The Moon System of Embossed Reading (commonly known as the Moon writing, Moon alphabet, Moon script, Moon type, or Moon code) is a

writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

for the blind, using embossed symbols mostly derived from the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a 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 Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

(but simplified). It is claimed by its supporters to be easier to understand than

braille Braille ( , ) is a Tactile alphabet, tactile writing system used by blindness, blind or visually impaired people. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone device ...

, though it is mainly used by people who have lost their sight as adults, and thus already have knowledge of the shapes of letters.

History

Moon type was developed by William Moon (1818—1894), a blind Englishman living in

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

East Sussex East Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Kent to the north-east, West Sussex to the west, Surrey to the north-west, and the English Channel to the south. The largest settlement ...

. After a bout of

scarlet fever Scarlet fever, also known as scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'', a Group A streptococcus (GAS). It most commonly affects children between five and 15 years of age. The signs and symptoms include a sore ...

, Moon lost his sight at age 21 and became a teacher of blind children. He discovered that his pupils had great difficulty learning to read the existing styles of embossed reading codes, and devised his own system that would be "open and clear to the touch."Farrell, p. 102. Moon first formulated his ideas in 1843 and published the scheme in 1845. Moon is not as well known as

, but it is a valuable alternative touch reading scheme for the blind or partially sighted people of any age. Rather than the dots of braille type, Moon type is made up of raised curves, angles, and lines. As the characters are quite large and over half the letters bear a strong resemblance to the print equivalent, Moon has been found particularly suitable for those who lose their sight later in life or for people who may have a less keen sense of touch. It has also proved successful as a mode of literacy for children with additional physical and/or learning difficulties. Schools can borrow very simple children's books with added Moon type from the Clearvision Project in London.

Foreign languages

English Christian missionaries in Ningbo (Ningpo), China, during the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

used Moon type to teach blind locals how to read Ningbo. Missionaries who spoke the Ningbo dialect ran the "Home for Indigent Old People" where most of the inmates were blind. In 1874, an English missionary taught a young blind man to read romanised Ningbo written in Moon type. The

Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, Nativity of Jesus, birth, Ministry of Jesus, ministry, Crucifixion of Jesus, death, Resurrection of Jesus, resurrection, and Ascension of ...

was then transcribed into two large volumes of Moon type. A Swiss missionary placed notices on placards throughout Ningbo stating that he would give food and money to the blind people who visited. The

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels, synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from baptism of Jesus, his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the Burial of Jesus, ...

was transcribed into Moon type using romanized Mandarin, however, without the tone marks. Missionary

Hudson Taylor James Hudson Taylor (; 21 May 1832 – 3 June 1905) was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China and founder of the OMF International, China Inland Mission (CIM, now OMF International). Taylor spent 54 years in China. The society tha ...

, who had been involved with the transcription of the gospels, did not find tone marks necessary, as the romanised Ningbo vernacular has never used tone marks. However,

aspirated consonant In phonetics, aspiration is a strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with t ...

s were distinguished.

Characters

Letters

As with braille, there is a Grade 1 using one Moon character per one Latin character and a Grade 2 using contractions and

shorthand Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to Cursive, longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Gr ...

that make texts more compact and faster to read, though requiring more study.

Numbers

Similarly to Braille, the initial version of Moon type used the first ten letters with a "number start" symbol as digits. A later version used different symbols for each digit (''StaffsMaths''). These symbols are more complex to print.

Punctuation

The type also includes punctuation.

Dotty Moon

Besides the original type formed by lines, there is the possibility of using certain

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. ...

s to produce dot patterns (Dotty Moon or Dotted Moon) in the shape of Moon characters. The patterns are disposed as a 5x5 grid.

Direction

Initially the text changed direction (but not character orientation) at the end of the lines. Special embossed lines connected the end of a line and the beginning of the next.
Moon Type for the Blind
', Ramseyer Bible Collection, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth. However, around 1990, it changed to a

left-to-right A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

orientation.

Reception

The Royal National Institute for the Blind for wider universality prefers braille.Moon
at the RNIB site.

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

*

Moon
page at the RNIB.
Learning Moon
*
Preliminary proposal for encoding the Moon script in the SMP of the UCS
at Unicode.org