Who Invented It?

It's probably a surprise to you but I have a pet peeve. As many of our long-time readers know I signed up for Korean 101 at the local Community College. (Of course I flunked out.... but that's not the point of this post.) I ordered a very cool Korean/English keyboard skin for my laptop.... and I've kept it on since my spectacular failure at said language class.

I've researched this and the familiar 'QWERTY' Keyboard that English speakers know was invented by a man from Pennyslvania. He's the guy who came up with the layout... 'E' uses your left middle finger, 'M' uses your right pointer finger, etc, etc. Well, the Korean layout does not follow the layout that Americans are familiar with. The Korean 'M' is not located where the English 'M' is on the keyboard, the Korean 'S' is not located where the English 'S' is on the keyboard, etc. So that means even if I know a Korean word and can type pretty well I cannot touch type the Korean word. As an Example:

Judy in Korean is 주디. (My name works really well in Hangul.) But to type it you use the keyboard spots 'W-N-E-L.' Why doesn't it use the 'J-U-D-Y' keys on the keyboard but have them appear in Hangul letters?

This system makes no sense to me! The Korean Alphabet is similar to the English Alphabet in that it has sounds for many of the same letters... doesn't it make sense that the same sounds would use the same keys regardless of the langauage? I mean, it was invented in the US so shouldn't the Hangul layout follow our system?

Clearly no one asked for my input when they came up with the Korean Keyboard layout. ~ Judy

Pat: This is fascinating, but you’re kidding, right? It would be interesting to find out why the letters are placed where they are, but you’re assuming they would use our keyboard because???

Ha! No, I am not kidding! AND, I just googled.... over 90% of the world uses the QWERTY layout! As I continue to try to learn the Korean language it makes it doubly difficult that I cannot touch type the words I know! Why, oh why, did they change the layout? If I want to type 'Thank You' (Gamsahamnida or 감자함기다) in Korean I have to hunt and peck for the appropriate letters... even though I know how to spell it in Hangul! (I will acknowledge that the Korean consonants are located on the left side of the keyboard and vowels on the right.... but I don't really understand why.)