Is the enduring Azerty layout of French keyboards finally poised for modifications to better suit evolving usage and requirements?

For over a century—the past few decades being part of this long history—the familiar Azerty keyboard layout has remained largely unchanged since its accidental creation back in 1865.

The French-language keyboard referred to as Azerty is an adaptation of the English-language Qwerty keyboard, not created with ergonomic benefits in mind. The particular layout of characters on these keyboards did not become standard due to convenience; rather, both Azerty and Qwerty became prevalent because they were most appropriate for the mechanism of typewriters' hammer systems.

Since 1865, the Azerty keyboard has withstood every effort towards rationalization, including proposals such as the ZHJAY layout in 1907, another attempt in 1976, and further efforts in 2002 and 2005. However, none of these endeavors succeeded.

The most astonishing part about the lack of evolution in our keyboard design is that the prevalent standard came into existence due to an inferior selection rather than being driven by practical use.

Still, many hope to evolve our keyboards further, enabling features such as accented capital letters and adapting to modern usage and requirements. For example, the middle dot, favored by proponents of inclusive writing, might be incorporated into these designs.

(MH with LpR - Source: France Culture/Image: Pixabay)