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France wants a new keyboard

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  France wants a new keyboard RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-22 17:10 +0000
    Re: France wants a new keyboard Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-22 17:21 +0000
      Re: France wants a new keyboard RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-22 17:32 +0000
        Re: France wants a new keyboard Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-01-22 22:28 +0200
          Re: France wants a new keyboard Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-22 19:40 -0500
            Re: France wants a new keyboard Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-01-23 10:43 +0200
              Re: France wants a new keyboard Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-23 09:25 +0000
                Re: France wants a new keyboard scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2016-01-25 17:36 +0000
              Re: France wants a new keyboard Andy Burns <usenet.jan2016@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2016-01-23 13:28 +0000
                Re: France wants a new keyboard RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-23 16:58 +0000
        Re: France wants a new keyboard Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2016-01-24 12:42 +0100
          Re: France wants a new keyboard Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu> - 2016-01-27 22:35 -0800
            Re: France wants a new keyboard Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2016-01-28 20:48 +0100
              Re: France wants a new keyboard Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu> - 2016-01-29 22:42 -0800
      Re: France wants a new keyboard mausg@mail.com - 2016-01-22 20:05 +0000
        Re: France wants a new keyboard Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2016-01-23 11:11 +1100
          Re: France wants a new keyboard Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-23 09:25 +0000
            Re: France wants a new keyboard Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2016-01-23 23:23 +1100
    Re: France wants a new keyboard Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> - 2016-01-27 15:12 +0200
      Re: France wants a new keyboard Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-01-27 17:03 +0200
        Re: France wants a new keyboard Kara M'bola <maxupixu@in.val.it> - 2016-01-27 18:23 +0000
          Re: France wants a new keyboard RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-28 10:35 +0000
            Re: France wants a new keyboard Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-28 10:46 +0000
              Re: France wants a new keyboard Kara M'bola <maxupixu@in.val.it> - 2016-01-28 11:18 +0000
        Re: France wants a new keyboard Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-27 21:26 +0000
        Re: France wants a new keyboard Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> - 2016-01-28 10:02 +0200

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#10081 — France wants a new keyboard

From the «diacriticals are for suckers» department:
Title: France wants a new keyboard to protect its language
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 09:04:36 -0500
Link: http://osnews.com/story/29055/France_wants_a_new_keyboard_to_protect_its_language

This week, the French government announced a plan to standardize the
French-language computer keyboard, as part of an effort to help protect and
nurture the language. The ministry of culture and communication says it's
"nearly impossible to correctly write French" on keyboards sold in the country
today, meaning that the language's strict grammatical rules are being flouted
more regularly. The ministry has partnered with a standardization group to
develop a new keyboard norm, which will be presented for public feedback this
summer. To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking
countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole
often seems insane. It happens, though, and it's very real - I talked about
this before, but for Dutch. Modern technology really is changing language in
multiple ways all over the place. This really isn't up for debate. The
question, however, is not if technology can change language; no, the real
question is whether or not you should care. I personally believe that no, you
should not. Language has always been ever-changing, is ever-changing, and
always will be ever-changing. The idea that one particular set of rules for
English, French, or Dutch from a very particular area and from a very
particular timeframe is somehow more or less correct is not only wrong, it's
downright insulting. Much like other aspects of culture, language is often used
as a means to discriminate, insult, or ridicule. A great - and sad - example of
this is African American Vernacular English, which was often seen as dumb,
stupid, and incorrect, reflecting the perceived social position of
African-Americans in American society and emphasizing stereotypes about
African-Americans. However, when linguists actually started studying AAVE, they
found out it was incredibly rich in grammatical rules and constructs that are
very different from regular English, but not dumber or less complex.
Coincidentally, AAVE sounds beautiful. It flows really well. The point being,
the idea that you somehow need to "protect" language is kind of silly. Stopping
a language from changing - which is exactly what "protecting language" means -
is like trying to make it stop raining. If you start to try and stop a language
from changing, basically all you're doing is trying to create an ever-widening
rift between written language and spoken language, up to a point where the
written word deviates so much from the spoken word it starts to get
troublesome. There's nothing wrong with wanting a standardised French keyboard
- even if only for something as important as accessibility - but it's not going
to stop the French language from changing, being influenced, and modernising
itself.


