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AZERTY (/əˈzɜːrti/ə-ZUR-tee) is a specificlayout for the characters of theLatin alphabet ontypewriter keys and computerkeyboards. The layout takes its name from the first sixletters to appear on the first row of alphabetical keys; that is, (AZERTY). Like other European keyboard layouts, it is modelled on the English-languageQWERTY layout. It is used inFrance andBelgium, though both countries have their own national variation on the layout.
The competing layouts devised for French (e.g. the 1907 ZHJAY layout, Arav Dixit's 1976 layout, the 2002Dvorak-fr, and the 2005BÉPO layout) have obtained only limited recognition, although the latter has been included in the 2019 French keyboard layout standard.[1]
The AZERTY layout appeared in France in the last decade of the 19th century as a variation on American QWERTY typewriters. Its exact origin is unknown. It was more successful than its contemporaries (e.g. the French ZHJAYS layout created by Albert Navarre in the early 20th century) because of its similarity to the QWERTY layout and its initial popularity.[2][3][4]
In France, the AZERTY layout is thede facto norm for keyboards. In 1976, a QWERTY layout adapted to the French language was put forward, as an experimental standard (NF XP E55-060) by AFNOR. This standard made provision for a temporary adaptation period during which the letters A, Q, Z and W could be positioned as in the traditional AZERTY layout.[citation needed]
In January 2016, the FrenchCulture Ministry looked to replace the industrial AZERTY layout with one more suited to French.[5] A standard was published by theFrench national organization for standardization in 2019.[6]
The AZERTY layout is used inFrance,Belgium and some African countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout thus:
The French and Belgian AZERTY keyboards also have special characters used in the French and Dutch language, such as é, è, ê, ï, ë, ... and other characters such as &, ", ', and ç (only for French), some located under the numbers and some with combinations of keys.
There are two key details:
Certain letters are accented frequently enough that they are given their own keys rather than being used in combination with adead key. These areé,à,è,ù andç.
Adead key serves to modify the appearance of the next character to be typed on the keyboard. Dead keys are mainly used to generate accents (ordiacritics) onvowels.
Acircumflex can be generated by first striking the^ key (located to the right ofP in most AZERTY layouts), then the vowel requiring the accent (with the exception of y). For example, pressing^ thena producesâ.
Adiaresis can be generated by striking the¨ key (in most AZERTY layouts, it is generated by combining the⇧+^ keys), then the vowel requiring the accent. For example, pressing⇧+^ thena producesä.
Thegrave accent can be generated by striking the` key (in the French AZERTY layout it is located to the right of theù key) on Macintosh keyboards, while on PC-type keyboards it can be generated by using the combinationAlt Gr+è.
In the Belgian AZERTY layout, the grave accent is generated by the combinationAlt Gr+μ (theμ key is located to the right of theù key on Belgian AZERTY keyboards), and then the key for the vowel requiring the accent.
Its main use is in typing letters used in other languages (e.g. Italianò) and accented capital letters.
Theacute accent is available under Windows by the use ofAlt+a, then the vowel requiring the accent. Theé combination can be generated using its own key. For Linux users, it can be generated using⇪ Caps Lock+é then the vowel. On a Macintosh AZERTY keyboard, the acute accent is generated by a combination of theAlt+⇧+&, keys, followed by the vowel.
In the Belgian AZERTY layout, a vowel with an acute accent can be generated by a combination ofAlt Gr+ù, then the vowel.
The acute accent is not available in the French layout on Windows.
Its main use is in typing letters used in other languages (e.g. Spanishá,í,ó,ú) and accented capital letters.
Thetilde is available under Windows by using a combination of theAlt Gr+é keys, followed by the letter requiring the tilde.
On Macs, theñ can be obtained by the combination ofAlt Gr+N keys, followed by theN key.
In the Belgian AZERTY layout,ñ can be generated by a combination ofAlt Gr+=.
Its main use is in typing letters used in other languages (e.g. Spanishñ, Portugueseã andõ) and accented capital letters.
With someoperating systems, the Alt key generatescharacters by means of their individual codes. In order to obtain characters, the Alt key must be pressed and held down while typing the relevant code into thenumeric keypad.
OnLinux, the Alt key gives direct access to French-language special characters. The ligaturesœ andæ can be keyed in by usingAlt Gr+o andAlt Gr+a respectively, in the fr-oss keyboard layout; their uppercase equivalents can be generated using the same key combinations plus the⇧ Shift key. Other useful punctuation symbols, such as≤,≥, or≠, can be more easily accessed in the same way.
In X11, the window system common to many flavors of UNIX, the keyboard interface is completely configurable, allowing each user to assign different functions to each key in line with their personal preferences. For example, specific combinations ofAlt Gr key could be assigned to many other characters.
It is possible to fill in these gaps by installing a keyboard driver that has been specially enriched for the French language.[7]
One can also use WinCompose in order to easily type all characters. The characterÇ could be typed by pressing⎄ Compose , C or the character« with⎄ Compose < <, and there is also an option to allow typing accentuated capitals with⇪ Caps Lock such thatÇ can be typed with⇪ Caps Lock ç.
Some word-processing software packages address some of these gaps. The non-breaking space can be obtained by pressingCtrl followed by a space, in a word-processing package such asOpenOffice.org Writer, or by usingCtrl+⇧+Espace [Spacebar] in Microsoft Word.
