White strip calligraphy

[Sebiale]

I've had this same error in several different games, Dragon Age for one, but never as often as in Deus Ex: GOTY.

I don't know what the impetus is, but every once in awhile, all the movement keys will stop working, specifically, it seems to affect all alphabet keys, and everything else is left alone. I can still use arrow keys to move and the number keys also work.

At the same time my alphabet keys are disabled, I get this white strip in the corner of the screen, filled with calligraphic characters. Reloading the game file rarely helps. Instead, I usually end up having to restart the entire program. Once I even started typing calligraphic characters on a forum. Not sure if that's related though.

Does anyone have a clue what is happening or how to stop it from happening?