Braille code where the word ⠏⠗⠑⠍⠊⠑⠗ (premier, French for "first") can be read. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people

The braille system, devised in 1821 by Frenchman Louis Braille, is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Year 1821 ( MDCCCXXI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common year Louis Braille ( in English in French January 4, 1809 &ndash January 6, 1852) was the inventor of Braille, a world-wide system Blindness is the condition of lacking Visual perception due to Physiological or Neurological factors Each braille character or cell is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each. In Geometry, a rectangle is defined as a Quadrilateral where all four of its angles are Right angles A rectangle with vertices ABCD would be denoted as A dot may be raised at any of the six positions to form sixty-four (2⁶) permutations, including the arrangement in which no dots are raised. For reference purposes, a particular permutation may be described by naming the positions where dots are raised, the positions being universally numbered 1 to 3, from top to bottom, on the left, and 4 to 6, from top to bottom, on the right. For example, dots 1-3-4 would describe a cell with three dots raised, at the top and bottom in the left column and on top of the right column, i. e. , 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. Punctuation is represented by its own unique set of characters.

The braille system was based on a method of communication originally developed by Charles Barbier in response to Napoleon's demand for a code that soldiers could use to communicate silently and without light at night called night writing. Charles Barbier de la Sierra was the creator of Night writing. Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe. In Communications a code is a rule for converting a piece of Information (for example a letter, Word, Phrase, or Night writing was a system of code that used symbols of twelve dots arranged as two columns of six dots embossed on a square of Cardboard. Barbier's system was too complex for soldiers to learn, and was rejected by the military; in 1821 he visited the National Institute for the Blind in Paris, France, where he met Louis Braille. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Braille identified the major failing of the code, which was that the human finger could not encompass the whole symbol without moving, and so could not move rapidly from one symbol to another. His modification was to use a 6 dot cell — the braille system — which revolutionized written communication for the blind.

The Braille alphabet

Braille can be seen as the world's first binary encoding scheme for representing the characters of a writing system. The binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, is a Numeral system that represents numeric values using two symbols usually 0 and 1. A character encoding consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given character set (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Code page In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language. A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The system as originally invented by Braille consists of two parts:

1. A character encoding for mapping characters of the French language to tuples of six bits or dots. A character encoding consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given character set (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Code page French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people In Mathematics, a tuple is a Sequence (also known as an "ordered list" of values called the components of the tuple A bit is a binary digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1 Binary digits are a basic unit of Information storage and communication
2. A way of representing six-bit characters as raised dots in a Braille cell.

Today different braille codes (or code pages) are used to map character sets of different languages to the six bit cells. A Braille code is a code similar to a Code page, that maps the characters of a Writing system to the six or in some cases eight raised Code page is the traditional IBM term used to map a specific set of characters to numerical Code point values. Different braille codes are also used for different uses like mathematics and music. However, because the six-dot Braille cell only offers 64 possible combinations, of which some are omitted because they feel the same (having the same dots pattern in a different position), many Braille characters have different meanings based on their context. Therefore, character mapping is not one-to-one.

In addition to simple encoding, modern braille transcription uses contractions to increase reading speed. In Traditional grammar, a contraction is the formation of a new Word from one or more individual words (See: Grade 2 Braille)

The Braille cell

Braille cell

Braille generally consists of cells of six raised dots arranged in a grid of two dots horizontally by three dots vertically. The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write The dots are conventionally numbered 1, 2, and 3 from the top of the left column and 4, 5, and 6 from the top of the right column.

The presence or absence of dots gives the coding for the symbol. Dot height is approximately 0. 02 inches (0. 5 mm); the horizontal and vertical spacing between dot centers within a braille cell is approximately 0. 1 inches (2. 5 mm); the blank space between dots on adjacent cells is approximately 0. 15 inches (3. 75 mm) horizontally and 0. 2 inches (5. 0 mm) vertically. A standard braille page is 11 inches by 11. 5 inches and typically has a maximum of 40 to 43 braille cells per line and 25 lines.

Encoding

As originally conceived by Louis Braille, a sequence of characters, using the top four dots of the braille cell, represents letters a through j. Louis Braille ( in English in French January 4, 1809 &ndash January 6, 1852) was the inventor of Braille, a world-wide system The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is a (eɪ plural J is the tenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet; it was the last of the 26 letters to be added Dot 3 is added to each of the a through j symbols to give letters k through t. The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is a (eɪ plural J is the tenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet; it was the last of the 26 letters to be added K is the eleventh letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled kay (keɪ T is the twentieth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled tee or occasionally te (tiː Both of the bottom dots (dots 3 and 6) are added to the symbols for "a" through e to give letters u, v, x, y, and z. E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled e (iː plural es or ees (also written E's E U is the twenty-first letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled u (juː V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled vee or occasionally ve (viː X is the twenty-fourth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ex or occasionally ecks (ɛks plural exes The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the modern Latin alphabet. The letter w is an exception to the pattern because French did not make use of the letter "w" at the time Louis Braille devised his alphabet, and thus he had no need to encode the letter "w". W is the twenty-third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled double-u (ˈdʌbljuː French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people

English braille codes the letters and punctuation, and some double letter signs and word signs directly, but capitalization and numbers are dealt with by using a prefix symbol. Unified English Braille Code (UEBC now usually just UEB is an English Braille code developed to permit representing the wide variety of literary and technical An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word In practice, braille produced in the United Kingdom does not have capital letters.

