Phonetic keyboard layout


A phonetic keyboard layout is a setup in which the letters of a language correspond to the keys in the keyboard layout for another language and assumes a one-to-one correspondence between letters in the languages that is based on their sound.

Russian and Ukrainian Phonetic Keyboard 2.0 Layout

The Russian and Ukrainian Phonetic Keyboard 2.0 is designed for Russian and Ukrainian speakers using standard QWERTY keyboards. It maps Cyrillic characters to phonetically similar English letters, enabling efficient bilingual typing without modifying the physical keyboard layout. This layout is distinguished by its focus on letter keys only, without altering the keys used for symbols.
The keyboard layout needs to be downloaded and installed on your device.
Here's how the keys are mapped:

Russian Phonetic Keyboard 2.0

  • A, B, V, D, Z, K, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, F, - Direct phonetic equivalents
  • G - 'г'
  • E - 'е', with Right Alt + E for 'ё'
  • J - 'ж'
  • I - 'и', with Right Alt + I for 'й'
  • L - 'л', with Right Alt + L for 'э'
  • C - 'ч', with Right Alt + C for 'ц'
  • H - 'ш', with Right Alt + H for 'щ'
  • W - 'ы', with Right Alt + W for 'ь'
  • X - 'х', with Right Alt + X for 'ъ'
  • Q - 'ю'
  • Y - 'я'

Ukrainian Phonetic Keyboard 2.0

  • A, B, V, D, Z, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, F, - Direct phonetic equivalents
  • G - 'г', with Right Alt + E for 'ґ'
  • E - 'е', with Right Alt + E for 'є'
  • J - 'ж'
  • I - 'і', with Right Alt + I for 'ї'
  • C - 'ч', with Right Alt + C for 'ц'
  • H - 'ш', with Right Alt + H for 'щ'
  • W - 'и', with Right Alt + W for 'ь'
  • X - 'х'
  • Q - 'ю'
  • Y - 'я', with Right Alt + Y for 'й'
The layout descriptors for these keyboards are ЮЫЕРТЯ for the Russian layout and ЮИЕРТЯ for the Ukrainian layout, reflecting the placement of specific Cyrillic characters on the keyboard.
This intuitive layout minimizes the learning curve for users accustomed to English keyboards and enhances typing efficiency in bilingual settings, particularly useful for educational purposes and environments requiring frequent switching between English and Russian or Ukrainian.

Phonetic layouts for Russian

Russian has two popular keyboard layouts:
  • JCUKEN
  • phonetic layout, also known as "ЯВЕРТЫ" or "ЯЖЕРТЫ"
In the latter, the Cyrillic letters are on the same keys as similarly-sounding Roman letters: А-A, Б-B, В-V, Г-G, Д-D, Ф-F, К-K, О-O and so on. There are Russian phonetic layouts based on the QWERTY layout and others based on other localized layouts. The Russian phonetic layout is especially suited for foreigners studying Russian and for many Russian-speakers living outside Russia. Some types of phonetic layouts, such as "Student" and "ЯВЕРТЫ", are not only widely used by Russian-speakers but also recommended by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages.
In some countries, such as Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden and Poland, there are local variants of the phonetic layout keyboard because of the peculiarities of the local keyboard layouts.
Historically, Soviet computers used the phonetic variant of the JCUKEN keyboard layout that were manufactured in the COMECON like the Pravets-8 model, which used the layout for ЯВЕРТЫ/QWERTY. Now, the JCUKEN phonetic layout has been transferred from typewriters to the IBM PC-compatible computers.

Operating system support

A number of modern operating systems, such as macOS and Linux, offer the choice of using phonetic keyboard layout for Russian instead of the default layout. To create a phonetic keyboard layout for Microsoft Windows, a special "keyboard layout editor" software, such as MSKLC, available for free from Microsoft, is necessary. A number of ready-made layout files for Microsoft Windows are available online for Russian and Belarusian.
In 2010, Belarusian Latin layouts gained popularity. Using an approach opposite to "ЯВЕРТЫ", they are sometimes called "GCUKHe".