Azerty vs qwerty keyboard: history of distributions

Have you ever heard about the AZERTY keyboard , but don't know what it is? Here we will tell you in a second what this key distribution is and its most important things.

You see, the key layout we know today as AZERTY is a way of sorting and sorting the keys for certain users. More specifically, today they use it only in the main francophone countries of the old continent, that is, Europe . If you have been or are coming from France or Belgium , you will possibly know what we are talking about.

Index of contents

The AZERTY keyboard

AZERTY keyboard

Like the QWERTY keyboard, this layout was born during the era of typewriters, with the subtle difference of being used only in francophone countries. While the QWERTY was intended to optimize the use of machines for English, the AZERTY optimized it with French in mind.

We recommend reading our article on the DVORAK keyboard.

In countries like England or Spain , the QWERTY keyboard became the rule, while other countries in central and eastern Europe have adopted other standards. In the case of the AZERTY keyboard, today it is mainly used in France, Belgium and Corsica.

Using the AZERTY keyboard in Europe.

On the map we have above we can see the use of AZERTY and other key layouts in Europe .

1. Green: QWERTY Blue: AZERTY Orange: QWERTZ Gray: Keyboards not from Latin Yellow: Regional variants

Still, the AZERTY keyboard is not an immutable standard, since even within these territories we have variations such as:

• Belgian AZERTY keyboard: variant with the same set of consonants and vowels, but different set of symbols (?! @ - _ + = § and others). Combined Arabic AZERTY keyboard: It is a distribution of keys that follows the base of AZERTY , but that is oriented to write in two languages ​​at the same time. With it we can write French as well as Arabic or another language of the area. It is mainly used in French-speaking African countries.

On the other hand, we have other francophone countries that, however, have not adopted AZERTY . The two main cases are Switzerland and Canada , countries with a bilingual or even trilingual tradition.

• There are mainly two types of keyboards in Canada . Both are QWERTY based, but one is geared towards writing French and, occasionally, English and the other just the reverse. In Switzerland three languages ​​are spoken, however, since German is the most dominant, it is common for most keyboards to be QWERTZ (German standard). Similar to Canada , there are distributions designed to write mainly German with high school French and others in reverse.

AZERTY and computer systems

Generic distribution of AZERTY

AZERTY and Windows keyboards don't get along particularly well, as they don't meet some French language standards. The Imprimerie Nationale (a relevant figure in the French language) has recommended certain proposals to improve AZERTY keyboards. Among them we find:

• The implementation of keys with tildes in certain capital vowels such as À, Ç, É or È. Keys dedicated to ligatures, that is, these special French letters œ Œ æ Æ The standard use of French quotation marks, since they are often automatically exchanged for double quotation marks.

On the other hand, the AZERTY has implemented in the second level of keys (the ones pressed next to Shift / Shift) quite a few symbols that are not very useful for day to day.

In general, as we saw in our tutorial to configure your keyboard, most languages ​​do not take advantage of all the possibilities of their distributions. The biggest problem is that they have many unused key combinations, especially combinations with Ctrl + Alt / Alt Gr.

In contrast to Windows , in Linux we have a wide range of possibilities. We can download different distributions and even create our own, so there should be no problem.

Switch to AZERTY ?

In most cases, the answer is clear: no. The AZERTY keyboard is not intended to be a determining point to improve typing, but rather is a simple adaptation for francophone users.

In his day, going too fast meant the typewriter was jamming, so there were limits, and both QWERTY and AZERTY were born under those circumstances. The main idea was to achieve the highest average speed, but without going too fast so as not to hinder writing.

This is where it differs from the DVORAK keyboard that we mentioned above. DVORAK is another key layout with a variant for French users that, in principle, serves to optimize typing as much as possible. On the other hand, AZERTY is a simple regional keyboard that you can use and that you can get used to, but you will not get any benefit in return.

As each country uses a different standard, in the end it all comes down to what you have already learned and to your tastes. Knowing a little about AZERTY and its history is more than anything curiosity and acquired knowledge, which is never superfluous!

Do you think we should all use the same standard? Have you ever used a keyboard other than QWERTY? Tell us about your experiences in the comment box below.

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