The QWERTZ or QWERTZU keyboard is a typewriter and keyboard layout widely used in Central Europe. The name comes from the first six letters at the top left of the keyboard: ( ). Overview The main difference between QWERTZ and QWERTY is that the positions of the and keys are switched (hence the nickname "kezboard"). This change was made for three major reasons: is a much more common letter than in German; the latter rarely appears outside words whose spellings reflect either their importation from a foreign language or the Hellenization of an older German form under the influence of Ludwig I of Bavaria. and often appear next to each other in the German orthography, and typewriter jamming would be reduced by placing the two keys so they could be typed with separate hands. and are also next to each other. , meaning "to" in German, and also a very common prefix can also be written very easily. Similar to many other non-English keyboards: Part of the keyboard is adapted to include language-specific characters, e.g. umlauted vowels (ä, ö, ü) in German and Austrian keyboards. QWERTZ keyboards usually change the right key into an key to access a third level of key assignments. This is necessary because the language-specific characters leave no room to have all the special symbols of ASCII, needed by programmers among others, available on the first or second (shifted) levels without unduly increasing the size of the keyboard. The placements of some special symbols are changed when compared to the English (UK and US) versions of QWERTY. Some of the special key inscriptions are often changed from an abbreviation to a graphical symbol (for example becomes a hollow arrow pointing up, becomes a left-pointing arrow). In German and Austrian keyboards, most of the other abbreviated labels are in German: (control) is translated to its German equivalent "Strg" for , and is abbreviated "Entf" (). and on the numeric keypad are not translated, however. (See: Key labels) Variants The QWERTZ layout is fairly widely used in Germany and in the majority of Central European and Balkan countries that use the Latin script. Many German-speaking regions use this layout, but the German-speaking East Cantons of Belgium use AZERTY instead. Many of the other countries were historically a part of Austria-Hungary or under the influence of Nazi German occupation (and its underlying culture and technology), so they used German