Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile
writing system
A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...
used by people who are
visually impaired
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment ...
, including people who are
blind,
deafblind or who have
low vision
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment ...
. It can be read either on
embossed paper or by using
refreshable braille display
A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Visually impaired computer users who cannot use a s ...
s that connect to computers and smartphone devices. Braille can be written using a
slate and stylus
The slate and stylus are tools used by blind people to write text that they can read without assistance.Alpha Chi Omega (1908) Invented by Charles Barbier as the tool for writing letters that could be read by touch, the slate and stylus allow fo ...
, a
braille writer
Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille display ...
, an electronic
braille notetaker
The Perkins Brailler is a "braille typewriter" with a key corresponding to each of the six dots of the braille code, a space key, a backspace key, and a line space key. Like a manual typewriter, it has two side knobs to advance paper through t ...
or with the use of a computer connected to a
braille embosser
A braille embosser is an impact printer that renders text as tactile braille cells. Using braille translation software, a document or digital text can be embossed with relative ease. This makes braille production efficient and cost-effective. B ...
.
Braille is named after its creator,
Louis Braille
Louis Braille (; ; 4 January 1809 – 6 January 1852) was a French educator and the inventor of a reading and writing system, named braille after him, intended for use by visually impaired people. His system is used worldwide and remains virtua ...
, a Frenchman who lost his sight as a result of a childhood accident. In 1824, at the age of fifteen, he developed the braille code based on the
French alphabet
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 AD, ...
as an improvement on
night writing
Night writing is the name given to a form of writing invented by Charles Barbier as one of a dozen forms of alternative writing presented in a book published in 1815: ''Essai sur Divers Procédés D'Expéditive Française, Contenant douze écritu ...
. He published his system, which subsequently included
musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation fo ...
, in 1829. The second revision, published in 1837, was the first
binary
Binary may refer to:
Science and technology Mathematics
* Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1)
* Binary function, a function that takes two arguments
* Binary operation, a mathematical operation that t ...
form of writing developed in the modern era.
Braille characters are formed using a combination of six raised dots arranged in a 3 × 2 matrix, called the braille cell. The number and arrangement of these dots distinguishes one character from another. Since the various braille alphabets originated as
transcription
Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including:
Genetics
* Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...
codes for printed writing, the mappings (sets of character designations) vary from language to language, and even within one; in
English Braille
English Braille, also known as ''Grade 2 Braille'', is the braille alphabet used for English. It consists of around 250 letters ( phonograms), numerals, punctuation, formatting marks, contractions, and abbreviations (logograms). Some English Bra ...
there are 3 levels of braille: uncontracted braille a letter-by-letter transcription used for basic literacy; contracted braille an addition of abbreviations and contractions used as a space-saving mechanism; and grade 3 various non-standardized personal stenography that is less commonly used.
In addition to braille text (letters, punctuation, contractions), it is also possible to create embossed illustrations and graphs, with the lines either solid or made of series of dots, arrows, and bullets that are larger than braille dots. A full braille cell includes six raised dots arranged in two columns, each column having three dots.
The dot positions are identified by numbers from one to six.
There are 64 possible combinations, including no dots at all for a
word space
In punctuation, a word divider is a glyph that separates written words. In languages which use the Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic alphabets, as well as other scripts of Europe and West Asia, the word divider is a blank space, or ''whitespace''. T ...
.
Dot configurations can be used to represent a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or even a word.
Early braille education is crucial to literacy, education and employment among the blind. Despite the evolution of new technologies, including
screen reader
A screen reader is a form of assistive technology (AT) that renders text and image content as speech or braille output. Screen readers are essential to people who are blindness, blind, and are useful to people who are visual impairment, visually ...
software that reads information aloud, braille provides blind people with access to spelling, punctuation and other aspects of written language less accessible through audio alone. While some have suggested that audio-based technologies will decrease the need for braille, technological advancements such as
braille display
A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Visually impaired computer users who cannot use a s ...
s have continued to make braille more accessible and available. Braille users highlight that braille remains as essential as print is to the sighted.
History
![DSC 4050-MR-Braille](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/DSC_4050-MR-Braille.jpg)
Braille was based on a tactile
code
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
, now known as
night writing
Night writing is the name given to a form of writing invented by Charles Barbier as one of a dozen forms of alternative writing presented in a book published in 1815: ''Essai sur Divers Procédés D'Expéditive Française, Contenant douze écritu ...
, developed by
Charles Barbier
Charles Barbier de la Serre (18 May 1767 – 22 April 1841) was the inventor of several forms of shorthand and alternative means of writing, one of which became the inspiration for Braille.
Barbier was born in Valenciennes and served in the Fren ...
. (The name "night writing" was later given to it when it was considered as a means for soldiers to communicate silently at night and without a light source, but Barbier's writings do not use this term and suggest that it was originally designed as a simpler form of writing and for the visually impaired.) In Barbier's system, sets of 12 embossed dots were used to encode 36 different sounds. Braille identified three major defects of the code: first, the symbols represented phonetic sounds and not letters of the alphabet thus the code was unable to render the orthography of the words. Second, the 12-dot symbols could not easily fit beneath the pad of the reading finger. This required the reading finger to move in order to perceive the whole symbol, which slowed the reading process. (This was because Barbier's system was based only on the number of dots in each of two 6-dot columns but not the pattern of the dots.) Third, the code did not include symbols for numerals or punctuation. Braille's solution was to use 6-dot cells and to assign a specific pattern to each letter of the alphabet. Braille also developed symbols for representing numerals and punctuation.
At first, Braille was a one-to-one transliteration of the French alphabet, but soon various abbreviations (contractions) and even
logogram
In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...
s were developed, creating a system much more like shorthand.
[
Today, there are braille codes for over 133 languages.]
