Dutch Keyboard

Would you like to learn Dutch in exchange for teaching your native language? Are you a native Dutch speaker and are you looking for someone who can help you with studying English? Or Russian? Japanese? Post it here!
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eukalyptus
Nieuwkomer
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jul 08, 2015 4:47 pm
Mother tongue: German

Dutch Keyboard

Post by eukalyptus »

Hello everyone,
I got interested about the dutch keyboard and the variety of keys you can type. I need to know, how often a dutch person uses following characters and how important are they in the dutch language. Thanks!
Here is the list:
1) ä ë ÿ ü ï ö
2) á é ý ú í ó
3) à è ù ì ò
4) ã ñ õ
5) â ê û î ô
6) ç

Thank you for your help!
Greetings Marcel
ngonyama
Superlid
Posts: 1396
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:15 am
Country of residence: United States
Mother tongue: Dutch (Netherlands)
Second language: English
Third language: German
Fourth language: French
Fifth, sixth, seventh, ..., languages: Russisch, Xhosa

Re: Dutch Keyboard

Post by ngonyama »

eukalyptus wrote:Hello everyone,
I got interested about the dutch keyboard and the variety of keys you can type. I need to know, how often a dutch person uses following characters and how important are they in the dutch language. Thanks!
Here is the list:
1) ä very rare after naäpen got replaced by na-apen
ë pretty common geërgerd, Italië etc
ÿ I don't know any
ü rare geüpdated or so and loans like überhaupt, übermensch
ï fairly common geïllustreerd
ö maybe a few loans like röntgenfoto
2) á é ý ú í ó A few loans like café have it permanently, but it also used for indication of stress, if otherwise ambiguity might arise like dóórlopen versus doorlópen; in principle you should also put it on the j of the digraph ij but I have no idea how
3) à è ù ì ò rare, a few words like blèren and perhaps some loans like face-à-main
4) ã ñ õ ñ in a few loans
5) â ê û î ô in a few loans like maîtraisse, even though the French stopped doing that in 1990
6) çIn names like Curaçao, Curaçaoënaar and loans like façade

Thank you for your help!
Greetings Marcel

FYI I live in the US and am using Windows 8; you can quite easily install a Dutch keyboard:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... 274?auth=1

eukalyptus
Nieuwkomer
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jul 08, 2015 4:47 pm
Mother tongue: German

Re: Dutch Keyboard

Post by eukalyptus »

Thank you so much for your answer! I want to add up 2 other questions for you, if thats ok.

1) Do the same rules also apply on the upper case characters?
2) If you think about your smartphone, computer or a terminal which dutch characters are the most important on a daily basis? From your previous post I'm assuming that ë und ï are important and also ç for names. Can a dutch person use e, i and c instead and you still know what this person means? For example in the german language we use ä, ö and ü a lot, but we can easily replace it with ae, oe and ue if we can't type it on an electronic device.

Thank you!
ngonyama
Superlid
Posts: 1396
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:15 am
Country of residence: United States
Mother tongue: Dutch (Netherlands)
Second language: English
Third language: German
Fourth language: French
Fifth, sixth, seventh, ..., languages: Russisch, Xhosa

Re: Dutch Keyboard

Post by ngonyama »

The reason that ë and ï are important has nothing to do with umlaut. It is a diaeresis (trema) that marks the beginning of a new syllable. No they never occur at the beginning of a word or sentence and I cannot think of any examples with a capital letter.

The same goes for the stress marks. They are never put on a capital letter either.

If you leave out the marks it just looks silly and it is technically a spelling error, but it is still understandable. There are no replacements like German has for umlauts to my knowledge.
eukalyptus
Nieuwkomer
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jul 08, 2015 4:47 pm
Mother tongue: German

Re: Dutch Keyboard

Post by eukalyptus »

Thank you again!

The reason I'm asking you all this stuff is, that I want to create a simplified version of a dutch keyboard. It's a project to get older people use technical devices or interact with digital content. In order to that, i have to create first a simple user interface. I've started with the german keyboard and also done scandinavian languages. Now I got interested in dutch. The important thing here: The less keys the better and the less key combinations the better. So I already kicked out most special characters. Now I'm evaluating which characters with diaeresis, stress marks etc. are important for writing stuff on a daily basis. You said ë and ï are used very often, so I would create here extra keys for example. I know this is very tricky and It would be so much easier if I just knew dutch like my mother tongue, but I'd be very glad, if you can help me out here. :)
GeorgePt

Thu Jul 09 2015 12 54 pm

Post by GeorgePt »

I am thinking about downloading your Flora Editor, but I have a few questions.
1: Ive heard some pretty nasty things about it. Like, it crashes the game. Or is this for the non-modded version.
2: If so, in order to fix this problem, should I add the tag "gaprop" ?
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