shouldn't have said you as I don't really care what happens in your small, little world. :o
Quote from: garbon on January 23, 2016, 06:09:43 PM
You are right, I shouldn't have said you as I don't really care what happens in your small, little world. :o
The feeling is entirely mutual. :hug:
Ahem, it seems you care enough to want the last word... :P
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on January 23, 2016, 06:17:22 PM
Ahem, it seems you care enough to want the last word... :P
:huh: Who is "you" in this context, and what word was supposed to be the last one?