There are braille code for representing shorthand (produced on a machine which embosses a paper tape) and for representing mathematics (Method Braille) and musical notation (braille music). Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and See also Modern musical symbols Music notation or musical notation is any system which represents aurally perceived Music through the use Braille music is a Braille code that allows music to be notated using Braille cells so that music can be read by visually impaired musicians

Writing braille

Braille may be produced using a slate and stylus in which each dot is created from the back of the page, writing in mirror image, by hand, or it may be produced on a braille typewriter or Perkins Brailler, or produced by a braille embosser attached to a computer. The slate and stylus are tools used by blind persons to write text that they can read without assistance The Perkins Brailler is a simple machine used to write Braille. A Braille embosser is a printer, necessarily an Impact printer, that renders text as Braille. It may also be rendered using a refreshable braille display. A refreshable Braille display or Braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying Braille characters usually by means of raising dots through holes

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). 8-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 characters can be represented in a single cell. American Standard Code for Information Interchange ( ASCII) All 256 (2⁸) possible combinations of 8 dots are encoded by the Unicode standard. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's Braille with six dots is frequently stored as braille ASCII. Braille ASCII (or more formally The North American Braille ASCII Code) is a subset of the ASCII Character set which uses 64 of the Printable

The first 10 letters of the alphabet and the numbers 1 thru 0 are formed using only the top four dots (1, 2, 4, and 5). Adding dot 3 forms the next 10 letters, and adding dot 6 forms the last five letters (except w) and the words and, for, of, the, and with. Omitting dot 3 from the letters U-Z and the five word symbols forms nine digraphs (ch, gh, sh, th, wh, ed, er, ou, and ow) and the letter w.

Letters and numbers

A, 1	B, 2	C, 3	D, 4
E, 5	F, 6	G, 7	H, 8
I, 9	J, 0	K	L
M	N	O	P
Q	R	S	T
U	V	W	X
Y	Z

Other symbols

Capital letter follows	Number follows	Apostrophe	Full stop (Period)
Comma	Semicolon	Exclamation point	Opening quotation mark
Closing quotation mark	Bracket (Parentheses)	Hyphen

The question mark is represented by dots 2-3-6—the same as the opening quotation mark. The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is a (eɪ plural Mathematics For any number x: x ·1 = 1· x = x (1 is the multiplicative identity B is the second letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled bee or occasionally be (biː plural bees. In mathematics Two has many properties in Mathematics. An Integer is called Even if it is divisible by 2 C is the third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled cee or occasionally ce (siː ---- In mathematics Three is the first odd Prime number, and the second smallest prime D is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled dee or occasionally de (diː In mathematics Four is the smallest Composite number, its proper Divisors being and. E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled e (iː plural es or ees (also written E's E This article discusses the number five. For the year 5 AD see 5. F is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ef or eff (ɛf In mathematics Six is the second smallest Composite number, its proper Divisors being 1, 2 and 3. G is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled gee or occasionally ge (dʒiː In mathematics Seven is the fourth Prime number. It is not only a Mersenne prime (since 23 &minus 1 = 7 but also a In mathematics 8 is a Composite number, its Proper divisors being 1, 2, and 4. I is the ninth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English name is i (aɪ In mathematics Nine is a Composite number, its proper Divisors being 1 and 3. J is the tenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet; it was the last of the 26 letters to be added K is the eleventh letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled kay (keɪ L is the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is el or occasionally ell (ɛl M is the thirteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled em (ɛm N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled en (ɛn O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin Alphabet. Its name in English is spelled o (oʊ plural usually o's or os; sometimes P is the sixteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled pee or occasionally pe (piː Q is the seventeenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled cue (kjuː R is the eighteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ar (ɑr pronounced or) S is the nineteenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ess or occasionally es (ɛs generally es- T is the twentieth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled tee or occasionally te (tiː U is the twenty-first letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled u (juː V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled vee or occasionally ve (viː W is the twenty-third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled double-u (ˈdʌbljuː X is the twenty-fourth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ex or occasionally ecks (ɛks plural exes The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the modern Latin alphabet. A full stop or period (sometimes stop, full point, decimal point, or dot) is the Punctuation mark commonly placed at the A semicolon (   ) is a conventional Punctuation mark with several usages Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes and speech marks) are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes and speech marks) are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech Brackets are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set apart or interject text within other text A hyphen ( -) is a Punctuation mark It is used for both Words to join and to separate Syllables It is often confused with the dashes The question mark (? also known as an interrogation point, question point, query, or eroteme, is a punctuation mark that replaces Therefore the placement of the dots—before a word or after a word—will determine which symbol it is.

