Cantonese Braille (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

: 粵語點字) is a

braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...

script used to write

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

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and

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. It is locally referred to as ''tim chi'' (點字, ''dim2zi6'') 'dot characters' or more commonly but ambiguously ''tuk chi'' (凸字, ''dat6zi6'') 'raised characters'. Although Cantonese is written in

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...

, Cantonese Braille is purely phonetic, with punctuation, digits and

Latin letters The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

from the original Braille. It can be mixed with

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text.

Charts

Each syllable is divided into three parts: the initial consonant, the rime (vowel and any final consonant), and the tone. For example, 盤, ''pun4'' is written , with initial ''p'', final ''un'' and tone ''4''.Jennie Lam Suk Yin, 2003
Confusion of tones in visually-impaired children using Cantonese braille
(Archived by WebCite® at https://www.webcitation.org/6AK0HT0Vk?url=http://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/40646/1/FullText.pdf?accept=1 (See Cantonese phonology.) Among initials, aspirated consonants (''p t ts k kw = p' t' ts' k' kw) are derived by adding dots to the unaspirated consonants (''b d dz g gw = p t ts k kw''): *''M'' and ''ng'' may also be used as rimes (syllabic nasals), in which case they are followed directly by the tone. *When ''i'' or ''u'' (but not ''y'') begins a syllable, a dummy consonant ''j'' or ''w'' is prefixed. † represents the symbol was abolished in the revised version in 1990. The rimes ''eu, em, ep'' do not exist in braille. High tone (tones 1 and 7) is not transcribed. Otherwise tone is written after the rime, as follows: In numerical order, the cells are as follows:

Punctuation

Some of the punctuation marks are distinguished from the onset or rime of a syllable by the strategic use of the space. The spaces are therefore included in the table below, though they are not technically part of the punctuation mark. The emphasis marks, are equivalent to running dots alongside the characters in print, while proper names are marked in print by an underline or overline.

References

* UNESCO (2013
World Braille Usage
, 3rd edition. {{Chinese language Cantonese language Languages of Hong Kong French-ordered braille scripts

Charts

Punctuation

See also

References