| Louis Braille was the son of a French
harness maker who was blinded at age three after he accidentally
poked his eye with an awl. At the time blind people the world over
were basically illiterate. There had been no serious attempts at
finding ways in which blind people could read or write. The only
reading material available had been made by fashioning small twigs
in the shape of print letters and affixing them to paper. The few
books available were large, expensive and very impractical
Louis Braille invented a reading and writing code
which has been in existence since 1825 and is now the world wide
standard for books, magazines, and other materials read by blind
persons.
The Braille cell which is the foundation of the
Braille code is based on 6 dots in the shape of the number 6 on a
dice. There are two vertical columns of three dots. The left hand
column has dots numbered from top to bottom as dots 1, 2, and 3. And
the dots of the right hand column are based on numbers 4, 5, and 6
respectively.
Unlike print letters, there are grades or levels of
Braille. Grade one consists of the alphabet and a few simple
contractions. Every Braille letter or symbol has corresponding
shapes of dots taken from the basic six dot Braille cell. For
example, dot one is the letter "a". Dots 1, 2, 3 compose the letter
"l". Dots 1, 3, 6 make up the letter "u". If dots 2,3,4 and 6 are
used it is a contracted word and stands for the entire word
"the".
Grade 2 Braille is composed of many contractions and
is the standard form of Braille used in materials read by blind
people. Examples of a few grade two contractions are: The letter "p"
(dots 1, 2, 3, 4) by itself with a space on either side of it is the
word "people". Dot 5 placed to the left of the contracted word for
"the" (dots 2, 3, 4, and 6) means the word "there".
Besides having contracted words Braille differs from
print in other ways as well. Unlike print letters which are shaped
differently depending on whether they are in upper or lower case,
Braille does not have this distinction. To indicate that a letter in
Braille is capitalized it is preceded by dot 6. To distinguish
numbers from letters in Braille numbers are preceded by the number
sign (dots 3, 4, 5, and 6. Thus the number one in Braille would be
written "number sign dot 1" because "a" is the first letter of the
alphabet. To write 5 you would write "number sign e" since "e" is
the 5th letter of the alphabet. "j" stands for zero and
using this method all numbers can be made from the first ten letters
of the alphabet.
In addition to these forms of Braille there is also
a completely different code of symbols made from the basic Braille
cell for Braille, mathematics, music and computer notation. There is
also a grade three form of Braille which is strictly used for note
taking and is similar to print shorthand.
Traditionally Braille has been produced in 2 ways.
It has either been written by hand using a slate and stylus to
physically punch out each dot or by the use of a Braille writer. A
Braille writer has six keys corresponding to the 6 dots of the
Braille cell. These keys can be pressed down simultaneously to
mechanically punch out the Braille letters.
Today, even though most blind people still use these
methods of writing to meet their individual needs technology has
greatly changed the way Braille is written. There are small note
taking devices such as the Braille ‘n Speak and sophisticated computer
software such as Duxbury which are in use to format and emboss
Braille. |