In English, some variations in the braille codes have traditionally existed among English-speaking countries. In 1991, work to standardize the braille codes used in the English-speaking world began. Unified English Braille
Unified English Braille Code (UEBC, formerly UBC, now usually simply UEB) is an English language Braille code standard, developed to permit representing the wide variety of literary and technical material in use in the English-speaking world today ...
(UEB) has been adopted in all 7 member countries of the International Council on English Braille (ICEB) as well as Nigeria.
For blind readers, Braille is an independent writing system, rather than a code of printed orthography.
Derivation
Braille is derived from the Latin alphabet, albeit indirectly. In Braille's original system, the dot patterns were assigned to letters according to their position within the alphabetic order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is t ...
of the French alphabet of the time, with accented
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacritic ...
letters and ''w'' sorted at the end.
Unlike print, which consists of mostly arbitrary symbols, the braille alphabet follows a logical sequence. The first ten letters of the alphabet, ''a''–''j'', use the upper four dot positions: (black dots in the table below). These stand for the ten digits ''1''–''9'' and ''0'' in an alphabetic numeral system
An alphabetic numeral system is a type of numeral system. Developed in classical antiquity, it flourished during the early Middle Ages. In alphabetic numeral systems, numbers are written using the Grapheme, characters of an alphabet, syllabary, ...
similar to Greek numerals
Greek numerals, also known as Ionic, Ionian, Milesian, or Alexandrian numerals, are a system of writing numbers using the letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still used for ordinal numbers and in contexts similar to tho ...
(as well all derivations of it, including Hebrew numerals
The system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
The system was adapted from that of the Greek numerals in the late 2nd century BCE.
The current numeral system is also known as t ...
, Cyrillic numerals
Cyrillic numerals are a numeral system derived from the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the late 10th century. It was used in the First Bulgarian Empire and by South and East Slavic peoples. The system was used ...
, Abjad numerals
The Abjad numerals, also called Hisab al-Jummal ( ar, حِسَاب ٱلْجُمَّل, ), are a decimal alphabetic numeral system/alphanumeric code, in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been us ...
, also Hebrew gematria
Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...
and Greek isopsephy Isopsephy (; ''isos'' meaning "equal" and ''psephos'' meaning "pebble") or isopsephism is the practice of adding up the number values of the letters in a word to form a single number. The total number is then used as a metaphorical bridge to othe ...
).
Though the dots are assigned in no obvious order, the cells with the fewest dots are assigned to the first three letters (and lowest digits), ''abc'' = ''123'' (), and to the three vowels in this part of the alphabet, ''aei'' (), whereas the even digits, ''4'', ''6'', ''8'', ''0'' (), are corners/right angles.
The next ten letters, ''k''–''t'', are identical to ''a''–''j'' respectively, apart from the addition of a dot at position 3 (red dots in the bottom left corner of the cell in the table below): :
:
The next ten letters (the next "decade
A decade () is a period of ten years. Decades may describe any ten-year period, such as those of a person's life, or refer to specific groupings of calendar years.
Usage
Any period of ten years is a "decade". For example, the statement that "du ...
") are the same again, but with dots also at both position 3 and position 6 (green dots in the bottom row of the cell in the table above). Here ''w'' was initially left out as not being a part of the official French alphabet at the time of Braille's life; the French braille order is ''u v x y z ç é à è ù'' ().
The next ten letters, ending in ''w'', are the same again, except that for this series position 6 (purple dot in the bottom right corner of the cell in the table above) is used without a dot at position 3. In French braille these are the letters ''â ê î ô û ë ï ü œ w'' (). ''W'' had been tacked onto the end of 39 letters of the French alphabet to accommodate English.
The ''a''–''j'' series shifted down by one dot space () is used for punctuation. Letters ''a'' and ''c'' , which only use dots in the top row, were shifted two places for the apostrophe and hyphen: . (These are also the decade diacritics, at left in the table below, of the second and third decade.)
In addition, there are ten patterns that are based on the first two letters () with their dots shifted to the right; these were assigned to non-French letters (''ì ä ò'' ), or serve non-letter functions: (superscript; in English the accent mark), (currency prefix), (capital, in English the decimal point
A decimal separator is a symbol used to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form (e.g., "." in 12.45). Different countries officially designate different symbols for use as the separator. The choi ...
), (number sign
The symbol is known variously in English-speaking regions as the number sign, hash, or pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a Typographic ligature, ...
), (emphasis mark), (symbol prefix).
:
The first four decades are similar in respect that in those decades the decade dots are applied to the numeric sequence as a logical "inclusive OR" operation whereas the fifth decade applies a "shift down" operation to the numeric sequence.
Originally there had been nine decades. The fifth through ninth used dashes as well as dots, but proved to be impractical and were soon abandoned. These could be replaced with what we now know as the number sign (), though that only caught on for the digits (old 5th decade → modern 1st decade). The dash occupying the top row of the original sixth decade was simply dropped, producing the modern fifth decade. (See 1829 braille
Louis Braille's original publication, ''Procedure for Writing Words, Music, and Plainsong in Dots'' (1829), credits Barbier's night writing as being the basis for the braille script. It differed in a fundamental way from modern braille: It contain ...
.)
Assignment
Historically, there have been three principles in assigning the values of a linear script (print) to Braille: Using Louis Braille's original French letter values; reassigning the braille letters according to the sort order
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office fili ...
of the print alphabet being transcribed; and reassigning the letters to improve the efficiency of writing in braille.
Under international consensus, most braille alphabets follow the French sorting order for the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet, and there have been attempts at unifying the letters beyond these 26 (see international braille
The goal of braille uniformity is to unify the braille alphabets of the world as much as possible, so that literacy in one braille alphabet readily transfers to another. Unification was first achieved by a convention of the ''International Congre ...
