TheUrdu keyboard is anykeyboard layout forUrducomputer andtypewriter keyboards. Since the first Urdutypewriter was made available in 1911, the layout has gone through various phases of evolution.[1] With time, the variety of layouts introduced in the 1950s formechanized compositions have reduced to very few that are compatible with the newdigital age. Modern improvements in Urdu keyboard were pioneered by theNational Language Authority (Muqtadra-e-Qaumi Zaban) inPakistan, which standardized the linguistic aspects such asorthography andlexicography. These developments helped the keyboard layout to evolve from thetypewriters to be compatible withcomputers, to increase theproductivity and textual efficiency of the language, especially through modernelectronic media.
When Urdu was declared as thenational language of the independent Pakistan in 1947, a variety of keyboard designs were quickly brought into the market by various individuals and organizations.[2] However, differences remained in the order of the keys and the number of characters. This underscored an urgent need for a standard form of keyboard adaptable for diverse users.[1]
In 1980, the National Language Authority of Pakistan developed a new keyboard layout for typewriters based onNaskh script. The keyboard had 46 keys to type 71 Urduconsonants,vowels,diacritics, andpunctuation marks, and 21 key symbols forarithmetic calculations anddigits. However, with the arrival of the digital age, the layout became inadequate for computerized processing that requiredsoftware[3] backup to select the shape of the character appropriate to the context, and the ability to store multiple languagecharacter sets.[4] These issues were addressed through the standardization of keyboard.[5]
In 1998 National Language Authority, under Dr.Attash Durrani's supervision started working on a research and development project to standardize the Urdu encoding. This resulted in the formation ofUrdu Zabta Takhti (اردو ضابطہ تختی) (UZT). In July 2000, UZT 1.01 was standardized for all kinds of electronic computing, communications, and storage.[6] Based on this version, Urdu language support was incorporated into the Versions 3.1 and 4.0 ofUnicode. The Keyboard version 1 was finalized by NLA on December 14, 1999. In 2001, theNational Database and Registration Authority of Pakistan fully adopted this keyboard for Data Entry operations of theComputerized National Identity Cards.[citation needed]
Along with the UZT keyboards, phonetic keyboards have been developed for Urdu. Phonetic keyboards works with the sound of the words, e.g. 'a' button of the English keyboard contain an Urdu word which is similar to the sound of 'a' and same is the case for other characters. Though less common in the past, phonetic keyboards have seen wider use recently. CRULP (Center for research for Urdu language processing) has been working on phonetic keyboard designs for URDU and other local languages of Pakistan. Their Urdu Phonetic Keyboard Layout v1.1 for Windows is widely used and considered as a standard for typing Urdu on Microsoft platform. However it has not been adopted by Microsoft for any Windows platform.[7]