--
Posting to comp.misc, sci.misc, and misc.news.internet.discuss

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#10084

On 2016-01-22, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:

> To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking
> countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole
> often seems insane.

Q. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
A. Trilingual.

Q. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
A. Bilingual.

Q. What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?
A. American.


(Sufficiently old as to no longer be strictly true, given the inroads
the Hispanic population is making.)

-- 
Today is Boomtime, the 22nd day of Chaos in the YOLD 3182
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#10088

On 2016-01-22, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> On 2016-01-22, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>
>> To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking
>> countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole
>> often seems insane.
>
> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
> A. Trilingual.
>
> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
> A. Bilingual.
>
> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?
> A. American.
>
>
> (Sufficiently old as to no longer be strictly true, given the inroads
> the Hispanic population is making.)
>

I'm an American who speaks seven, but hey.  Generalizations are fun - no
offense taken.

Having spent the last ten years in French speaking countries though, I
can confirm their keyboard layout sucks.  Diacriticals all over the
place, shift to get to numbers, and a whole lot of Alt-Gr to get some
useful symbols.  I wholeheartedly support this effort.

There's a French equivalent to Dvorak called, I think, BEPO, I'd always
been curious about.  Learning Dvorak was hard enough - never had to the
patience to give it a try.

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#10092

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>:

> Having spent the last ten years in French speaking countries though, I
> can confirm their keyboard layout sucks. Diacriticals all over the
> place, shift to get to numbers, and a whole lot of Alt-Gr to get some
> useful symbols. I wholeheartedly support this effort.

Just let everyone define their own keyboard layout. That's what I've
done so I can type Finnish, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Hebrew and C
without switching layouts.


Marko

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#10096

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:

> RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>:
>
>> Having spent the last ten years in French speaking countries though, I
>> can confirm their keyboard layout sucks. Diacriticals all over the
>> place, shift to get to numbers, and a whole lot of Alt-Gr to get some
>> useful symbols. I wholeheartedly support this effort.
>
> Just let everyone define their own keyboard layout. That's what I've
> done so I can type Finnish, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Hebrew and C
> without switching layouts.
>
Redefining keyboards has never been particularly a problem.

Changing the keytops to match has been.

I suppose someone could come up with a keyboard that has a place for 
labels and then a clear plastic cover to go over them, though that's not 
so useful if you want to frequently switch your keyboard type.

   Michael

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#10099

Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>:

> On Fri, 22 Jan 2016, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>> Just let everyone define their own keyboard layout. That's what I've
>> done so I can type Finnish, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Hebrew and C
>> without switching layouts.
>>
> Redefining keyboards has never been particularly a problem.
>
> Changing the keytops to match has been.

What is needed is e-ink displays on each key. On mobile devices that's
not a problem because there's no physical keyboard.

My keyboard definition doesn't match the marked keytops, but then, I
don't feel the need to look at them. It's often so dark that I wouldn't
even see the markings.


Marko

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#10101

On 2016-01-23, Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> wrote:
> Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>:
>
>> On Fri, 22 Jan 2016, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>>> Just let everyone define their own keyboard layout. That's what I've
>>> done so I can type Finnish, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Hebrew and C
>>> without switching layouts.
>>>
>> Redefining keyboards has never been particularly a problem.
>>
>> Changing the keytops to match has been.
>
> What is needed is e-ink displays on each key.

Such keyboards do exist, but they are very, very expensive.

-- 
Today is Pungenday, the 23rd day of Chaos in the YOLD 3182
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#10122

In article <dggv92FhfrvU2@mid.individual.net>,
Huge  <usenet@huge.org.uk> wrote:
>On 2016-01-23, Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> wrote:
>> Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>:
>>
>>> On Fri, 22 Jan 2016, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>>>> Just let everyone define their own keyboard layout. That's what I've
>>>> done so I can type Finnish, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Hebrew and C
>>>> without switching layouts.
>>>>
>>> Redefining keyboards has never been particularly a problem.
>>>
>>> Changing the keytops to match has been.
>>
>> What is needed is e-ink displays on each key.
>
>Such keyboards do exist, but they are very, very expensive.