), though differences remain, for example, in German Braille
German Braille is one of the older braille alphabets. The French-based order of the letter assignments was largely settled on with the 1878 convention that decided the standard for international braille. However, the assignments for German letter ...
. This unification avoids the chaos of each nation reordering the braille code to match the sorting order of its print alphabet, as happened in Algerian Braille
Algerian Braille was a braille alphabet used to write the Arabic language in Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital ...
, where braille codes were numerically reassigned to match the order of the Arabic alphabet and bear little relation to the values used in other countries (compare modern Arabic Braille
Arabic Braille ( ar, بِرَيْل الْعَرَبِيَّة, ') is the braille alphabet for the Arabic language. It descends from a braille alphabet brought to Egypt by an English missionary prior to 1878, so the letter assignments generally co ...
, which uses the French sorting order), and as happened in an early American version of English Braille, where the letters ''w'', ''x'', ''y'', ''z'' were reassigned to match English alphabetical order. A convention sometimes seen for letters beyond the basic 26 is to exploit the physical symmetry of braille patterns iconically, for example, by assigning a reversed ''n'' to ''ñ'' or an inverted ''s'' to ''sh''. (See Hungarian Braille and Bharati Braille
Bharati braille ( ), or Bharatiya Braille ( hi, भारती ब्रेल ' "Indian braille"), is a largely unified braille script for writing the languages of India. When India gained independence, eleven braille scripts were in use, in d ...
, which do this to some extent.)
A third principle was to assign braille codes according to frequency, with the simplest patterns (quickest ones to write with a stylus) assigned to the most frequent letters of the alphabet. Such frequency-based alphabets were used in Germany and the United States in the 19th century (see American Braille
American Braille was a popular braille alphabet used in the United States before the adoption of standardized English Braille in 1918. It was developed by Joel W. Smith, a blind piano tuning teacher at Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, ...
), but with the invention of the braille typewriter their advantage disappeared, and none are attested in modern use they had the disadvantage that the resulting small number of dots in a text interfered with following the alignment of the letters, and consequently made texts more difficult to read than Braille's more arbitrary letter assignment. Finally, there are braille scripts that don't order the codes numerically at all, such as Japanese Braille
Japanese Braille is the braille script of the Japanese language. It is based on the original braille script, though the connection is tenuous. In Japanese it is known as , literally "dot characters". It transcribes Japanese more or less as it w ...
and Korean Braille
Korean Braille is the braille alphabet of the Korean language. It is not graphically-related to other braille scripts found around the world. Instead, it reflects the patterns found in hangul, and differentiates initial consonants, vowels, and ...
, which are based on more abstract principles of syllable composition.
Texts are sometimes written in a script of eight dots per cell rather than six, enabling them to encode a greater number of symbols. (See Gardner–Salinas braille codes
The Gardner–Salinas braille codes are a method of encoding mathematical and scientific notation linearly using braille cells for tactile reading by the visually impaired. The most common form of Gardner–Salinas braille is the 8-cell variety, co ...
.) Luxembourgish Braille
Luxembourgish Braille is the braille alphabet of the Luxembourgish language. It is very close to French Braille, but uses eight-dot cells, with the extra pair of dots at the bottom of each cell to indicate capitalization and accent marks. It is ...
has adopted eight-dot cells for general use; for example, it adds a dot below each letter to derive its capital variant.
Form
Braille was the first writing system with binary
Binary may refer to:
Science and technology Mathematics
* Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1)
* Binary function, a function that takes two arguments
* Binary operation, a mathematical operation that t ...
encoding
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
. The system as devised by Braille consists of two parts:
# Character encoding
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to Graphics, graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of Language, human language, allowing them to be Data storage, stored, Data communication, transmi ...
that mapped characters of the French alphabet
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 AD, ...
to tuple
In mathematics, a tuple is a finite ordered list (sequence) of elements. An -tuple is a sequence (or ordered list) of elements, where is a non-negative integer. There is only one 0-tuple, referred to as ''the empty tuple''. An -tuple is defi ...
s of six bit
The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...
s (the dots).
# The physical representation of those six-bit characters with raised dots in a braille cell.
Within an individual cell, the dot positions are arranged in two columns of three positions. A raised dot can appear in any of the six positions, producing 64 (26) possible patterns, including one in which there are no raised dots. For reference purposes, a pattern is commonly described by listing the positions where dots are raised, the positions being universally numbered, from top to bottom, as 1 to 3 on the left and 4 to 6 on the right. For example, dot pattern 1-3-4 describes a cell with three dots raised, at the top and bottom in the left column and at the top of the right column: that is, the letter ''m''. The lines of horizontal braille text are separated by a space, much like visible printed text, so that the dots of one line can be differentiated from the braille text above and below. Different assignments of braille codes (or code page
In computing, a code page is a character encoding and as such it is a specific association of a set of printable characters and control characters with unique numbers. Typically each number represents the binary value in a single byte. (In some co ...
s) are used to map the character sets of different printed scripts to the six-bit cells. Braille assignments have also been created for mathematical and musical notation. However, because the six-dot braille cell allows only 64 (26) patterns, including space, the characters of a braille script commonly have multiple values, depending on their context. That is, character mapping between print and braille is not one-to-one. For example, the character corresponds in print to both the letter ''d'' and the digit ''4''.
In addition to simple encoding, many braille alphabets use contractions to reduce the size of braille texts and to increase reading speed. (See Contracted braille.)
