In vim, why is 'j' used for down and 'k' for up?

Question

I\'ve been using vim for many years and have never really thought about it. A friend of mine asked why that is, noting that in our culture, left would usually map to up while ri

Answer 1

This is a total guess, but: The Ctrl+J character is the "line feed" character, which on a traditional TTY moves down one line, providing a mnemonic. K was right next to it on a Qwerty keyboard, under the second most commonly used finger on the right hand when in the home position.