Braille

:This article is about the writing system. There is also an asteroid 9969 Braille

The Braille alphabet

Braille generally consists of cells of 6 raised dots arranged in a grid of two dots horizontally by three dots vertically. The dots are conventionally numbered 1, 2, 3 from the top of the leftward column and 4, 5, 6 from the top of the rightward column.

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The presence or absence of dots gives the coding for the symbol.

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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 inches and typically has a maximum of 40 to 42 braille cells per line and 25 lines.

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As originally conceived by Louis Braille, a sequence of characters, using the top 4 dots of the braille cell, represents letters "a" through "j". Dot 3 is added to each of the "a" through "j" symbols to give letters "k" through "t". 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". 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".

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English braille codes the letters and punctuation, and some double letter signs and word signs directly, but capitalisation and numbers are dealt with by using a prefix symbol. In practice, Braille produced in the United Kingdom does not have capital letters.

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There are braille codes for representing shorthand (produced on a machine which embosses a paper tape) and for representing mathematics (Nemeth Braille) and musical notation (Braille music).

Related Topics:
Shorthand - Mathematics - Nemeth Braille - Musical notation - Braille music

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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. All 256 possible combinations of 8 dots are encoded by the Unicode standard.

Related Topics:
ASCII - Unicode

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Braille may be produced using a "slate" and a "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. It may also be rendered using a refreshable Braille display.

Related Topics:
Perkins Brailler - Braille Embosser - Refreshable Braille display

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Letters and numbers

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Image:Braille A1.svg|A, 1

Related Topics:
A - 1

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Image:Braille B2.svg|B, 2

Related Topics:
B - 2

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Image:Braille C3.svg|C, 3

Related Topics:
C - 3

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Image:Braille D4.svg|D, 4

Related Topics:
D - 4

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Image:Braille E5.svg|E, 5

Related Topics:
E - 5

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Image:Braille F6.svg|F, 6

Related Topics:
F - 6

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Image:Braille G7.svg|G, 7

Related Topics:
G - 7

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Image:Braille H8.svg|H, 8

Related Topics:
H - 8

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Image:Braille I9.svg|I, 9

Related Topics:
I - 9

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Image:Braille J0.svg|J, 0

Related Topics:
J - 0

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Image:Braille K.svg|K

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Image:Braille L.svg|L

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Image:Braille M.svg|M

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Image:Braille N.svg|N

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Image:Braille O.svg|O

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Image:Braille P.svg|P

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Image:Braille Q.svg|Q

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Image:Braille R.svg|R

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Image:Braille S.svg|S

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Image:Braille T.svg|T

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Image:Braille U.svg|U

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Image:Braille V.svg|V

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Image:Braille W.svg|W

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Image:Braille X.svg|X

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Image:Braille Y.svg|Y

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Image:Braille Z.svg|Z

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Other symbols

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Image:Braille CapitalSign.svg|Capital letter follows

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Image:Braille NumberSign.svg|Number follows

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Image:Braille Period.svg|Full stop/period

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Image:Braille Comma.svg|Comma

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Image:Braille QuestionMark.svg|Question mark

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Image:Braille Semicolon.svg|Semicolon

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Image:Braille ExclamationPoint.svg|Exclamation point

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Image:Braille QuoteOpen.svg|Opening quotation mark

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Image:Braille QuoteClose.svg|Closing quotation mark

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Image:Braille Bracket.svg|Bracket

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Image:Braille Hyphen.svg|Hyphen

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Unicode rendering table