Opening and closing parentheses are shown with the same symbol. Therefore, the placement context will determine whether the parentheses is opening or closing.

Grade 2 Braille Contractions

The word AND	The letters CH	The letters SH	The letters ST
The letters TH

This is just a small sample of some of the contractions that are used in Grade 2 Braille. In Traditional grammar, a contraction is the formation of a new Word from one or more individual words More information about Grade 2 Braille is below in the section on Braille transcription.

Braille also includes a number of whole word contractions, for example the word Braille becomes a three cell word brl.

Unicode rendering table

The Unicode standard encodes 8-dot Braille glyphs according to their binary appearance, rather than following the alphabetic order of any particular convention. Unicode defines the "Braille Patterns" character block in the hex codepoint range from 2800 to 28FF.

Braille transcription

Braille Writer

Braille on a box of tablets

Although it is possible to transcribe braille by simply substituting the equivalent braille character for its printed equivalent, such a character-by-character transcription (known as Grade 1 Braille) is used only by beginners.

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, virtually all braille books are transcribed in what is known as Grade 2 Braille, which uses a system of contractions to reduce space and speed the process of reading. In Traditional grammar, a contraction is the formation of a new Word from one or more individual words As with most human linguistic activities, Grade 2 Braille embodies a complex system of customs, styles, and practices. The Library of Congress's Instruction Manual for Braille Transcribing runs to nearly 200 pages. Braille transcription is skilled work, and braille transcribers need to pass certification tests.

In English, the system of Grade 2 Braille contractions begins with a set of 23 words which are contracted to single characters. In Traditional grammar, a contraction is the formation of a new Word from one or more individual words 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" although the character is written in braille with no space following it. At the end of a word, the same character represents an exclamation point.

The contraction rules take into account the linguistic structure of the word; thus, contractions are 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. In Traditional grammar, a contraction is the formation of a new Word from one or more individual words And 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 system that includes many additional contractions, almost a shorthand; it is not used for publication, but is used mostly for individuals for their personal convenience. In Traditional grammar, a contraction is the formation of a new Word from one or more individual words

The current series of Canadian banknotes have raised dots on the banknotes that indicate the denomination and can be easily identified by visually impaired people; this 'tactile feature' does not use standard braille but, instead, a system developed in consultation with blind and visually impaired Canadians after research indicated that not all potential users read braille. The Canadian currency tactile feature is a feature on current Canadian banknotes.

Mexican bank notes also have special raised symbols to make them identifiable by the visually impaired. The peso ( sign: $; code: MXN) is the currency of Mexico. The symbol used for the peso is " $ " basically

Though braille is thought to be the main way blind people read and write, in Britain (for example) out of the reported two-million visually impaired population, it is estimated that only around 15-20 thousand people use Braille. Younger people are turning to electronic text on computers instead; a more portable communication method that they can also use with their friends. A debate has started on how to make braille more attractive and for more teachers to be available to teach it.

In India there are instances where the parliament acts have been published in Braille too. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country For example 'The Right to Information Act'

Braille for other scripts

See main articles: Hebrew braille, Japanese braille, Korean braille, Vietnamese braille, Tibetan braille, and Chinese braille. Hebrew Braille is the system of Braille used by Hebrew speakers and specifically in the State of Israel. Japanese braille is a Braille code for writing the Japanese language. Korean braille ( Korean: 한글 점자 or 한글 點字 hangeul jeomja) is a Braille code used for writing the Korean language. Vietnamese Braille (Màn hình chữ nổi is a Braille system for the Vietnamese language. Sabriye Tenberken (born 1970 is a German socialworker and co-founder of the organisation Braille Without Borders. Chinese braille ( literally "Current Braille" is a Braille system for the Chinese language, especially in People's Republic of China.

The information about the historic site of Safdarjung’s tomb in Delhi, India. For the districts in Delhi see Safdarjung (Delhi. Wazir ul-Mamalik-i-Hindustan Asaf Jah Jamat ul-Mulk Shuja ud-Daula Nawab Abu'l Mansur Delhi (दिल्ली ਦਿੱਲੀ دلی d̪ɪlːiː sometimes referred to as Dilli) is the second largest metropolis of India, with a population India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country The braille plate is installed near the English version of the same.

The English version of the braille plate.

