I have noticed that that the H letter is very frequent and so is the digraph TH.
In the Dvorak layout the H is in the Home keys, not the Home row keys.
How about swapping the H for the N key in the Colemak layout, e.g, N H E I O.
Would this be a good idea if the Short cut and learning problem did not exist?
Apart from the differences probably not being enough to promote swapping one more key for in my opinion (I don't use any H shortcuts all that much so for me that bit wouldn't be a problem at least):
https://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=128
As you can see, this is language dependent. In Spanish/Portuguese and French (the latin languages - I suppose this would include Italian as well), the H is notably less frequent whereas the difference is less in English (7.3% vs. 4.8%) and German. However, in no syllabus I've seen has the H come out on top of the N which kinda defeats your point maybe?
Furthermore, I find that remappping frequently used keys to their neighborhood can be frustrating particularly in the early learning process. The S key is one of the most troublesome keys for new learners judging from what Colemak acolytes have posted about.
There's also the potential for a digraph issue (apart from TH which I agree would be somewhat improved). Whenever someone thinks up a key swap, Shai usually has thought it through and presents a few important digraphs that would get messed up. Let's see if he has anything in store this time. :) On the other hand, TH and HE are among the most common digraphs in English. Even counting digraphs including white space the H does very well and the N is less notable. I still don't think that should be enough to promote your proposed change over.
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The trouble with dropping "h" is that we lose quite a few valuable digraphs, namely "en", "nt", "on", "in", "an, and "ne".
Googling "digraph english frequency" returns this page, which analyzes the frequency of digraphs in "50,000 letters of government plaintext telegrams", as its first result. Scroll down to Table A-2.
The highest frequency goes to the digraph "EN". Going down the list, we see "NT" at 4th. "TH" is 5th and "ON" and "IN" occupy the next two places. In 9th place is "AN" and in 13th, we have "NE." "HE" appears quite a ways later.
My findings are based on the 'Letter Frequency Counter' which I downloaded free from the internet.
I agree with Dreymar and Kupari, that maybe swapping the H for N is not a good idea after I double checked the 'Letter Frequency Counter' table.
But I still think that H deserves to be on the HOME keys and not on the HOME ROW keys.
H is more frequent then R and has a higher percentage diagraph than any combination with R in it.
How about swapping the H key for the R key on the Colemak layout?
Would this be a good idea if the Short cut / language / Learning factors were taken out of the equation?
Shai, I would like to hear your opinion on this.
Where should the H go?
I kept H in it's position for the following reasons:
*In English it's a frequent letter, but in most other languages it is much less frequent.
*H is already in a pretty good position, and the gain from moving it around is negligent. H is 6.094% vs. R which is 5.987%. Moreover, moving R to an index finger position would cause a lot of same finger combos. Letter frequencies
*H (6.094%) is less frequent than N (6.749%) so moving N away from the home position makes no sense at all.
*If you'll check other keyboard layouts such as Capewell and Arensito, you'll notice that they don't put the H in the home position for similar reasons.
*I find typing "the" on Colemak is very comfortable and easy on Colemak, even though the H isn't in the home position.
The theurgist hath theorized with aesthetic pithy.
Right. No problems there. :)
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