Writing braille
Braille may be produced by hand using a slate and stylus
The slate and stylus are tools used by blind people to write text that they can read without assistance.Alpha Chi Omega (1908) Invented by Charles Barbier as the tool for writing letters that could be read by touch, the slate and stylus allow fo ...
in which each dot is created from the back of the page, writing in mirror image, or it may be produced on a braille typewriter
Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille display ...
or Perkins Brailler
The Perkins Brailler is a "braille typewriter" with a key corresponding to each of the six dots of the braille code, a space key, a backspace key, and a line space key. Like a manual typewriter, it has two side knobs to advance paper through t ...
, or an electronic Brailler or braille notetaker. Braille users with access to smartphones may also activate the on-screen braille input keyboard, to type braille symbols on to their device by placing their fingers on to the screen according to the dot configuration of the symbols they wish to form. These symbols are automatically translated into print on the screen. The different tools that exist for writing braille allow the braille user to select the method that is best for a given task. For example, the slate and stylus
The slate and stylus are tools used by blind people to write text that they can read without assistance.Alpha Chi Omega (1908) Invented by Charles Barbier as the tool for writing letters that could be read by touch, the slate and stylus allow fo ...
is a portable writing tool, much like the pen and paper for the sighted. Errors can be erased using a braille eraser or can be overwritten with all six dots (). ''Interpoint'' refers to braille printing that is offset, so that the paper can be embossed on both sides, with the dots on one side appearing between the divots that form the dots on the other.
Using a computer or other electronic device, Braille may be produced with a braille embosser
A braille embosser is an impact printer that renders text as tactile braille cells. Using braille translation software, a document or digital text can be embossed with relative ease. This makes braille production efficient and cost-effective. B ...
(printer) or a refreshable braille display
A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Visually impaired computer users who cannot use a s ...
(screen).
Eight-dot braille
Braille has been extended to an 8-dot code, particularly for use with braille embossers and refreshable braille displays. In 8-dot braille the additional dots are added at the bottom of the cell, giving a matrix 4 dots high by 2 dots wide. The additional dots are given the numbers 7 (for the lower-left dot) and 8 (for the lower-right dot). Eight-dot braille has the advantages that the case of an individual letter is directly coded in the cell containing the letter and that all the printable ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...
characters can be represented in a single cell. All 256 (28) possible combinations of 8 dots are encoded by the Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
standard. Braille with six dots is frequently stored as Braille ASCII
Braille ASCII (or more formally The North American Braille ASCII Code, also known as SimBraille) is a subset of the ASCII character set which uses 64 of the printable ASCII characters to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dot braille ...
.
Letters
The first 25 braille letters, up through the first half of the 3rd decade, transcribe ''a–z'' (skipping ''w''). In English Braille, the rest of that decade is rounded out with the ligatures ''and, for, of, the,'' and ''with''. Omitting dot 3 from these forms the 4th decade, the ligatures ''ch, gh, sh, th, wh, ed, er, ou, ow'' and the letter ''w''.
(See English Braille
English Braille, also known as ''Grade 2 Braille'', is the braille alphabet used for English. It consists of around 250 letters ( phonograms), numerals, punctuation, formatting marks, contractions, and abbreviations (logograms). Some English Bra ...
.)
Formatting
Various formatting marks affect the values of the letters that follow them. They have no direct equivalent in print. The most important in English Braille are:
That is, is read as capital 'A', and as the digit '1'.
Punctuation
Basic punctuation marks in English Braille include:
is both the question mark and the opening quotation mark. Its reading depends on whether it occurs before a word or after.
is used for both opening and closing parentheses. Its placement relative to spaces and other characters determines its interpretation.
Punctuation varies from language to language. For example, French Braille
French Braille is the original braille alphabet, and the basis of all others. The alphabetic order of French has become the basis of the international braille convention, used by most braille alphabets around the world. However, only the 25 basic ...
uses for its question mark and swaps the quotation marks and parentheses (to and ); it uses the period () for the decimal point, as in print, and the decimal point () to mark capitalization.
Contractions
Braille contractions are words and affixes that are shortened so that they take up fewer cells. In English Braille, for example, the word ''afternoon'' is written with just three letters, , much like stenoscript Stenoscript or ''Stenoscript ABC Shorthand'' is a shorthand system invented by Manuel C. Avancena (1923–1987) and first published in 1950. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', perhaps erroneously, claims it was based on a system published in London in 16 ...
. There are also several abbreviation marks that create what are effectively logogram
In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...
s. The most common of these is dot 5, which combines with the first letter of words. With the letter ''m'', the resulting word is ''mother''. There are also ligatures ("contracted" letters), which are single letters in braille but correspond to more than one letter in print. The letter ''and'', for example, is used to write words with the sequence ''a-n-d'' in them, such as ''hand''.
Page dimensions
Most braille embosser
A braille embosser is an impact printer that renders text as tactile braille cells. Using braille translation software, a document or digital text can be embossed with relative ease. This makes braille production efficient and cost-effective. B ...
s support between 34 and 40 cells per line, and 25 lines per page.
A manually operated Perkins braille typewriter supports a maximum of 42 cells per line (its margins are adjustable), and typical paper allows 25 lines per page.
A large interlining Stainsby has 36 cells per line and 18 lines per page.
An A4-sized Marburg braille frame, which allows interpoint braille (dots on both sides of the page, offset so they do not interfere with each other), has 30 cells per line and 27 lines per page.
Braille writing machine
A Braille writing machine is a typewriter with six keys that allows the user to write braille on a regular hard copy page.
The first Braille typewriter to gain general acceptance was invented by Frank Haven Hall
Frank Haven Hall (February 9, 1841 – January 3, 1911) was an American inventor and essayist who is credited with inventing the Hall braille writer and the stereographer machine. He also invented the first successful mechanical point writer and ...
(Superintendent of the Illinois School for the Blind
The Illinois School for the Visually Impaired (ISVI), located in Jacksonville, Illinois, is a state-operated pre-kindergarten, elementary and high school for the blind and visually impaired. The school provides educational instruction and other re ...