Apart from these gaps, the French AZERTY layout has some strange features which are still present in theMicrosoft Windows Vista operating system:
In January 2016, the FrenchMinistry of Culture, which is in charge of language affairs, expressed a will to offer an alternative to the AZERTY layouts traditionally proposed by the industry. The new layout would have to provide full coverage of the symbols required by French spelling (including accented capitals such as É) as well as other languages of France and European languages written with the Latin alphabet.[5][8] The project, led by the French national organization for standardizationAFNOR, released both this improved AZERTY and aBÉPO layout. Initially due in January 2018, the standard was released in April 2019.[6]
The layout keeps the same placement for the 26 Latin letters and 10 digits, but moves others (such as some accented letters and punctuation signs), while it adds a range of other symbols (accessible with Shift, AltGr). There is easy access toguillemets « » (French quotes), accented capital letters: À, É, Ç, as well as Œ/œ, Æ/æ, which was not possible before on basic AZERTY (Windows' AZERTY); previouslyalt codes were required.
It allows typing words in many languages usingdead keys, which are in blue on the picture, to access a variety of diacritics. A few mathematics symbols have also been added.
Awebsite for the new AZERTY layout has been created, offering information, visuals of the changes, links to drivers to install the layout and various other resources.
The Belgian AZERTY keyboard allows for the placing of accents on vowels without recourse to encoding via the Alt key + code. This is made possible by the provision of dead keys for each type of accent: ^ ¨ ´ ` (the last two being generated by the combinationsAlt Gr+ù andAlt Gr+μ respectively).
To recap the list of different keys from left to right and from top to bottom:
The descriptionpartially dead means that pressing the key in question sometimes generates the desired symbol directly, but that at least one of the symbols represented on the key will only appear after a second key has been pressed. In order to obtain a symbol in isolation, the space bar must be pressed, otherwise a vowel should be pressed to generate the desired accented form.
The other keys are identical, even though traditionally the names of special keys are printed on them in English. This is becauseBelgium is predominantly bilingual (French-Dutch) and officially trilingual (a third language, German, is spoken in the East Cantons).
The key to the right of0 on the numeric keypad corresponds either to the full stop or to the comma (which is why there are two distinct keyboard drivers under Windows).
The AZERTY keyboard as used inFlanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, uses the nameshift instead ofmaj andcaps lock instead ofverr maj.
Owing to its widespread usage inFrance,Belgium and some African countries, the AZERTY layout has several variants.
French-speaking people in Canada use theCanadian Multilingual standard keyboard. It is the only keyboard layout provided by Microsoft Windows that allows to type the grapheme "Œ/œ", needed by French spelling.
Although there is no evidence of usage in French-speaking countries, it can be noticed thatthe keyboard layout of Portugal (QWERTY-based) has a strictly better coverage of French spelling than the various variants of AZERTY (as available in Windows): indeed, it supports all diacritics of French (acute accent, grave accent, circumflex, diaeresis) as dead keys (allowing for those diacritics on both lowercase and uppercase letters), it has a separate key for "ç" (allowing it to be uppercased) and it even features the Frenchguillemets "«»"; however, it lacks the grapheme "œ/Œ", and lowercase accented letters of French are more cumbersome to type since they require pressing a dead key.
The"US-International" QWERTY layout supports French to the same extent than the Portugal's layout does (diacritics as dead keys, French guillemets, but no "œ/Œ"). Some programmers prefer it over AZERTY, as it is closer to an international standard and allows easier input ofASCII punctuation characters which are used pervasively inprogramming languages. It can be used on a plain US-QWERTY keyboard, being an extension of it.
However, only AZERTY is widely sold in French shops.
Another alternative is theBÉPO layout, a French-language application ofDvorak's principles for ergonomic typing. As of 2024, only a few specialized manufacturers sell keyboards with the BÉPO layout printed on it; however, its practitioners use totype blindly, without looking at the keys, for increased efficiency, if at a higher learning cost.
Apple'skeyboards use the same AZERTY layout in both France and Belgium.[9] Based on the Belgian version, the most notable differences are the locations for the @-sign and €-sign, among others.MacOS also supports the standard French layout for non-Apple keyboards; the standard Belgian layout, however, is available through third-party support only.[10]
There is anArabic variant of the AZERTY keyboard.[11] It is especially used in theAfrican countriesAlgeria,Chad,Comoros,Djibouti,Mauritania,Morocco,Tunisia and inArab communities in French-speaking countries to be able to type both in Arabic and in French.
TheTamazight (Latin) standards-compliant layout is optimised for a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants – includingTuareg variants – rather than French, though French can still be typed quickly. It installs as "Tamazight_L" and can be used both on the French locale and with Tamazight locales.
QWERTY and QWERTZ adaptations of the layout are available for the physical keyboards used by major Amazigh (Berber) communities around the world.
Other layouts exist for closer backwards compatibility with the French layout. They are non-standards-compliant but convenient, allowing typing inTifinagh script without switching layout:
All the above layouts were designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and are available from there.[12]
There is also aVietnamese variant of the AZERTY keyboard.[13] It was especially used in Vietnamese typewriters made until the 1980s.
Wolof keyboards also use AZERTY and are supported by Microsoft Windows (Windows 7 and later only).[14]
