my ctrl key deletes everything in sight! help!

Every time I press my left 'ctrl' key, my computer understands it as 'delete,' and starts deleting stuff ad infinitum. This is a BIG problem, because every time I go to ctrl-v something, or skip around words by pressing ctrl-arrow, it starts deleting my text, and I have to close the program to get it to stop. What's worse is when I'm using Evolution and it just starts deleting my email! I've lost two months worth of emails thanks to this strange error. I've tried changing the keyboard layout to something different, but that hasn't really changed anything. Also, pressing 'home' has this same effect. Pressing the delete key has no effect.

At the very least, is there a command that can tell me what keyboard signals the system is receiving, so I can tell whether it's a hardware or a software issue?

From Terminal, type cat then type your Ctrl key a few times and then the Delete key and see if they are identical. Ctrl+c will exit.