), and was presented to the public in 1892.
The Stainsby Brailler, developed by Henry Stainsby in 1903, is a mechanical writer with a sliding carriage that moves over an aluminium plate as it embosses Braille characters. An improved version was introduced around 1933.
In 1951 David Abraham, a woodworking teacher at the Perkins School for the Blind
Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts, was founded in 1829 and is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.
Perkins manufactures its own Perkins Br ...
produced a more advanced Braille typewriter, the Perkins Brailler
The Perkins Brailler is a "braille typewriter" with a key corresponding to each of the six dots of the braille code, a space key, a backspace key, and a line space key. Like a manual typewriter, it has two side knobs to advance paper through t ...
.
Braille printers or embosser were produced in 1950s.
In 1960 Robert Mann, a teacher in MIT, wrote DOTSYS, a software that allowed automatic braille translation, and another group created an embossing device called "M.I.T. Braillemboss". The Mitre Corporation team of Robert Gildea, Jonathan Millen, Reid Gerhart and Joseph Sullivan (now president of Duxbury Systems) developed DOTSYS III, the first braille translator written in a portable programming language. DOTSYS III was developed for the Atlanta Public Schools
Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is a school district based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is run by the Atlanta Board of Education with superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring. The system has an active enrollment of 54,956 students, attending a t ...
as a public domain program.
In 1991 Ernest Bate developed the Mountbatten Brailler
The Mountbatten Brailler is an electronic machine used to type braille on braille paper. It uses the traditional "braille typewriter keyboard" of the Perkins Brailler with modern technology, giving it a number of additional features such as word ...
, an electronic machine used to type braille on braille paper, giving it a number of additional features such as word processing, audio feedback and embossing. This version was improved in 2008 with a quiet writer that had an erase key.
In 2011 David S. Morgan produced the first SMART Brailler machine, with added text to speech
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or Computer hardware, hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system conve ...
function and allowed digital capture of data entered.
Braille reading
Braille is traditionally read in hardcopy form, such as with paper books written in braille, documents produced in paper braille (such as restaurant menus), and braille labels or public signage. It can also be read on a refreshable braille display
A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Visually impaired computer users who cannot use a s ...
either as a stand-alone electronic device or connected to a computer or smartphone. Refreshable braille displays convert what is visually shown on a computer or smartphone screen into braille through a series of pins that rise and fall to form braille symbols. Currently more than 1% of all printed books have been translated into hardcopy braille.
The fastest braille readers apply a light touch and read braille with two hands, although reading braille with one hand is also possible. Although the finger can read only one braille character at a time, the brain chunks braille at a higher level, processing words a digraph, root or suffix at a time. The processing largely takes place in the visual cortex
The visual cortex of the brain is the area of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe. Sensory input originating from the eyes travels through the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus and ...
.[Experts Gathering In Houston To Discuss How Braille Is Taught – And What It Can Teach Us.]
National Public Radio, 5 May 2018
Literacy
Children who are blind miss out on fundamental parts of early and advanced education if not provided with the necessary tools, such as access to educational materials in braille. Children who are blind or visually impaired can begin learning foundational braille skills from a very young age to become fluent braille readers as they get older. Sighted children are naturally exposed to written language on signs, on TV and in the books they see. Blind children require the same early exposure to literacy, through access to braille rich environments and opportunities to explore the world around them. Print-braille books, for example, present text in both print and braille and can be read by sighted parents to blind children (and vice versa), allowing blind children to develop an early love for reading even before formal reading instruction begins.
Adults who experience sight loss later in life or who didn't have the opportunity to learn it when they were younger can also learn braille. In most cases, adults who learn braille were already literate in print before vision loss and so instruction focuses more on developing the tactile and motor skills needed to read braille.
While different countries publish statistics on how many readers in a given organization request braille, these numbers only provide a partial picture of braille literacy statistics. For example, this data does not survey the entire population of braille readers or always include readers who are no longer in the school system (adults) or readers who request electronic braille materials. Therefore, there are currently no reliable statistics on braille literacy rates, as described in a publication in the Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness. Regardless of the precise percentage of braille readers, there is consensus that braille should be provided to all those who benefit from it.
There are numerous factors that influence access to braille literacy, including school budget constraints, technology advancements such as screen-reader software, access to qualified instruction, and different philosophical views over how blind children should be educated.
A key turning point for braille literacy was the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 () is a United States federal law, codified at et seq. The principal sponsor of the bill was Rep. John Brademas (D-IN-3). The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 replaces preexisting laws (collectively referred to as the V ...
, an act of Congress
An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called Public and private bills, private laws), or to the general public (Public and private bills, public laws). For a Bill (law) ...
that moved thousands of children from specialized schools for the blind into mainstream
Mainstream may refer to:
Film
* ''Mainstream'' (film), a 2020 American film
Literature
* ''Mainstream'' (fanzine), a science fiction fanzine
* Mainstream Publishing, a Scottish publisher
* ''Mainstream'', a 1943 book by Hamilton Basso
Mu ...
public schools. Because only a small percentage of public schools could afford to train and hire braille-qualified teachers, braille literacy has declined since the law took effect. Braille literacy rates have improved slightly since the bill was passed, in part because of pressure from consumers and advocacy groups that has led 27 states to pass legislation mandating that children who are legally blind be given the opportunity to learn braille.
In 1998 there were 57,425 legally blind students registered in the United States, but only 10% (5,461) of them used braille as their primary reading medium.
