Kana Input

When using Kana input, the Hiragana IME allows you to choose from the following two Kana layouts.

Note: For instructions on switching to Kana input, refer to Settings - Keyboard Tab.

Kana (JIS Layout)

The JIS Kana layout uses all four rows of keys, making it difficult to remember and touch type. Due to historical reasons explained later in this page, "けせぬへむめろをー゛゜" are placed on keys that are not easy to reach.

Japanese Keyboard

• With Hiragana IME, you can enter underscore (_) by pressing Shift+0.

US Keyboard

• The Space key is used as the 変換 key.
• You can type a full-width space by pressing the Space key when there are no characters that can be converted to kanji or katakana before the cursor, for example, when the cursor is at the beginning of a line.

Kana (New Stickney Layout)

The New Stickney layout is a new Kana layout currently under research. It aims to simplify the typing of Japanese Kana characters by organizing them in a more intuitive manner. The layout uses just three rows and ten columns, making it easy to touch type. The Kana characters are grouped together by the consonant sounds of letters to make them easier to remember. The keys for characters which can be combined with ゛ (dakuten) and "やゆよ" are located on the left-hand side.

To make typing easier and faster, the placement of characters on a keyboard is very important. A simple, alphabetical keyboard layout isn't practical for actual typing. Some Kana characters appear more frequently in text than others, and there are common and uncommon sequences of Kana characters. The New Stickney layout takes these characteristics of the Japanese language into account when arranging character placement.

US Keyboard

Japanese Keyboard

• The Space key is used as the Center Shift key. To enter characters in the shift layer, press the Center Shift key first and then type the intended letter. You don't have to hold down the Center Shift key while typing the letter.
  　Example: Center Shift あ → あ，は Center Shift ゜ → ぱ
• By holding down the Center Shift key, you can continue to enter characters in the shift layer.
  　Example: Center Shift + ひ ゜ → ぴ
• Press っ to enter small "っ".
• Press ゛ followed by the one of "あいうえおやゆよ" to enter small "ぁぃぅぇぉゃゅょ".
  　Example: よ ゛ → ょ
• To enter full-width space, press Center Shift key twice.
• You can enter a full-width space by pressing the 変換 key when there are no characters that can be converted to kanji or katakana before the cursor, for example, when the cursor is at the beginning of a line.

Why the current JIS Kana layout is hard to use?

The current JIS Kana layout is difficult to use due to historical reasons. It is based on the layout of the Kana typewriter designed by Burnham K. Stickney in 1923. In his design, Kana keys were grouped together by the consonant sounds of letters to make them easier to remember. Characters that do not appear often in text, such as 'ぬ' (nu) and 'む' (mu), were placed in the shift layer. The figure below shows Stickney's Kana layout. As you can see, Stickney's original Kana layout is very easy to remember.

Figure: Stickney's Kana Layout

Stickney developed the following methods to make the Kana layout easier to remember:

• Group Kana characters as much as possible by the consonant sounds of letters.
• Place Kana characters that can be combined with ゛ (dakuten) on the left-hand side. Place the ゛ key on the right-hand side.

Furthermore, to make the layout easier to remember, Stickney grouped Kana characters with small letters, such as 'や' and 'ゃ', and placed them in the 4th row. However, since 'い' often appears in text, Stickney moved 'い' to the third row to make it easy to type.

In mechanical typewriters, only two characters can be typed with a single key in the normal and shift cases. Stickney placed numbers and symbols in the second and third rows in the shift case.

After some time, typewriters that could type both Kana and the alphabet were developed. In these combination typewriters, the alphabet was placed in the shift case, causing the Kana characters in the shift case to be moved to the far right side of the typewriters. This change disrupted the grouping of several keys according to the consonant sounds.

Figure: Combination Typewriter Layout

The JIS Kanre layout added more keys and moved "ぬむろー゛゜" to more difficult positions. The resulting JIS Kana layout became harder to remember and touch type.

New JIS Layout

Since the original JIS Kana layout was considered difficult to use, a new JIS layout was created in 1986. However, this new layout was not widely adopted. The new layout was designed to help professional typists achieve high typing speeds, but it turned out to be even more difficult to remember than the original JIS layout. The products using the new JIS layout disappeared from the market shortly.

Figure: New JIS Kana Layout

While the new JIS Kana layout was discontinued as a JIS standard, it had several nice features.

• The fourth row contains no Kana characters because it's difficult to reach.
• You can switch between alphanumeric and Kana modes using the toggle key placed to the left of the 'A' key. Current input methods can be configured to use this method using the Caps Lock (英数) key.
• You can switch between alphanumeric and Kana modes using the alphanumeric and Kana keys. The alphanumeric key is placed to the left of the space key, and the Kana key is placed to the right. This is the standard layout of the current Japanese keyboards.
• You can use the center shift key, located at the space key's position. The center shift key can be pressed by thumb, making it more comfortable to type Kana characters in the shift layer.
• The underscore key at the far right side of the JIS Kana layout was removed. The underscore (_) could be typed with Shift+0.

Several other Kana layouts were also commercially available, but none succeeded in replacing the current JIS Kana layout. While users might be able to type faster with those layouts, they were harder to remember. With this retrospect, the New Stickney layout is designed to incorporate the good aspects of both the new JIS and Stickney layouts.