QWERTZ

The QWERTZ keyboard layout used in Germany and Austria.

The QWERTZ keyboard layout used in Switzerland.

The QWERTZ keyboard layout used in Hungary.

QWERTZ keyboard of old Swiss typewriter

A computer QWERTZ keyboard

The QWERTZ or QWERTZU keyboard is a widely used computer and typewriter keyboard layout that is mostly used in German-speaking regions and in Eastern Europe. The name comes from the first six letters at the top left of the keyboard: Q, W, E, R, T, and Z. It is pronounced either the same as "quartz" or to rhyme with "squirts".

It differs from the QWERTY layout by interchanging the "Z" and "Y" keys — both because "Z" is a much more common letter than "Y" in German (the latter seldom appearing except in borrowed words), and because "T" and "Z" often appear next to each other in the German language. Part of the keyboard is adapted to include local umlauted vowels, such as ä, ö, ü, etc. Some special symbols also have a different place, and the Ctrl key is called Strg (for Steuerung, English "control", although it is sometimes misinterpreted as String).

Models based on QWERTZ are used in Switzerland , and in the majority of Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe and Central European countries that use the Latin alphabet, with the exception of the Baltic States. Only German QWERTZ keyboards have the Strg key, Swiss keyboards have the same key labeled ctrl.

A QWERTZ keyboard layout is sometimes informally nicknamed a kezboard, as typing the word keyboard in the QWERTY manner on a QWERTZ keyboard would generate the sequence kezboard. The same is true of QWERTY keyboards in the hands of a person accustomed to a QWERTZ layout.

See also

• AZERTY
• Blickensderfer typewriter
• Dvorak Simplified Keyboard