# AZERTY keyboard

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/azerty-keyboard/101768>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 4, 2002, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/azerty-keyboard/101768 "2002-04-04T14:07:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/azerty-keyboard/101768/1 "2002-04-04T14:07:25Z")

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Does anyone know why the French use an AZERTY keyboard rather than QWERTY?

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**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/azerty-keyboard/101768/2 "2002-04-04T14:33:01Z")

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Most likely because it works better for their language than the English keyboard. There are, after all, different diacriticals (accents, that “funny little c,” etc.) and different frequencies of occurrence for the letters the two languages share.