Early Braille education is crucial to literacy for a blind or low-vision child. A study conducted in the state of Washington found that people who learned braille at an early age did just as well, if not better than their sighted peers in several areas, including vocabulary and comprehension. In the preliminary adult study, while evaluating the correlation between adult literacy skills and employment, it was found that 44% of the participants who had learned to read in braille were unemployed, compared to the 77% unemployment rate of those who had learned to read using print. Currently, among the estimated 85,000 blind adults in the United States, 90% of those who are braille-literate are employed. Among adults who do not know braille, only 33% are employed. Statistically, history has proven that braille reading proficiency provides an essential skill set that allows blind or low-vision children to compete with their sighted peers in a school environment and later in life as they enter the workforce.
Regardless of the specific percentage of braille readers, proponents point out the importance of increasing access to braille for all those who can benefit from i
Braille transcription
Although it is possible to transcribe print by simply substituting the equivalent braille character for its printed equivalent, in English such a character-by-character transcription (known as ''uncontracted braille'') is typically used by beginners or those who only engage in short reading tasks (such as reading household labels).
Braille characters are much larger than their printed equivalents, and the standard 11" by 11.5" (28 cm × 30 cm) page has room for only 25 lines of 43 characters. To reduce space and increase reading speed, most braille alphabets and orthographies use ligatures, abbreviations, and contractions. Virtually all English braille books in hardcopy (paper) format are transcribed in contracted braille: The Library of Congress's ''Instruction Manual for Braille Transcribing'' runs to over 300 pages, and braille transcribers must pass certification tests.
Uncontracted braille was previously known as grade 1 braille, and contracted braille was previously known as grade 2 braille. Uncontracted braille is a direct transliteration of print words (one-to-one correspondence); hence, the word "about" would contain all the same letters in uncontracted braille as it does in inkprint. Contracted braille includes short forms to save space; hence, for example, the letters "ab" when standing alone represent the word "about" in English contracted braille. In English, some braille users only learn uncontracted braille, particularly if braille is being used for shorter reading tasks such as reading household labels. However, those who plan to use braille for educational and employment purposes and longer reading texts often go on to contracted braille.
The system of contraction (grammar), contractions in English Braille begins with a set of 23 words contracted to single characters. Thus the word ''but'' is contracted to the single letter ''b'', ''can'' to ''c'', ''do'' to ''d'', and so on. Even this simple rule creates issues requiring special cases; for example, ''d'' is, specifically, an abbreviation of the verb ''do''; the noun ''do'' representing the note of the musical scale is a different word and must be spelled out.
Portions of words may be contracted, and many rules govern this process. For example, the character with dots 2-3-5 (the letter "f" lowered in the Braille cell) stands for "ff" when used in the middle of a word. At the beginning of a word, this same character stands for the word "to"; the character is written in braille with no space following it. (This contraction was removed in the Unified English Braille Code
Unified English Braille Code (UEBC, formerly UBC, now usually simply UEB) is an English language Braille code standard, developed to permit representing the wide variety of literary and technical material in use in the English-speaking world today ...
.) At the end of a word, the same character represents an exclamation point.
Some contractions are more similar than their print equivalents. For example, the contraction , meaning "letter", differs from , meaning "little", only by one dot in the second letter: ''little'', ''letter''. This causes greater confusion between the braille spellings of these words and can hinder the learning process of contracted braille.
The contraction rules take into account the linguistic structure of the word; thus, contractions are generally not to be used when their use would alter the usual braille form of a base word to which a prefix or suffix has been added. Some portions of the transcription rules are not fully codified and rely on the judgment of the transcriber. Thus, when the contraction rules permit the same word in more than one way, preference is given to "the contraction that more nearly approximates correct pronunciation".
"Grade 3 braille" is a variety of non-standardized systems that include many additional shorthand-like contractions. They are not used for publication, but by individuals for their personal convenience.
Braille translation software
When people produce braille, this is called braille transcription. When computer software produces braille, this is called braille
translation. Braille translation software exists to handle most of the common languages of the world, and many technical areas,
such as mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
(mathematical notation
Mathematical notation consists of using symbols for representing operations, unspecified numbers, relations and any other mathematical objects, and assembling them into expressions and formulas. Mathematical notation is widely used in mathematic ...
), for example WIMATS WIMATS is an application software to transcript mathematical and scientific text input into braille script in braille presses. Based on the Nemeth Code, the output can be printed in a variety of braille embossers. This transcription software was jo ...
, music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
(musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation fo ...
), and tactile graphics.
Braille reading techniques
Since Braille is one of the few writing systems where tactile perception is used, as opposed to visual perception, a braille reader must develop new skills. One skill important for Braille readers is the ability to create smooth and even pressures when running one's fingers along the words. There are many different styles and techniques used for the understanding and development of braille, even though a study by B. F. Holland suggests that there is no specific technique that is superior to any other.
Another study by Lowenfield & Abel shows that braille can be read "the fastest and best... by students who read using the index fingers of both hands". Another important reading skill emphasized in this study is to finish reading the end of a line with the right hand and to find the beginning of the next line with the left hand simultaneously.
International uniformity
When Braille was first adapted to languages other than French, many schemes were adopted, including mapping the native alphabet to the alphabetical order of French – e.g. in English W, which was not in the French alphabet at the time, is mapped to braille X, X to Y, Y to Z, and Z to the first French-accented letter – or completely rearranging the alphabet such that common letters are represented by the simplest braille patterns. Consequently, mutual intelligibility was greatly hindered by this state of affairs. In 1878, the International Congress on Work for the Blind, held in Paris, proposed an international braille standard, where braille codes for different languages and scripts would be based, not on the order of a particular alphabet, but on phonetic correspondence and transliteration to Latin.