There are many extensions of Braille for additional letters with diacritics, such as ç, ô, é. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation

When braille is adapted to languages which do not use the Latin alphabet, the blocks are generally assigned to the new alphabet according to how it is transliterated into the Latin alphabet, and the alphabetic order of the national script (and therefore the natural order of Latin braille) is disregarded. Such is the case with Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chinese. In Greek, for example, gamma is written as Latin g, despite the fact that it has the alphabetic position of c; Hebrew bet, the second letter of the alphabet and cognate with the Latin letter b, is sometimes pronounced /b/ and sometimes /v/, and is written b or v accordingly; Russian ts is written as c, which is the usual letter for /ts/ in those Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet; and Arabic f is written as f, despite being historically p, and occurring in that part of the Arabic alphabet (between historic o and q). Cognates in Linguistics are words that have a common origin They may occur within a language such as shirt and skirt as two English words descended from Esperanto letters with circumflexes, ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ and ŝ, are written as those letters without circumflexes with a filled sixth dot. is by far the most widely spoken constructed International auxiliary language in the world Therefore the letter ĵ has the same representation as the English w and to write a w in Esperanto, the dot 3 is filled (dots 2-3-4-5-6 are used for w instead of dots 2-4-5-6) The ŭ, used in Esperanto also, is as the u but the first dot is moved to the fourth place.

Greater differences occur in Chinese braille. In the case of Mandarin Braille, which is based on Zhuyin rather than the Latin Pinyin alphabet, the traditional Latin braille values are used for initial consonants and the simple vowels. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use However, on Latin braille for many of the initial consonants and simple vowels (based on romanizations of a century ago), but the blocks pull double duty, with different values depending on whether they're placed in syllable-initial or syllable-final position. For instance, the block for Latin k represents old-style Cantonese k (g in Yale and other modern romanizations) when initial, but aak when final, while Latin j represents Cantonese initial j but final oei. The Yale romanizations are four systems created during World War II for use by United States military personnel.

However, at least three adaptations of Braille have completely reassigned the Latin sound values of the blocks. These are, Japanese braille, Korean braille, and Tibetan braille.

In Japanese Braille, alphabetic signs for a consonant and vowel are combined into a single syllabic block; in Korean Braille, the consonants have different syllable-initial and syllable-final forms. These modifications made Braille much more compatible with Japanese kana and Korean hangul, but meant that the Latin sound values could not be maintained. Kana is a general term for the syllabic Japanese scripts Hiragana (ひらがな and Katakana (カタカナ as well as the old system

See also

• Refreshable Braille display
• Moon type
• Unified English Braille Code
• List of binary codes
• Braille ASCII
• Hebrew Braille

Organizations

• Braille Authority of North America
• Braille - American Foundation for the Blind
• Royal National Institute For The Blind
• Perkins School for the Blind
• National Braille Press - offers a free Braille alphabet card
• Alternate Text Production Center
• National Braille Association, Inc.

Libraries

• The National Library for the Blind
• Libraries Australia - catalog of braille in 800+ Australian libraries

Learning

• Learn Braille on the Internet For Free
• Braille Bug - an educational site for kids, from the American Foundation for the Blind
• BRL: Braille Through Remote Learning
• On-line Braille Course of University of São Paulo
• Online Braille Generator
• A braille alphabet card

History

• How Braille Began -- a detailed history of braille's origins and the people who supported and opposed the system. A refreshable Braille display or Braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying Braille characters usually by means of raising dots through holes The Moon System of Embossed Reading (commonly known as the Moon writing, Moon alphabet, Moon type or Moon code) is a Writing system Unified English Braille Code (UEBC now usually just UEB is an English Braille code developed to permit representing the wide variety of literary and technical Binary codes are codes made up of only zeros and ones These are useful in computers and telecommunications because binary coding simplifies electrical and electronic systems Braille ASCII (or more formally The North American Braille ASCII Code) is a subset of the ASCII Character set which uses 64 of the Printable Hebrew Braille is the system of Braille used by Hebrew speakers and specifically in the State of Israel.
• Robert B. Irwin's As I Saw It, 1955, gives a history of the "War of the Dots" that ultimately led to the adoption of the English form of the braille literary code in the United States and the demise of American braille and New York Point, its main competitors. New York Point is a system of writing for the blind invented by William Bell Wait (1839-1916 a teacher in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind

Documents

• English Braille: American Edition
• Library of Congress Instructional Manual for Braille Transcribing
• Details on Braille cell representation
• Unified (English) Braille Code (including information specific to British braille)
• Braille code for Russian and transliteration of Cyrillic

Legal

• India-Right to Information Act in Braille
• US copyright exemption for Braille

Language Specific Resources

• - Braille WithoutBorders - Braille for Tibetans

Computer Resources

• Braille for various scripts
• Free Braille fonts
• Free Unicode Braille TTF font (supports all Braille scripts)
• Free Unicode fonts which include braille