Language/Multiple-languages/Culture/Keyboards

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Input Methods - Keyboards

Hello Polyglots 😀

On this page, we list the most popular and ergonomic keyboards.

Recommendations:

Multilingual keyboard for Android: Multiling O keyboard.
Typing program: ttyper.
Keyboard editor for Windows: Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator.
Keyboard editor for macOS: Karabiner-Element.
Keyboard editing guidance for Linux: Creating custom keyboard layouts for X11 using XKB.

Latin

language	type	variant	image with link

multiple languages	BÉPO
multiple languages	Colemak	United States	https://colemak.com/
multiple languages	Colemak	Colemak-DH EurKEY	ISO: ANSI: https://forum.colemak.com/topic/2623-colemakdh-eurkey/
multiple languages	Eumak
multiple languages	QWERTY	Canadian Multilingual Standard
multiple languages	QWERTY	EurKEY	https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu/
multiple languages	QWERTY	suomalainen monikielinen
multiple languages	QWERTY	United States International
Berber languages	AZERTY	Tamaziɣt
German, French, Italian, Romansch	QWERTZ	Schweiz
Dutch, French	AZERTY	België
Norwegian, Sámi	QWERTY	norsk med samisk
Albanian	QWERTZ	Shqipëri
Czech	QWERTZ	Česko
Danish	QWERTY	Danmark
Dutch	QWERTY	Nederland
English	Workman		https://workmanlayout.org/
English	QWERTY	United Kingdom
Estonian	QWERTY	Eesti
Faroese	QWERTY	Føroyar
Hungarian	QWERTZ	Magyarország	ISO: BAE:
Icelandic	QWERTY	Ísland
Irish	QWERTY	Éire
Italian	QWERTY	Italiana
Polish	QWERTY	Polska
Polish	QWERTZ	Polska
Portuguese	QWERTY	Brasil
Portuguese	QWERTY	Portuguesa
Romanian	QWERTY	România
Slovak	QWERTY	Slovensko
Slovenian	QWERTZ	Slovenija
Spanish	QWERTY	España
Spanish	QWERTY	Latinoamérica
Turkish	FGĞIOD
Turkish	QWERTY	Türkiye
Vietnamese	QWERTY	Việt Nam

Cyrillic

JCUKEN

It's commonly called Windows layout, for Russian, and there is a variant of it for Ukranian.

Bulgarian

It's based on QWERTY.

Serbian

It's based on QWERTZ.

Han

Zhuyin (Bopomofo)

It's a set of phonetic notes created by the Beiyang Government in the 1910s. Later it came into computers.

Its main advantage is easy to learn.

It's the most popular in Taiwan.

Pinyin

It's a romanization created by many linguists in the 1950s and published by Government of China in 1958 and has been revised several times. Later it came into computers.

It follows the system's keyboard, usually QWERTY.

Its main advantage is easy to learn.

It's the most popular in China.

Cangjie

It's created by Chu Bong-Foo and named by Chiang Wei-Kuo in 1976, to input Traditional Chinese by making characters up with parts, later it became available for Simplified Chinese, Kanji, Hanja, Hán Nôm.

Mr. Chu waived his copyright for common good.

Its main advantage is efficient, being able to input uncommon characters and to input characters without knowing its pronunciation.

There are mainly two versions, 3 and 5, the latter is more reasonable.

The Cangjie coming with Windows 10 is version 3.

Layout of Cangjie:

Secondary characters (the red are added in Cangjie 5):

The inventor's website:

http://www.cbflabs.com/

Software 倉頡平台 for Windows:

http://www.chinesecj.com/forum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=193324

Cangjie 5 practice software 倉頡打字通:

http://www.wb98.com/down.htm:

Cangjie course, based on version 3

http://dylansung.tripod.com/methods/cangjie.htm:

Cangjie course in Chinese:

https://zh.wikibooks.org/wiki/%E5%80%89%E9%A0%A1%E8%BC%B8%E5%85%A5%E6%B3%95

Cangjie 3 code dictionary:

http://input.foruto.com/cjdict/Search_1.php

Cangjie 5 code dictionary:

http://www.chinesecj.com/cj5dict/

Cangjie on Linux is available through fcitx or IBus. The package names are fcitx-table-cangjie and ibus-table-cangjie.

Sucheng

A variant of Cangjie, only to input the initial and the final parts and then select from candidates.

Wubi

It's created by Wang Yongmin in 1986, to input Simplified Chinese by making characters up with parts.

Its main advantage is efficient and being able to input characters without knowing its pronunciation.

There are mainly three versions, 86, 98 and New-century. The former the more popular, but the latter the more reasonable.

The Wubi coming with Windows 10 is version 86, but unofficial thesauruses for other Wubi input software are available.

The layout of Wubi 86:

The layout of Wubi 98:

The layout of Wubi New-Century:

Software 极点五笔 for Windows:

http://www.freewb.org/

Wubi practice software 五笔打字通 for 86 and 王码打字通 for 98:

http://www.wb98.com/down.htm

Wubi course, based on version 86:

http://chinesemac.org/wubi/xing.html

Wubi course in Chinese, based on version 86:

http://soft.zol.com.cn/22/224137_all.html

Wubi code dictionary:

http://www.wangma.com.cn/query/wmhz1.asp

Official website:

http://www.wangma.net.cn/

Wubi on Linux is available through fcitx or IBus. The package names are fcitx-table-wubi and ibus-table-wubi.

Handwriting input

To input by handwriting recognition.

Its main advantage is enabling to input characters without knowing its pronunciation (many can show it), and to input uncommon characters.

Japanese

Romaji input

There are several types of Romanization in Japanese, in which the most widely-used is Hepburn, created by James Curtis Hepburn in 1867. Later it came into computers.

It follows the system's keyboard, usually QWERTY.

Its main advantage is easy to learn.

Kana input

Its main advantage is efficient.

It's the most popular in Japan.

Flick input

It's for mobile phones, input by flicking finger from a position to a direction.

Its main advantage is efficient.

It's the most popular in Japan.

Korean

Dubeolsik

Its main advantage is easy to learn.

It's the most popular in Korea.

Sebeolsik Final

Its main advantage is ergonomic. Its main disadvantage is using the number row and frequent need of pressing the Shift key.

Ahnmatae

Its main advantage is easy to learn with clear division of the first consonant, vowel and final consonant. Its main disadvantage is using non-home row frequently.

Official website (currently down):

http://www.ahnmatae.org/

New Sebeolsik

Its main advantage is clear division of the first consonant, vowel and final consonant. Its main disadvantage is burdening the left hand.

Its final version is unsettled yet.

Official blog category:

https://pat.im/category/%ED%95%9C%EA%B8%80%20%EC%9E%90%ED%8C%90/%EC%8B%A0%EC%84%B8%EB%B2%8C%EC%8B%9D

Latest version:

Romaja

There are several types of Romanization in Korean, in which the most widely-used is Revised Romanization, created by the National Academy of the Korean Language in 2000. Later it came into computers.

It follows the system's keyboard, usually QWERTY.

Its main advantage is easy to learn. Its main disadvantage is causing some inconvenience for some words like “Hangeul”.