Q or F keyboard? Choosing a Turkish layout

Two layouts for one language

Turkish has two keyboard layouts in everyday use. Turkish Q is the familiar QWERTY arrangement with the Turkish letters ğ, ü, ş, i, ö and ç added at the right-hand end of the letter rows, and the dotless ı sitting where an English keyboard has I. Turkish F is a completely different arrangement whose top row starts with f, g, ğ, ı, o and d, which is where its name comes from.

Most computers sold in Turkey ship with Q, so most people learn on it without ever making a conscious choice. F has a smaller but loyal following, and it tends to come up whenever someone gets serious about typing speed. Both handle Turkish fully; the question is which suits your hands, your work and the time you can invest.

A short and careful history

F is usually credited to a group led by İhsan Sıtkı Yener in the 1950s, and it was later adopted as a national standard. It was designed for typewriters, at a time when typing was a professional skill measured in offices and competitions, and Turkish typists using F are often mentioned for their strong results in international contests of that era.

When personal computers arrived, keyboards and software were largely built around QWERTY. Adding the Turkish letters to that arrangement was the path of least resistance, and Q gradually became the default at home and at work. F never disappeared and every major operating system still supports it, but it became the less common option.

Exact dates and details differ between sources, so treat very precise historical claims with caution.

The design idea behind F

F was built from Turkish itself. The story usually told is that its designers studied how often each letter appears in Turkish text, then placed the most frequent letters on the home row and under the strongest fingers, pushing rare letters to the edges.

The most striking result is that all eight Turkish vowels, a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u and ü, sit on the left half of the keyboard, while most of the frequent consonants sit on the right. The F home row reads u, i, e, a, ü under the left hand and t, k, m, l, y, ş under the right. Turkish words tend to alternate consonants and vowels, so on F the hands tend to alternate too: one hand presses a key while the other is already moving to the next one. Alternating hands is generally easier than running several letters in a row on the same hand.

Q was never designed for Turkish. Its arrangement comes from English-language typewriters and the Turkish letters were fitted in where there was room. That does not make Q a bad choice for Turkish, but the layout does nothing in particular to help it.

Where Q makes life easier

The case for Q is mostly about the world around you.

• It is everywhere: office machines, laptops and other people's computers almost always use Q.
• Keyboard shortcuts stay where guides and habits expect them. Several letters used in shortcuts sit in very different places on F; S, for example, moves from the left hand to the right.
• English text, programming symbols and many games assume Q positions. Movement keys such as W, A, S and D only make sense on a Q-style layout.
• Typing English on Turkish Q feels close to typing it on an English keyboard, so switching between languages costs little.

Where F asks more of you

Keyboards with F printed on the keys are harder to find, especially on laptops. That matters less than it sounds: you can switch the layout in your operating system whatever the keycaps say, and a touch typist does not look down anyway.

F is tuned for Turkish, so long stretches of English feel less natural on it. If you use other people's computers often, you will also be switching the system layout back and forth, and shortcuts you know by feel on one layout will misfire on the other.

The real cost of switching

If you already touch type on Q, moving to F resets much of your muscle memory. Expect a period, often several weeks, when you are clearly slower than before, followed by a gradual recovery. How long it takes depends mostly on how much you practise; there is no reliable number that applies to everyone, and nobody can promise that you will end up faster than you were.

Switching back and forth during the first weeks slows the learning down, because each layout keeps overwriting the other. If you decide to switch, commit to F for daily typing until it feels normal.

If you currently type with a few fingers while looking at the keys, the cost is much lower. You have to learn touch typing anyway, so you might as well learn it on the layout you want to keep.

How to choose

A few situations cover most people.

• You mainly type Turkish, you are learning touch typing from scratch and you control your own keyboard: F is worth a serious try.
• You already touch type comfortably on Q: the gain from switching is uncertain and the cost is certain. Improving your technique on Q is usually the better investment.
• You type a lot of English or code, or lean heavily on shortcuts: Q keeps things simpler.
• You often work on shared computers: Q, unless you are happy to change the system layout every time.

Practising either layout here

In the settings you can choose Turkish Q, Turkish F or English Q as your keyboard layout. The choice tells the site which layout you use and is saved with your runs. It does not remap your keys: the layout you actually type with is set in your operating system.

Set the test language to Turkish in the settings and the warm-up test on the home page gives you Turkish words, either in time mode with 15, 30, 60 or 120 seconds or in words mode with 10, 25, 50 or 100 words. Turkish is one of nine test languages, and the test language is independent of the interface language.

Ranked league matches always use English text. If you play them on F, give English some practice as well. And whichever layout you pick, accuracy, rhythm and regular short sessions will matter far more than the arrangement of the keys.