The one I recall seeing a while back used small OLEDs under each key, not
e-ink.  Google came back with this:

http://www.amazon.com/Optimus-Maximus-OLED-keyboard-white/dp/B0042FWNMW

As you noted, it was expensive back then, and it hasn't gotten any cheaper
since.  Maybe e-ink would be cheaper, as the displays would only be active
when they're changing.

  _/_
 / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/           Top-posting!
 \_^_/                              >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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#10103

Marko Rauhamaa wrote:

> Michael Blackwrote:
>
>> Redefining keyboards has never been particularly a problem.
>> Changing the keytops to match has been.
>
> What is needed is e-ink displays on each key.

You don't remember the Optimus Maximum keyboard? OK it had, OLED rather 
than e-ink, it had a rather lengthy gestation period and IIRC came with 
a 4 digit price tag ...

<https://youtu.be/IJ5rX6WpxTk>

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#10104

On 2016-01-23, Andy Burns <usenet.jan2016@adslpipe.co.uk> wrote:
> Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>
>> Michael Blackwrote:
>>
>>> Redefining keyboards has never been particularly a problem.
>>> Changing the keytops to match has been.
>>
>> What is needed is e-ink displays on each key.
>
> You don't remember the Optimus Maximum keyboard? OK it had, OLED rather 
> than e-ink, it had a rather lengthy gestation period and IIRC came with 
> a 4 digit price tag ...
>
><https://youtu.be/IJ5rX6WpxTk>

I remember them - it was a neat idea, but expensive.  But the name
"Optimus Maximum" was cartoonish - always sounded more apt for a
gimmicky prophalactic, a robot toy, or a Monty Python joke.

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#10106

On 2016-01-22, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> On 2016-01-22, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2016-01-22, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>
>>> To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking
>>> countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole
>>> often seems insane.
>>
>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
>> A. Trilingual.
>>
>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
>> A. Bilingual.
>>
>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?
>> A. American.
>>
>>
>> (Sufficiently old as to no longer be strictly true, given the inroads
>> the Hispanic population is making.)
>>
>
> I'm an American who speaks seven, but hey.  Generalizations are fun - no
> offense taken.

Hehe, that brings back memories of my first evening in Zurich, a German
speaking area. I got chatting to a Swiss-French guy who expressed
disbelief that a Brit could speak in French, so I proceeded to do just
that with him for the next 20 minutes. :-)

> Having spent the last ten years in French speaking countries though, I
> can confirm their keyboard layout sucks.  Diacriticals all over the
> place, shift to get to numbers, and a whole lot of Alt-Gr to get some
> useful symbols.  I wholeheartedly support this effort.

My experience with French terminals goes back to 1982.  These were OEM
VT100-compatible beasts.  The customer had specified that they didn't
want shift to get numbers (a feature of French-Canadian keyboards we
were told), and going the OEM route meant they could get that.  Cue
yours truly getting involved in keyboard specifying keyboard layouts.

My memory is hazy about where the accented characters lay within the
7-bit (or did we use 8-bit?) space, but I do recall that other symbols
such as [ and ] were displayed as symbols present on French keyboards
but not English ones.  For example, [] displayed as §°, which was fine for
users entering data, but a real pain for developers.

The tradition of "OK for the users, but a pain for developers" continues
with Apple's layout for Swiss keyboards.

Symbols such as [ ] | \ { } ~ @ are only accessible via Alt, and this is
compounded by the fact that out of the ones I've mentioned, only @ is
engraved on the keycaps.  They aren't too hard to learn, but you really
shouldn't need to do that.

You are still up the creek without a paddle when it comes to keyboard
shortcuts used by various applications.  My mail program uses Alt-[ and
Alt-] for some actions; no chance when I'm already using Alt to get
those brackets, and I'm off customising my shortcuts out of necessity
rather than choice.