This unified braille has been applied to the languages of India and Africa, Arabic, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Russian, and Armenian, as well as nearly all Latin-script languages. In Greek, for example, γ (g) is written as Latin ''g'', despite the fact that it has the alphabetic position of ''c''; Hebrew ב (b), the second letter of the alphabet and cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
with the Latin letter ''b'', is sometimes pronounced /b/ and sometimes /v/, and is written ''b'' or ''v'' accordingly; Russian ц (ts) is written as ''c'', which is the usual letter for /ts/ in those Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...
that use the Latin alphabet; and Arabic ف (f) is written as ''f'', despite being historically ''p'' and occurring in that part of the Arabic alphabet (between historic ''o'' and ''q'').
Other braille conventions
Other systems for assigning values to braille patterns are also followed beside the simple mapping of the alphabetical order onto the original French order. Some braille alphabets start with unified braille, and then diverge significantly based on the phonology of the target languages, while others diverge even further.
In the various Chinese systems, traditional braille values are used for initial consonants and the simple vowels. In both Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
and Cantonese Braille
Cantonese Braille ( Chinese: 粵語點字) is a braille script used to write Cantonese in Hong Kong and Macau. It is locally referred to as ''tim chi'' (點字, ''dim2zi6'') 'dot characters' or more commonly but ambiguously ''tuk chi'' (凸字, ...
, however, characters have different readings depending on whether they are placed in syllable-initial (onset) or syllable-final (rime) position. For instance, the cell for Latin ''k'', , represents Cantonese ''k'' (''g'' in Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
and other modern romanizations) when initial, but ''aak'' when final, while Latin ''j'', , represents Cantonese initial ''j'' but final ''oei''.
Novel systems of braille mapping include Korean, which adopts separate syllable-initial and syllable-final forms for its consonants, explicitly grouping braille cells into syllabic groups in the same way as hangul
The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The let ...
. Japanese, meanwhile, combines independent vowel dot patterns and modifier consonant dot patterns into a single braille cell – an abugida
An abugida (, from Ge'ez language, Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; ...
representation of each Japanese mora
Mora may refer to:
People
* Mora (surname)
Places Sweden
* Mora, Säter, Sweden
* Mora, Sweden, the seat of Mora Municipality
* Mora Municipality, Sweden
United States
* Mora, Louisiana, an unincorporated community
* Mora, Minnesota, a city
* M ...
.
Uses
Braille is read by people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision, and by both those born with a visual impairment and those who experience sight loss later in life. Even individuals with low vision will find that they benefit from braille, depending on level of vision or context (for example, when lighting or colour contrast is poor). Braille is used for both short and long reading tasks. Examples of short reading tasks include braille labels for identifying household items (or cards in a wallet), reading elevator buttons, accessing phone numbers, recipes, grocery lists and other personal notes. Examples of longer reading tasks include using braille to access educational materials, novels and magazines. People with access to a refreshable braille display
A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Visually impaired computer users who cannot use a s ...
can also use braille for reading email and ebooks, browsing the internet and accessing other electronic documents. It is also possible to adapt or purchase playing cards and board games in braille.
In India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
there are instances where the parliament acts have been published in braille, such as ''The Right to Information Act''. Sylheti Braille is used in Northeast India
, native_name_lang = mni
, settlement_type =
, image_skyline =
, image_alt =
, image_caption =
, motto =
, image_map = Northeast india.png
, ...
.
In Canada, passenger safety information in braille and tactile seat row markers are required aboard planes, trains, large ferries, and interprovincial busses pursuant to the Canadian Transportation Agency's regulations.
In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 19 ...
requires various building signage to be in braille.
In the United Kingdom, it is required that medicines have the name of the medicine in Braille on the labeling.
Currency
The current series of Canadian banknotes
Banknotes of the Canadian dollar are the banknotes or bills (in common lexicon) of Canada, denominated in Canadian dollars (CAD, C$, or $ locally). Currently, they are issued in $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 denominations. All current notes are ...
has a tactile feature consisting of raised dots that indicate the denomination, allowing bills to be easily identified by blind or low vision people. It does not use standard braille numbers to identify the value. Instead, the number of full braille cells, which can be simply counted by both braille readers and non-braille readers alike, is an indicator of the value of the bill.
Mexican bank notes, Australian bank notes, Indian rupee
The Indian rupee ( symbol: ₹; code: INR) is the official currency in the republic of India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 ''paise'' (singular: ''paisa''), though as of 2022, coins of denomination of 1 rupee are the lowest value in use wh ...
notes, Israeli new shekel
The new Israeli shekel ( he, שֶׁקֶל חָדָשׁ '; ar, شيكل جديد ; sign: ₪; ISO code: ILS; abbreviation: NIS), also known as simply the Israeli shekel ( he, שקל ישראלי, ar, شيكل إسرائيلي), is the curre ...
notes and Russian ruble
''hum''; cv, тенкĕ ''tenke''; kv, шайт ''shayt''; Lak: къуруш ''k'urush''; Mari: теҥге ''tenge''; os, сом ''som''; tt-Cyrl, сум ''sum''; udm, манет ''manet''; sah, солкуобай ''solkuobay''
, name_ab ...
notes also have special raised symbols to make them identifiable by persons who are blind or low vision.
Euro coins
There are eight euro coin denominations, ranging from one cent to two euros (the euro is divided into a hundred cents). The coins first came into use in 2002. They have a common reverse, portraying a map of Europe, but each country in the eurozone ...
were designed in cooperation with organisations representing blind people, and as a result they incorporate many features allowing them to be distinguished by touch alone. In addition, their visual appearance is designed to make them easy to tell apart for persons who cannot read the inscriptions on the coins. "A good design for the blind and partially sighted is a good design for everybody" was the principle behind the cooperation of the European Central Bank
The European Central Bank (ECB) is the prime component of the monetary Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's Big Four (banking)#Intern ...
and the European Blind Union
European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to:
In general
* ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe
** Ethnic groups in Europe
** Demographics of Europe
** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe a ...
during the design phase of the first series Euro banknotes
Banknotes of the euro, the common currency of the Eurozone (euro area members), have been in circulation since the first series (also called ''ES1'') was issued in 2002. They are issued by the national central banks of the Eurosystem or the Eur ...
in the 1990s. As a result, the design of the first euro banknotes included several characteristics which aid both the blind and partially sighted
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment ...
to confidently use the notes.
