Braille in Xujiahui Park with Chinese translation

(Mainland) Chinese Braille 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 for

Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Consonants and basic finals conform to

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 ...

, but additional finals form a

semi-syllabary A semi-syllabary is a writing system that behaves partly as an alphabet and partly as a syllabary. The main group of semi-syllabic writing are the Paleohispanic scripts of ancient Spain, a group of semi-syllabaries that transform redundant plosive ...

, as in

zhuyin Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...

(bopomofo). Each syllable is written with up to three Braille cells, representing the

initial In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that ...

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

, and tone, respectively. In practice tone is generally omitted as it is in

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

Braille charts

Traditional Chinese Braille is as follows:

Initials

Chinese Braille initials generally follow the

assignments of international braille. However, ''j, q, x'' are replaced with ''g, k, h'', as the difference is predictable from the final. (This reflects the historical change of ''g, k, h'' (and also ''z, c, s'') to ''j, q, x'' before ''i'' and ''ü''.) The digraphs ''ch, sh, zh'' are assigned to (its pronunciation in

Russian Braille Russian Braille is the braille alphabet of the Russian language. With suitable extensions, it is used for languages of neighboring countries that are written in Cyrillic in print, such as Ukrainian and Mongolian. It is based on the Latin trans ...

), (a common pronunciation in

), and . ''R'' is assigned to , reflecting the old Wade-Giles transcription of . ( is used for the final ''er'', the pronunciation of the name of that letter 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 ...

Finals

The finals approximate

international International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

values for several of the basic vowels ( ''e (o)'', ''yi'', ''wo'', ''wu'', ''yü'', ''you'', ''ei''), but then necessarily diverge. However, there are a few parallels with other braille alphabets: ''er'' and ''wai'' are pronounced like the names of those letters 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 ...

; ''ye'', ''ya'', and ''you'' are pronounced like those letters in

. ''yuan'', ''yue'', ''yin'', are similar to the old French pronunciations ''oin, ieu, in.'' For the most part, however, Chinese Braille finals do not obviously derive from previous conventions. The pinyin final ''-i'' is only written where it corresponds to ''yi''. Otherwise* (in ''ci zi si ri chi zhi shi'') no final is written, a convention also found in ''

''. The final ''-e'' is not written in ''de'', a common grammatical particle written with several different characters in print.

Tones

Tone is marked sparingly.

Punctuation

Chinese Braille punctuation approximates the form of international braille punctuation, but several spread the corresponding dots across two cells rather than one. For example, the period is , which is the same pattern as the international single-cell norm of .

Numbers

A braille cell ⠼ called ''number sign'' () is needed when representing numbers. Examples: : 0, 1, 2, … 9, : 10, 11, 12, … 19, … 29, … 99, : 100, 256, 1024, 1048576.

Rules

*Spaces are added between words, rather than between syllables. *Tone is marked when needed. It comes after the final. *As in

, the finals of the syllables ''zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, ri'' are not marked. Two examples, the first with full tone marking, the second with tone for disambiguation only: : :⠱⠂⠛⠩⠁⠀⠃⠥⠆⠀⠵⠖⠄⠀⠇⠢⠰⠂ : : :⠉⠖⠄⠙⠊⠆⠀⠱⠦⠀⠙⠀⠓⠿⠁⠀⠱⠆⠀⠋⠼⠀⠟⠺⠅⠪⠀⠙⠐⠆ :

Ambiguity

Chinese Braille has the same low level of ambiguity that pinyin does. In practice, tone is omitted 95% of the time, which leads to a space saving of a third. Tone is also omitted in

pinyin military telegraphy Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese form ...

, and causes little confusion in context. The initial pairs ''g/j'', ''k/q'', ''h/x'' are distinguished by the final: initials ''j, q, x'' are followed by the vowels ''i'' or ''ü'', while the initials ''g, k, h'' are followed by other vowels. This reflects the historical derivation of ''j, q, x'' from ''g, k, h'' before ''i'' and ''ü'', and parallels the dual pronunciations of ''c'' and ''g'' in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

. In pinyin, the redundancy is resolved in the other direction, with the diaeresis omitted from ''ü'' after ''j, q, x''. Thus braille is equivalent to pinyin ''ju'': : ''gu'', : ''ju''.

Usage

The China Library for the Blind () in Beijing has several thousand volumes, mostly published by the China Braille Press (). The

National Taiwan Library The National Taiwan Library () is a library in Zhonghe District, New Taipei, Taiwan. It is the oldest public library in Taiwan. Founded in 1914, the library is home to a large collection of documents concerning the history, culture, politics and ...

has a Braille room with a postal mail service and some electronic documents.

Notes

References

External links

Omniglot: Braille for Chinese
*学点盲文
/span> *Braille at th
Dongli Disabled Persons' Federation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chinese Braille French-ordered braille scripts Transcription of Chinese