Comments on: Foreign language keyboards http://www.16thletter.com/2008/07/22/foreign-language-keyboards/ Thoughts on how the Internet intersects with work, play & life Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:30:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Gledwood http://www.16thletter.com/2008/07/22/foreign-language-keyboards/#comment-3926 Gledwood Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:57:19 +0000 http://www.16thletter.com/?p=463#comment-3926 I've studied German and French for years. I know German well enough to write a blog in that language. But had NO IDEA until yesterday when I installed French and German keyboard settings on my machine, that these swap-about letter situations existed! Speaking as someone who's studied Japanese and Thai as well as several European languages I'm totally against domain names in non-roman characters. On the face of it it sounds all pc and nice until you consider the immense confusion that would be caused (how would you enter a domain name in Burmese if your computer wasn't set up to deal with that character set?) Also the roman alphabet is the de facto auxilliary alphabet of the world. Go to any newsstand anywhere, glance through newspapers in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Korean, Greek etc etc and time and again you'll see not only acronyms and abbreviations but entire names in roman letters... I say KEEP IT SIMPLE. And keep it qwerty ~ I don't think I'm ever going to get my head round typing in French!! Great post, great blog. I'll link to you in my post about foreign keyboards All the v best to you from Gledwood in London I’ve studied German and French for years. I know German well enough to write a blog in that language. But had NO IDEA until yesterday when I installed French and German keyboard settings on my machine, that these swap-about letter situations existed!

Speaking as someone who’s studied Japanese and Thai as well as several European languages I’m totally against domain names in non-roman characters. On the face of it it sounds all pc and nice until you consider the immense confusion that would be caused (how would you enter a domain name in Burmese if your computer wasn’t set up to deal with that character set?)

Also the roman alphabet is the de facto auxilliary alphabet of the world. Go to any newsstand anywhere, glance through newspapers in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Korean, Greek etc etc and time and again you’ll see not only acronyms and abbreviations but entire names in roman letters… I say KEEP IT SIMPLE.

And keep it qwerty ~ I don’t think I’m ever going to get my head round typing in French!!

Great post, great blog. I’ll link to you in my post about foreign keyboards

All the v best to you

from Gledwood in London

]]> By: Mary http://www.16thletter.com/2008/07/22/foreign-language-keyboards/#comment-3925 Mary Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:18:31 +0000 http://www.16thletter.com/?p=463#comment-3925 That was fascinating and very insightful. Great research into what the different keyboards look like. That was fascinating and very insightful. Great research into what the different keyboards look like.

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