Source

This is really random, but I'm a very curious human being. You simply can't take away the curiosity from me. Therefore, I'm doing this for my own sanity. HAHA. So while typing something down, I can't get the question out of my head. 

Why QWERTY?

There may be 2 reasons (one is a theory that is apparently debunked). At least, that's what I got from the articles I read [1, 2, 3].

To slow typists down

Why would manufacturers want typists to slow down? Remember typewriters? Yeah, those machines that make really irritating noise when you type something down. The faster the typist gets, the more probable the typewriter jams or gets mechanical errors. Thus, a response -- split up keys of common letters. 

We have Christopher Sholes and James Densmore to thank for that.

     

Source

To make it easier for telegraph operators to transcribe messages

Looks like Japanese researchers from Kyoto University were just as curious. Haha. In a paper published in 2011, they found out that the way keyboards are now is the result of how the very first keyboards were used.

QWERTY may have been developed from the advice of telegraph operators who needed to transcribe really quickly. These transcribers were among the first beta-testers of the first typewriters, so it's safe to say that they are a key to the evolution of the keyboard. 

KALQ

I didn't know that there was a KALQ keyboard for smartphones (I think I'm just not interested). But there is, and it's apparently developed to type with just our thumbs.

In the end, curiosity satisfied. :) Thank you, world wide web.