Inscript (INdian SCRIPT) Keyboard Layout

Introduction

Inscript (INdian SCRIPT) keyboard layout is the official keyboard layout of india to input hindi and other indian scripts. It was developed and standarized by Government of India and supported by several public and private organization. It is widely accepted and supported by most of the Multinational Companies (MNC) who support Indian languages.

This keyboard layout is designed scientifically for fast and effective typing. Inscript layout is based on the phonetic(ध्वन्यात्मक) nature of Indian scripts. It is designed based on the grammar of the language. The characters in this keyboard is such that it remains common for all the Indian languages that are written left to right since indian languages mostly has common characters. It supports typing in 12 different indian languages.

This layout is included in most of the major operating systems such as windows, linux and mac os system.

Keyboard Layout

Features and Patterns

Below are some features and patterns in the Inscript keyboard Layout for easy, fast and accurate typing.

  1. All the vowels (स्वर वर्ण) are placed on the left side of the keyboard layout and the consonants (व्यंजन वर्ण), on the right side.

    For example अ, आ, इ, ई ... are on left side while क, ख, ग, घ, ङ ... are on right hand side of the keyboard.

  2. Allmost all the vowel symbols/signs (मात्राएँ) such as ो , ै, ु, ... are also placed on the left side of the keyboard layout.

  3. Vowel and its corresponding vowel symbol is placed in same keys. For entering vowel symbol shift needs to be pressed. Some pairs and their keys are listed below.

    Vowel(स्वर) Use shift to type Vowel Symbol/Sign (मात्राएँ) Key
    आ ा
    इ ि
    ई ी
    उ ु
    ऐ ै

  4. Most Devanagari characters can be grouped in pairs of mahaprana(महा-प्राण अक्षर) and alpaprana(अल्प-प्राण अक्षर). Most keys have this pairs and can be used by using shift for mahaprana and without shift for alpaprana. click here to know about mahaprana and alpaprana on wikipedia

    Some Maha prana and alpa prana pairs and their key representation

    Alpaprana (अल्प-प्राण अक्षर) MahaPrana (महा-प्राण अक्षर) Use shift to type Key
    क ख
    ग घ
    च छ
    ट ठ
    स श

  5. Half forms/Half letters (आधे अक्षर) can be formed by adding halant( ् ) behind full consonant letter (पूर्ण अक्षर).

    Few examples:

    Half Form(आधे अक्षर) Formation
    ष्‍ ष + ्
    न्‍ न + ्
    भ्‍ भ + ्

  6. Vowel sign or matra(मात्राएँ) always comes after their corresponding consonants to form compound forms, even if they appear before the consonant in the word.

    Word Typing sequence Remarks
    आदि आ + द + ि ि is typed after द
    युक्ति य + ु + क + ् + त + ि ि typed after त, ु is typed after य
    है ह + ै ै is typed after ह
    भी भ + ी ी is typed after भ

  7. Inscript keyboard layout is phoenetic (ध्वन्यात्मक), so words are typed in same order as sounds are produced when speaking.

    Word Typing sequence
    मन्दिर म + न + ् + द + ि + र
    उत्तर उ + त + ् + त + र
    महर्षि म + ह + र + ् + ष + ि

Why use Inscript Layout?

You should consider using this layout because of the following few reasons.

  1. It is the official standard keyboard of india developed by C-DAC and standarized by the indian government and is widely used for indian languages.
  2. It is scientifically designed for indian languages for easy, fast and accurate typing.
  3. This layout supports most of the characters recognized by unicode stardards for indian languages.
  4. This keyboard layout comes inbuilt in all of the newer operating systems including Windows, Linux and Macintosh.
  5. This layout is common for all the Indian languages (written left to right)
  6. In this keyboard layout we don't need short cut keys (alt codes) for regular characters and symbols of the language.
  7. This keyboard is used in most of the typing exams in india for government and private jobs. Some of them are SSC, CPCT, UPSSC