Russian keyboards

[David Goldfarb]

As the only American who works in a Polish government office, I'm the only
person using the "standard" Polish keyboard that I've seen on ancient
Polish typewriters that probably date to the 1930s. Once I had an
intern--an American--who also used the national Polish keyboard, but I
don't think I know any Poles who use it, though I'm sure they must be out
there.  The Poles all use Polonized Windows or iOS with alt-keys to form
the diacritics.

Before computers, in many European countries, typing was considered
something of a specialized skill, appropriate only to professional typists
and people in certain professions, like journalism.  In Poland, when
computers became commonly available, I don't think many people had any
particular allegiance to the national typewriter keyboard.  As recently as
the early 1990s, when I started learning Russian, I didn't know many
Russians who could type, so I wouldn't be surprised if they are not such
purists about their national keyboard.
-- 
David A. Goldfarb
Curator of Literature and Humanities
Polish Cultural Institute in New York
350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 4621
New York, NY 10118
tel. 212-239-7300, ext. 3002
fax 212-239-7577
www.polishculture-nyc.org
--
http://www.davidagoldfarb.com

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 7:39 PM, Jules Levin <ameliede at earthlink.net> wrote:

> **
> On 4/30/2013 3:30 PM, Genevra Gerhart wrote:
>
>  The argument against a phonetic keyboard is that you’ll have grave
> difficulties with a Russian keyboard in Russia.
>
> This whole discussion is a rerun, and it ignores the reality of 2013.  It
> is like watching a Simpsons rerun from 1992.  I assume that a student in
> Russia will have a personal electronic writing machine with any number of
> keyboards installed, according to the desires of the student.  Since all
> keyboard arrangements are more or less arbitrary, there is no inherent
> virtue in the Standard vs. a phonetic keyboard.  The goals of the
> individual student should determine the choice.  Even if one can learn a
> second keyboard, why invest the time unless one derives aesthetic pleasure
> from such learning.  [This is not sarcastic:  I hate driving and would hate
> to have to learn a new way of driving in a Russian car, but I actually
> enjoy the act of typing, which I learned about 60 years ago.  And I love
> how fast I can type Russian on my phonetic keyboard.]
> The last time this came up, it was decided that if an American wanted to
> get a job in a Russian office it would make sense to learn the Standard
> keyboard, but now I think even this reason is Simpsons-1992.  Imagine that
> I am an office manager in Moscow, and for some reason (bilingual in Russian
> and English?) I want to hire an American for the summer.  Why?  Aside from
> getting an English speaker who can type letters in English, perhaps there
> is some cachet in having an attractive young American person in my office.
> Only this attractive young American informs me that s/he only knows the
> phonetic keyboard.  What do I say?  I say, well, can you install this
> keyboard on the computer you will be using?  Need I go on...?
> So in the end, there is absolutely NO reason to learn the standard
> keyboard anymore.
> Jules Levin (who obviously enjoys typing...)
> Los Angeles
>
>
<http://www.davidagoldfarb.com>

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