Australia introduced the tactile feature onto their five-dollar banknote in 2016
In the United Kingdom, the front of the £10 polymer note (the side with raised print), has two clusters of raised dots in the top left hand corner, and the £20 note has three. This tactile feature helps blind and partially sighted people identify the value of the note.
Unicode
The Braille set was added to the Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
Standard in version 3.0 (1999).
Most braille embosser
A braille embosser is an impact printer that renders text as tactile braille cells. Using braille translation software, a document or digital text can be embossed with relative ease. This makes braille production efficient and cost-effective. B ...
s and refreshable braille display
A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Visually impaired computer users who cannot use a s ...
s do not use the Unicode code point
In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
s, but instead reuse the 8-bit
In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) arc ...
code points that are assigned to standard ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...
for braille ASCII
Braille ASCII (or more formally The North American Braille ASCII Code, also known as SimBraille) is a subset of the ASCII character set which uses 64 of the printable ASCII characters to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dot braille ...
. (Thus, for simple material, the same bitstream
A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits.
A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...
may be interpreted equally as visual letter form
A letterform, letter-form or letter form, is a term used especially in typography, palaeography, calligraphy and epigraphy to mean a letter's shape. A letterform is a type of glyph, which is a specific, concrete way of writing an abstract char ...
s for sighted readers or their exact semantic equivalent in tactile patterns for blind readers. However some codes have quite different tactile versus visual interpretations and most are not even defined in Braille ASCII.)
Some embossers have proprietary control codes for 8-dot braille or for full graphics mode, where dots may be placed anywhere on the page without leaving any space between braille cells so that continuous lines can be drawn in diagrams, but these are rarely used and are not standard.
The Unicode standard encodes 6-dot and 8-dot braille glyphs according to their binary appearance, rather than following their assigned numeric order. Dot 1 corresponds to the least significant bit
In computing, bit numbering is the convention used to identify the bit positions in a binary number.
Bit significance and indexing
In computing, the least significant bit (LSB) is the bit position in a binary integer representing the binary 1 ...
of the low byte of the Unicode scalar value, and dot 8 to the high bit of that byte.
The Unicode block for braille is U+2800 ... U+28FF. The mapping of patterns to characters etc. is language dependent: even for English for example, see American Braille
American Braille was a popular braille alphabet used in the United States before the adoption of standardized English Braille in 1918. It was developed by Joel W. Smith, a blind piano tuning teacher at Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, ...
and English Braille
English Braille, also known as ''Grade 2 Braille'', is the braille alphabet used for English. It consists of around 250 letters ( phonograms), numerals, punctuation, formatting marks, contractions, and abbreviations (logograms). Some English Bra ...
.
Observation
Every year on 4 January, World Braille Day
World Braille Day is an international day on 4 January and celebrates awareness
Awareness is the state of being conscious of something. More specifically, it is the ability to directly know and perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of events. A ...
is observed internationally to commemorate the birth of Louis Braille
Louis Braille (; ; 4 January 1809 – 6 January 1852) was a French educator and the inventor of a reading and writing system, named braille after him, intended for use by visually impaired people. His system is used worldwide and remains virtua ...
and to recognize his efforts. Although the event is not considered a public holiday, it has been recognized by the United Nations as an official day of celebration since 2019.
Braille devices
There is a variety of contemporary electronic devices that serve the needs of blind people that operate in Braille, such as refreshable braille display
A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Visually impaired computer users who cannot use a s ...
s and Braille e-book
A braille e-book is a refreshable braille display using electroactive polymers or heated wax rather than mechanical pins to raise braille dots on a display. Though not inherently expensive, due to the small scale of production they have not been ...
that use different technologies for transmitting graphic information of different types (pictures, maps, graphs, texts, etc.).
See also
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* ("the Braille man of India")
* List of binary codes This is a list of some binary codes that are (or have been) used to represent text as a sequence of binary digits "0" and "1". Fixed-width binary codes use a set number of bits to represent each character in the text, while in variable-width binary ...
* List of international common standards
A list of international common and basic technical standards, which have been established worldwide and are related by their frequent and widespread use. These standards are conventionally accepted as best practice and used globally by industry an ...
*
Notes
References
External links
L'association_ L'association_Valentin_Haüy
_">Valentin_Haüy">L'association_Valentin_Haüy
_(in_French)
*
Acting_for_the_autonomy_of_blind_and_partially_sighted_persons_(Corporate_brochure)
(Microsoft_Word_file,_in_English)
Alternate_Text_Production_Center
of_the_California_Community_Colleges.
Braille_Part_1_Text_To_Speech_For_The_Visually_Impaired
YouTube
Braille_information_and_advice
-_Sense_UK
{{Authority_control
Braille.html" ;"title="Valentin_Haüy
_.html" ;"title="Valentin Haüy">L'association Valentin Haüy
">Valentin Haüy">L'association Valentin Haüy
(in French)
*
Acting for the autonomy of blind and partially sighted persons (Corporate brochure)
(Microsoft Word file, in English)
Alternate Text Production Center
of the California Community Colleges.
Braille Part 1 Text To Speech For The Visually Impaired
YouTube
Braille information and advice
- Sense UK
{{Authority control
Braille">
1824 introductions
Assistive technology
Augmentative and alternative communication
Character sets
Digital typography
French inventions
Latin-script representations
Writing systems introduced in the 19th century