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 would be written in the ''hiragana'' or ''katakana'' syllabaries, without any provision for writing ''kanji''.

Japanese Braille is a vowel-based abugida. That is, the glyphs are syllabic, but unlike kana they contain separate symbols for consonant and vowel, and the vowel takes primacy. The vowels are written in the upper left corner (points 1, 2, 4) and may be used alone. The consonants are written in the lower right corner (points 3, 5, 6) and cannot occur alone. However, the semivowel ''y'' is indicated by point 4, one of the vowel points, and the vowel combination is dropped to the bottom of the block. When this point is written in isolation, it indicates that the following syllable has a medial ''y'', as in ''mya''. Syllables beginning with ''w'' are indicated by dropping the vowel points to the bottom of the cell without additional consonant points.

Braille for kana

In Japanese Braille, bare vowels are assigned to braille patterns that occupy the upper-left half of the cell (dots 1-2-4) in numerical order: . The cells representing other kana have no apparent connection to international values or numerical order. Common punctuation marks tend to follow standard international values, with several doing double-duty with the w- series of kana braille. Beyond the bare vowels, all other kana use the vowel series, called ''dan'', with each ''gyō'' (consonant series) represented either by adding specific dots, lowering the dot positions of the ''dan'' vowel patterns within the cell, or both.

The patterns for adding ''yōon'' to a mora can be added to the modifiers for dakuten and handakuten as a compound kana modifier, and the ''ya gyō'' braille series is based on the yōon dot pattern. The symbol for ''syllabic "n"'' is based on its historical derivation from ''mu''.

Other symbols

In kana, a small ''tsu'' (), called ''sokuon'', is used to indicate that the following consonant is geminate, and in interjections as a glottal stop. In katakana only, a long vowel is indicated with a horizontal stroke () called a chōon. This also looks like a half dash in braille:

The placement of these blocks mirrors the equivalent kana: the ''sokuon'' indicates that the following consonant is geminate, whereas the ''chōon'' indicates that the preceding vowel is long.

In kana, the voiced consonants ''g, z, d, b'' are derived from the voiceless consonants ''k, s, t, h'' by adding a diacritic called ''dakuten'' to the kana, as in ''gi''; in foreign words, ''vu'' is written by adding this to the vowel ''u''. Similarly, ''p'' is derived from ''h'' by adding a small circle, '' handakuten''. Two kana are fused into a single syllable by writing the second small, as in ''kya'' from ''ki + ya''; this is called ''yōon''.

In Japanese Braille, the signs for these are prefixes. That is, the order is ''dakuten'' + ''ki'' for ''gi''. When more than one occurs in a single syllable, they are combined in a single prefix block, as the ''yōon-dakuten'' used for ''gya''.

The ''yōon'' prefix uses the point that represents ''y'' in the blocks ''ya'', ''yu'', ''yo''. When placed before ''ka'', ''ku'', ''ko'', it produces ''kya'', ''kyu'', ''kyo''. Likewise, the ''yōon-dakuten'' prefix before ''ka, ku, ko'' creates ''gya, gyu, gyo.'' And so on for the other consonants.

Unlike kana, which uses a subscript ''e'', in braille the ''-ye'' in foreign borrowings is written with ''yōon'' and the kana from the ''e'' row: that is, ''kye'', ''she'', ''che'', ''nye'', ''hye'', ''mye'', ''rye'', voiced ''gye'', ''je'', ''bye'', and plosive ''pye'' are written with the ''yōon'' prefixes plus ''ke'', ''se'', ''te'', ''ne'', ''he'', ''me'', ''re''. The syllable ''ye'' is written ''yōon'' plus ''e.''

There is also a prefix for medial ''-w-'' called ''gōyōon''. When combined with ''ka'', it produces the obsolete syllable ''kwa''. It may also be fused with the voicing prefix for ''gwa''. For foreign borrowings, this extends to ''kwi'', ''kwe'', ''kwo'' and ''gwa'', ''gwi'', ''gwe'', ''gwo''. ''Gōyōon'' may also be combined with the vowels ''i'', ''e'', ''o'' for foreign ''wi'', ''we'', ''wo'' (now that the ''w'' in the original Japanese kana for ''wi'', ''we'', ''wo'' is silent); with ''ha'', ''hi'', ''he'', ''ho'' for ''fa'', ''fi'', ''fe'', ''fo'' and (when voiced) for ''va'', ''vi'', ''ve'', ''vo''; and with ''ta'', ''chi'', ''te'', ''to'' for ''tsa'', ''tsi'', ''tse'', ''tso''. These two prefixes are identical to the question mark and full stop.

These all parallel usage in kana. However, there are additional conventions which are unique to braille. ''Yōon'' and ''yōon-dakuten'' are also added to ''chi'' and ''shi'' to write ''ti'', ''di'' and ''si'', ''zi'' found in foreign borrowings; similarly ''gōyōon'' and ''gōyōon-dakuten'' are added to ''tsu'' to write ''tu'', ''du''. This differs from the system used in kana, where the base syllables are ''te'' and ''to'' respectively, and a subscript vowel ''i'' or ''u'' is added.

In an assignment that is counter-intuitive in kana, ''yōon + handakuten'' is prefixed to ''tsu'', ''yu'', ''yo'' to produce ''tyu'', ''fyu'', ''fyo'' in foreign words, and voiced for ''dyu'', ''vyu'', ''vyo''. The latter—''yōon + dakuten + handakuten'', is impossible in kana:

Orthography

Japanese Braille is written as print Japanese would be written in kana. However, there are three discrepancies:
* In print, the ubiquitous grammatical particles ''wa'' and ''e'' have the historical spellings ''ha'' and ''he''. In braille, they are written as they are pronounced, ''wa'' and ''e''.
* The long ''ō'' sound is written with (''chōon''), as it would be romanized, regardless of whether it is ''oo'' or ''ou'' in print Japanese. Long ''ū'' is also written with a ''chōon'' rather than a ''u''. (This is a common convention in ''katakana'', but does not occur in ''hiragana''.) Thus ''Tōkyō'', sorted as ''Toukyou'' in dictionaries, is nonetheless written , and ''sansū'' is written .
* Spaces are used to separate words (though not clauses or sentences, where punctuation performs that function). Thus is spaced as in its romanization, though without separating '' particles'' from their nouns: ''Kyōwa asakara yoku harete iru.'' Spaces are also placed between family and personal names, as in ''Ishikawa Kuraji''. When writing in ''katakana'', an interpunct is used for this function in print, as in ''Rui Buraiyu'' (Louis Braille).

Punctuation

Besides the punctuation of Japanese, braille also has symbols to indicate that the following characters are digits or the Latin alphabet.

As noted above, the space is used between words and also where an interpunct would be used when names are written in katakana. There are several additional punctuation marks.

Formatting

Western letters and digits are indicated as follows:

An additional sign indicates that the following characters are specifically English words and not just in the Latin alphabet.

Words immediately follow numbers, unless they begin with a vowel or with ''r-''. Because the syllables ''a i u e o'' and ''ra ri ru re ro'' are homographic with the digits 0–9, a hyphen is inserted to separate them. Thus "six people" (''6 nin'') is written without a hyphen, , but "six yen" (''6 en'') is written with a hyphen, , because would be read as .

Kanji

There are both a six dot system, '' tenkanji'' and an eight-dot extension of Japanese Braille ''kantenji'', that have been devised to transcribe kanji.

Notes and references

External links

The Braille Authority of Japan
– the standard-setting body for braille notation in Japan
World Blind Union

{{DEFAULTSORT:Japanese Braille
Braille
Innovative braille scripts