From your description of present day French keyboards, Apple's solution
with the Swiss keyboards is a definite improvement and access to both
French and German accented vowels is easy: üöä are there as separate
keys (immediately to the right of P and L) and shifting them gets èéà.

The eminently sensible bit of design here is that if you set your keyboard
language to a French variant instead of German, those same keys
will default to èéà, with the German ones accessible via shift.

^ is a "dead key", which means that a circumflex will be applied to the
next character: (e.g. î, ô); to get ^ on its own, follow it with a space
instead.

At the end of all that, I have vowed to get myself a US layout Apple
keyboard when I can find one.  It's somewhere between hard and
impossible to get anything but the localized versions of keyboards from
retail outlets, you need to find someone with access to dealer channels.

> There's a French equivalent to Dvorak called, I think, BEPO, I'd always
> been curious about.  Learning Dvorak was hard enough - never had to the
> patience to give it a try.

The best system I have found for dealing with accented characters (note
I'm speaking as a developer, not a novel author here) was that employed
by the DEC LK keyboards, which appeared with the VT200 series of
terminals (late 80s for me).  These had a Compose key - to get e-acute for
example, you would hit Compose - e - /  Like that example, the key
combinations were pretty logical; IIRC dipthongs worked too.

-- 
An invention needs to make sense in the world in which it's finished,
not the world in which it's started.                  -- Ray Kurzweil

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#10159

Paul Sture wrote:
> My experience with French terminals goes back to 1982.  These were
> OEM VT100-compatible beasts.  The customer had specified that they
> didn't want shift to get numbers (a feature of French-Canadian
> keyboards we were told), and going the OEM route meant they could
> get that.

Other way around. The French AZERTY uses shift for numbers, while
French Canada uses one of two QWERTY variants with shift for
punctuation.

-- 
Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu> | San Francisco

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#10179

On 2016-01-28, Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu> wrote:
> Paul Sture wrote:
>> My experience with French terminals goes back to 1982.  These were
>> OEM VT100-compatible beasts.  The customer had specified that they
>> didn't want shift to get numbers (a feature of French-Canadian
>> keyboards we were told), and going the OEM route meant they could
>> get that.
>
> Other way around. The French AZERTY uses shift for numbers, while
> French Canada uses one of two QWERTY variants with shift for
> punctuation.

Bad wording on my part; you are correct and my response was ambiguous.

The keyboards the customer got were essentially French AZERTY but with
shift for punctuation rather than numbers.

-- 
An invention needs to make sense in the world in which it's finished,
not the world in which it's started.                  -- Ray Kurzweil

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#10202

Paul Sture wrote:
> The keyboards the customer got were essentially French AZERTY but with
> shift for punctuation rather than numbers.

So yet another variant? Were they custom-made, or were/are keyboards
with the layout commonly available?

-- 
Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu> | geo:37.783333,-122.416667
top - 22:41:02 up 2 days,  2:03, 11 users,  load average: 1.06, 1.05, 0.94
Tasks: 132 total,   1 running, 123 sleeping,   0 stopped,   8 zombie
Cpu0  :  3.3%us, 11.0%sy,  1.1%ni, 78.2%id,  2.7%wa,  1.6%hi,  2.2%si,  0.0%st

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#10091

On 2016-01-22, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> On 2016-01-22, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>
>> To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking
>> countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole
>> often seems insane.
>
> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
> A. Trilingual.
>
> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
> A. Bilingual.
>
> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?
> A. American.
>
>
> (Sufficiently old as to no longer be strictly true, given the inroads
> the Hispanic population is making.)
>

Q. What do you call someone who understands several languages, but will 
only converse in one:

A. French.


-- 
greymaus
 .
  .
...

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#10095

On 23/01/2016 7:05 AM, mausg@mail.com wrote:
> On 2016-01-22, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2016-01-22, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>
>>> To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking
>>> countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole
>>> often seems insane.
>>
>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
>> A. Trilingual.
>>
>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
>> A. Bilingual.
>>
>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?
>> A. American.
>>
>>
>> (Sufficiently old as to no longer be strictly true, given the inroads
>> the Hispanic population is making.)
>>
>
> Q. What do you call someone who understands several languages, but will
> only converse in one:
>
> A. French.
>
>

That's only half true. The other kind if French person is the one who 
persists in speaking to you in English even though their English is 
worse than your French.

