Multilingual US keyboard Layout with Esperanto

Da Parracomumangi.

Welcome to my website.

On this page you can download a multilingual layout for US keyboard, that will allow you to extend it to write in the following languages:

  • Italian
  • Polish
  • Esperanto
  • and of course, English

So, if your computer has US keyboard and you would like to write at least one of the mentioned language - because you are learning Italian, Esperanto, Polish (or just you are abroad and want to write to your family in your language), this is the right place for you.

Please download politaeo.zip, I will explain how it works and how I solved some small issues, so that there are not conflicts between those languages in the same keyboard.

Give a look in the following index, and click to get in the part of the page that suites for your needs.

Installation

Download and unzip politaeo.zip. Then run setup.exe... that's it. You will be able to see this keyboard in your system, between the variations of the Polish keyboard, for the reasons that I are explained in this page.

General description

I created this keyboard layout for me, when I had a computer with Polish keyboard and I wanted to write also Italian with it. I didn't want to install any additional software. After the first draft I improved the keyboard, solved conflicts and added also Esperanto language.

Now, you must know that the Polish keyboard layout is nothing else than US layout where is possible to write Polish letters (ąćęłóśżź) with a combination of AltGr and the relative Latin letter: AltGr+c → ć .

That's why when you will install this layout, your Windows will recognize it as a subtype of Polish keyboard: don't worry, despite of that, the layout is US.

Italian accented letters can be typed by "dead key" system. You first will type the accent ` and nothing will happen. The system will wait the next key: if you will press a, you will have "à". In a similar way you can write àèìòù ÀÈÌÒÙ. You can also write éó ÉÓ (acute accent) as we will see in the rest of the page. If you press the accent ` twice, or a space, or any letter that can't have an accent, the character ` will appear.

Also Esperanto super-signed letters can be typed by "dead key" system. You first will type the accent ` and nothing will happen. The system will wait the next key: if you will press c, you will have "ĉ". In a similar way you can write ĉĝĥĵŝ ĈĜĤĴŜ. In order to type "ŭ", you will need to press tilde as dead key: ~u → ŭ (it's the same key where ` is located, just you need to press Shift key).

More details in the following descriptions.

Modified US layout for Italian, Polish, Esperanto (politaeo.zip)

For English (US) layout, every key will be at its own place, as the producer of your keyboard printed on every key.

Polish letters

AltGr is intended to be the Alt key on the right side of your spacebar.

Lower case:

  • AltGr+a → ą
  • AltGr+c → ć
  • AltGr+e → ę
  • AltGr+l → ł
  • AltGr+o → ó
  • AltGr+s → ś
  • AltGr+z → ż
  • AltGr+x → ź

Upper case:

  • AltGr+A → Ą
  • AltGr+C → Ć
  • AltGr+E → Ę
  • AltGr+L → Ł
  • AltGr+O → Ó
  • AltGr+S → Ś
  • AltGr+Z → Ż
  • AltGr+X → Ź

Italian accented vowels

Accento grave
the accent ` (accento grave, just under the ESC key) is used as dead key as in the following.

Lower case:

  • `a → à
  • `e → è
  • `i → ì
  • `o → ò
  • `u → ù

Upper case:

  • `A → À
  • `E → È
  • `I → Ì
  • `O → Ò
  • `U → Ù


Accento acuto (éó ÉÓ)
in case you didn't know, in Italian you should use acute accent when writing words that finish by -ché. The rule is a little bit more complicated, but only people who write dictionaries know it in details :). For additional information, you can run a search about that.

What matters for us, is that, using tilde ~ as dead key, we can write éÉ in case we are "screaming" in some forum and need to write: PERCHÉ?!?.

We have acute accent also on "o" (ó), but this is really not important, because you can omit that (even Italian official keyboard does not have ó). Anyway, here is described how to type both.

Lower case:

  • ~e → é
  • ~o → ó

Upper case:

  • ~E → É
  • ~O → Ó

Tilde is in the same key as accent, but you can obtain it by pressing Shift.

And... a coincidence helps us: ó is also a Polish letter... so you can write it (if you REALLY want) also using AltGr (see the description of Polish letters).

Esperanto supersigns

Here is the list of combinations that will allow you to write Esperanto letters with supersigns.

Lower case:

  • `c → ĉ
  • `g → ĝ
  • `h → ĥ
  • `j → ĵ
  • `s → ŝ

Upper case:

  • `C → Ĉ
  • `G → Ĝ
  • `H → Ĥ
  • `J → Ĵ
  • `S → Ŝ

The u has a "breve" sign: ŭ. This time the dead key will be a tilde:

  • ~u → ŭ
  • ~U → Ŭ

Writing dead key (tilde and accent)

You may ask: «What if I want to write exactly tilde, or accent?». Well, you have different way to do that:

  1. press a space after the dead key (this is required by the standard for keyboard layouts)
  2. press twice the dead key
  3. simply keep writing: if you don't press any letter that can have super-sign after the dead key, the accent or tilde will appear normally.

Additional characters

I already wrote, this keyboard I created for me and I added a fes additional characters.

Italian-style quotation (as they teach at basic school):

  • `, → «
  • `. → »

Arrows:

  • `< → ↓
  • `> → ↑
  • ~> → →
  • ~< → ←