Why are (qwerty) keyboards laid out differently in the U.K. and other English speaking countries?
I’m a British expat working in South Africa, and I’m quite often called upon to use others’ keyboards. In S.A., the default layout is the ‘American’ layout.
Why is this different from the British layout? Why does the American keyboard have such a small Return key. Why is the backslash key where the return key should be. Why swap around the ” and the @ keys? Is there any reason that anyone can think of?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
22 Answers
Mine is a qwerty, and i’ve seen that it depends on the phone you have, they are mostly all different though
Why do you guys drive on the wrong side of the road?
It’s my understanding that the £ key is replaced by a $ key for convenience.
@Zendo we drive on the right side of the road which just happens to be the left side
@Tink1113 you know people have bigger computers too, right? not just phones?
@Irk Whoops sorry, I thought it was a question about phones, damn
@Irk thanks :)
Woah thats weird I dont know why though, € £ ¥ <—- are those the keys?
Hey, you think the differences between US/UK keyboards are difficult, ever use a computer in France? You’ll go nuts just trying to type a simple email.
Thanks, @lrk, that’s a perfect way of showing what I mean.
Also, what is the ¬ key for?
Why so many differences? I mean, aside from the Americans using more ‘z’s than us, the language is almost identical.
It is because different countries speak different languages whose usage of letters are different. In other words, they use some letters more often and some much less than in other languages. For example, the German language uses the Z more often than the letter Y, as a result we have a QWERTZ layout, in addition to Ö ,Ä ,Ü, ß and §.
How many US keyboards have an Alt Gr key?
@lrk I get a hotlinking error when I try to go to the UK layout you linked. Here’s one from Wikipedia: UK keyboard layout
You think thats weird, try a german keyboard. The z and y are in opposite places than the American keyboard which is really hard to get used to. If you look at the UK keyboard, it actually isnt replacing many spots but adding keys. The @ and # keys are added on the right which changes the shape of the Enter key, while the left shift is much smaller to add the \ key. Its not that big of a difference but you could always bring a keyboard around with you in a backpack or something if its that big of a deal.
@ragingloli but he’s comparing American (English) and British (English) keyboards.
Well some keyboard needs special characters. Mine has the æøå buttons because i use them in my language.
this is confusing… I use an English International keyboard.
My ”@” is onder the number 2 but my RETURN key is 2 rows high.
I know it was VERY common in the 90s (perhaps earlier, I wasn’t around) for keyboards to have Enter/Return keys being 2 rows high. I don’t see that around here any more though.
Is your keyboard fairly old, @Inofaith?
the return/enter keys of ALL my keyboards I use/d are two rows high, old and new.
Well you live in the 5th dimension so your opinion is irrelevant anyway.
jk ilu
I don’t know about that. But i do live in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th dimensions. Anyway, almost all keyboards in Germany have 2 row high enter keys.
@ragingloli You live in the 1st and 2nd dimention? Tell us what it’s like.
Answer this question 
This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.
Composing members:
0