Sylvia.

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#10100

On 2016-01-23, Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> wrote:
> On 23/01/2016 7:05 AM, mausg@mail.com wrote:
>> On 2016-01-22, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 2016-01-22, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking
>>>> countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole
>>>> often seems insane.
>>>
>>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
>>> A. Trilingual.
>>>
>>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
>>> A. Bilingual.
>>>
>>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?
>>> A. American.
>>>
>>>
>>> (Sufficiently old as to no longer be strictly true, given the inroads
>>> the Hispanic population is making.)
>>>
>>
>> Q. What do you call someone who understands several languages, but will
>> only converse in one:
>>
>> A. French.

True. Although most of them will switch into English once you've had a decent
go at French.

> That's only half true. The other kind if French person is the one who 
> persists in speaking to you in English even though their English is 
> worse than your French.

I suppose they're allowed to practise, too!


-- 
Today is Pungenday, the 23rd day of Chaos in the YOLD 3182
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#10102

On 23/01/2016 8:25 PM, Huge wrote:
> On 2016-01-23, Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> wrote:
>> On 23/01/2016 7:05 AM, mausg@mail.com wrote:
>>> On 2016-01-22, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On 2016-01-22, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking
>>>>> countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole
>>>>> often seems insane.
>>>>
>>>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
>>>> A. Trilingual.
>>>>
>>>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
>>>> A. Bilingual.
>>>>
>>>> Q. What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?
>>>> A. American.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> (Sufficiently old as to no longer be strictly true, given the inroads
>>>> the Hispanic population is making.)
>>>>
>>>
>>> Q. What do you call someone who understands several languages, but will
>>> only converse in one:
>>>
>>> A. French.
>
> True. Although most of them will switch into English once you've had a decent
> go at French.
>
>> That's only half true. The other kind if French person is the one who
>> persists in speaking to you in English even though their English is
>> worse than your French.
>
> I suppose they're allowed to practise, too!
>
>

Perhaps, but there's a time and a place, and if the task at hand is 
communication, not education, it's best to use whichever language meets 
that purpose.

Sylvia.

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#10150

RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> writes:

> From the «diacriticals are for suckers» department:
> Title: France wants a new keyboard to protect its language
> Author: Thom Holwerda
> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 09:04:36 -0500
> Link: http://osnews.com/story/29055/France_wants_a_new_keyboard_to_protect_its_language
>
> This week, the French government announced a plan to standardize the
> French-language computer keyboard, as part of an effort to help protect and
> nurture the language.

Seems smart. There was actually a project here in Finland to define a
keyboard layout that would cover Finnish and Swedish (Finland is
bilingual) and also the native people's Sami language, other Nordic and
European languages and also other punctuation and symbols and quotes.

The layout is a national standard now (SFS 5966) and was adopted at
least into Linux. Microsoft also made a downloadable version of it in
the XP era but it seems unclear if it still works for Windows 7 or newer
and it was never the default so I'd say it's a very small thing. If
France can't force Microsoft into making their new layout the default
it'll probably die too.

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#10151

Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi>:

> There was actually a project here in Finland to define a keyboard
> layout that would cover Finnish and Swedish (Finland is bilingual) and
> also the native people's Sami language, other Nordic and European
> languages and also other punctuation and symbols and quotes.
>
> The layout is a national standard now (SFS 5966) and was adopted at
> least into Linux.

That keyboard layout (<URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co
mmons/3/35/KB_Finnish_Multilingual.svg>) is a crime against ergonomics.

I wonder who you can sue for your carpal tunnel disability when you
produce

  { [ ] } \

by pressing a key on the number row with a right-hand finger *while*
simultaneously holding down the AltGr key with the right thumb.

And then the dollar sign has had to give way to

  ¤

(<URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_%28typography%29>). I have
never seen any use for that symbol anywhere.


Marko

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