Do you have some strange - non us-keyboard layout? That's always a possiblity. I have no idea what the developers use for keyboard input - does SDL pickup the keycodes before or after being mapped to 'real' keys? If that's not the case, why not send us your system specs, or at least your OS.

If you're using a laptop and you have numlock on, you won't be able to use some keys, because they'll be recognized as numbers. Make sure you're pressing shift when you press > (otherwise it's a ., at least on a qwerty) (yes, I know you probably did that, but I've seen people who had that problem and it's best not to assume). Also, you might want to try shift + whatever is two keys left from the right shift instead of >. That's in the spot where the > is on a qwerty. (Google image search says it should be a / on your keyboard, but I have no clue if I got the right keyboard layout).