British and American keyboards
Encyclopedia
There are two major English language
computer keyboard
layouts
, the United States layout and the United Kingdom layout defined in BS 4822 (48-key version). Users in the United States
do not frequently need to make use of the £
(pound) and €
(euro) currency symbols, which are common needs in the United Kingdom
and Ireland
, although the $
(dollar sign) symbol is also provided as standard on UK and Irish keyboards. In Australia
and English-speaking Canada
, the US keyboard is used.
Enhanced keyboard commonly used with personal computers designed for Microsoft Windows
differs from the US layout as follows:
On laptop
computers, the | and \ key is often placed next to the space bar.
Early versions of Windows handled both the differences between the two keyboards and the differences between American English
and British English
by having two English language options — a UK setting and a US setting. While adequate for users in the United States
, United Kingdom
, and Ireland
, this solution caused difficulty in other English-speaking countries. In many Commonwealth
countries and other English-speaking jurisdictions (e.g., Australia
, the Caribbean
nations, Hong Kong
, India
, Singapore
, New Zealand
, and South Africa
), local spelling, grammar, and vocabulary strongly conformed to British English
usage, while the supplied keyboard was printed with the United States layout on the keys. People in these countries were forced to choose between a keyboard layout incompatible with their hardware, or having their spell checker
software complain about the American English spelling of words such as "colour", "centre", etc.
However, in more recent editions, the number of options was increased, allowing users to select the correct keyboard and dialect
independently. For example, one is given a number of default options for locality that will usually correctly match dialect and keyboard. Further, even if your hardware keyboard layout
does not match the device driver
software layout that was pre-selected, you can change that without changing the regional setting.
Since the standard US keyboard layout in Microsoft Windows offers no way of inputting any sort of diacritic or accent, this makes it unsuitable for all but a handful of languages unless the US International layout is used. The US International layout changes the `, ~, ^, " (for ¨), and ' (for ´) keys into dead key
s for producing accented characters. The US International layout also uses the right alt (AltGr) as a modifier to enter special characters. Although there is no UK International layout on Windows, XP SP2 and above provide a UK Extended layout which, if activated, will allow the user to enter a wide variety of diacritics (such as grave accents) which are not accommodated by the standard UK layout.
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...
computer keyboard
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...
layouts
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....
, the United States layout and the United Kingdom layout defined in BS 4822 (48-key version). Users in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
do not frequently need to make use of the £
Pound sign
The pound sign is the symbol for the pound sterling—the currency of the United Kingdom . The same symbol is used for similarly named currencies in some other countries and territories, such as the Irish pound, Gibraltar pound, Australian pound and the Italian lira...
(pound) and €
Euro sign
The euro sign is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the Eurozone in the European Union . The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. The international three-letter code for the euro is EUR...
(euro) currency symbols, which are common needs in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
, although the $
Dollar sign
The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...
(dollar sign) symbol is also provided as standard on UK and Irish keyboards. In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and English-speaking Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the US keyboard is used.
PC keyboards
The UK variant of the IBMIBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
Enhanced keyboard commonly used with personal computers designed for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
differs from the US layout as follows:
- an AltGr keyAltGr keyAltGr is a modifier key found on many computer keyboards and primarily used to type characters that are unusual for the locale of the keyboard layout, such as currency symbols and accented letters...
is added to the right of the space barSpace barthumb|250px|A [[computer keyboard]], Space Bar is on the bottom center of the keyboardThe space bar, spacebar, or space key, is a key on an alphanumeric keyboard in the form of a horizontal bar in the lowermost row, significantly wider than other keys. Its main purpose is to conveniently enter the... - the # symbol is replaced by the £ symbol and a 102nd key is added next to the Enter keyEnter keyIn computer keyboards, the enter key in most cases causes a command line, window form, or dialog box to operate its default function...
to accommodate the displaced # - @ and " are swapped
- the ~ is moved to the # key, and is replaced by a ¬ symbol on the backquote (`) key
- the \ key is moved to the left of the Z key
- the Enter key spans two rows, and is narrower to accommodate the # key
On laptop
Laptop
A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...
computers, the | and \ key is often placed next to the space bar.
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
and British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
by having two English language options — a UK setting and a US setting. While adequate for users in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
, this solution caused difficulty in other English-speaking countries. In many Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
countries and other English-speaking jurisdictions (e.g., Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
nations, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
), local spelling, grammar, and vocabulary strongly conformed to British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
usage, while the supplied keyboard was printed with the United States layout on the keys. People in these countries were forced to choose between a keyboard layout incompatible with their hardware, or having their spell checker
Spell checker
In computing, a spell checker is an application program that flags words in a document that may not be spelled correctly. Spell checkers may be stand-alone capable of operating on a block of text, or as part of a larger application, such as a word processor, email client, electronic dictionary,...
software complain about the American English spelling of words such as "colour", "centre", etc.
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
independently. For example, one is given a number of default options for locality that will usually correctly match dialect and keyboard. Further, even if your hardware 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....
does not match the device driver
Device driver
In computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device....
software layout that was pre-selected, you can change that without changing the regional setting.
Dead key
A dead key is a special kind of a modifier key on a typewriter or computer keyboard that is typically used to attach a specific diacritic to a base letter. The dead key does not generate a character by itself but modifies the character generated by the key struck immediately after...
s for producing accented characters. The US International layout also uses the right alt (AltGr) as a modifier to enter special characters. Although there is no UK International layout on Windows, XP SP2 and above provide a UK Extended layout which, if activated, will allow the user to enter a wide variety of diacritics (such as grave accents) which are not accommodated by the standard UK layout.
Apple Macintosh keyboards
The default US layout on Apple Macintosh computers has allowed input of diacritical characters since inception, whereby the entire MacRoman character set is directly available, so many of the problems outlined above are not encountered. However, Apple supplies a "British" keyboard layout with the following differences:- the # symbol is replaced by the £ symbol (as on PC keyboards); the # is still available by pressing OptionOption keyThe Option key is a modifier key present on Apple keyboards. It is located between the Control key and Command key on a typical Mac keyboard. There are two option keys on modern Mac desktop and notebook keyboards, one on each side of the space bar....
-3 - more recent Apple British keyboards move the backquote/~ key to the left of the Z key and replace them with a section signSection signThe section sign , also called the "double S", "sectional symbol" or signum sectiōnis, is a typographical character used mainly to refer to a particular section of a document, such as a legal code. It is frequently used along with the pilcrow , or paragraph sign...
(§) and a plus-minus signPlus-minus signThe plus-minus sign is a mathematical symbol commonly used either*to indicate the precision of an approximation, or*to indicate a value that can be of either sign....
(±) respectively. - the Enter key spans two rows and is shaped similarly to the Enter key of many non-U.S. PC keyboards.
See also
- Keyboard layoutKeyboard layoutA 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....
- Technical standards in Hong Kong