 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(April 2017) |
| Khmer Braille Cambodian Braille | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
Print basis | Khmer alphabet |
| Languages | Khmer |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Braille
|
Khmer Braille is the braille alphabet of the Khmer language of Cambodia. [1]
In printed Khmer, the alphabet is divided into consonant letters, consonant diacritics (conjuncts), and vowel diacritics. (That is, the Khmer alphabet is an abugida.) In braille Khmer, however, all of these are full letters. Out of deference to tradition, however, the braille alphabet is divided into sections according to the form in print.
The first three rows are the stand-alone consonants in print, and the last two the stand-alone vowels. These occur initially and after a/another vowel.
| Braille |  |  |  | |  |  |  | | |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ក kâ k | ខ khâ kh | គ kô k | ឃ khô kh | ង ngô ng | ច châ ch | ឆ chhâ chh | ជ chô ch | ឈ chhô chh | ញ nhô nh | |
| Braille |  |   | |  |  |  | | | | |
| ដ dâ d | ឋ thâ th | ឌ dô d | ឍ thô th | ណ nâ n | ត tâ t | ថ thâ th | ទ tô t | ធ thô th | ន nô n | |
| Braille |  |  |  | |  |  |  |  |  | |
| ប bâ b | ផ phâ ph | ព pô p | ភ phô ph | ម mô m | យ yô y | រ rô r | ល lô l | វ vô v | ||
| Braille |  |  | |  | ||||||
| ឝ shô sh | ឞ ssâ ss | ស sâ s | ហ hâ h | ឡ lâ l | អ 'â ' | |||||
| Braille |  |   |  |  |  |  | ||||
| ឥ ĕ | ឦ ei | ឧ ŏ, ŭ | ឨ – | ឩ u | ឪ ŏu | ឳ âu | ||||
| Braille |  | | | |  |  |  | |||
| ឫ rœ̆ | ឬ rœ | ឭ lœ̆ | ឮ lœ | ឯ ê | ឰ ai | ឱ/ឲ aô | ||||
As in print, the consonant letters fall into two classes which trigger different readings of associated vowels. When no vowel is written, an â or ô (depending on the consonant class) is understood. In print these two classes are simply different consonants. In braille, however, they are written the same, except that the ô class is marked by prefixing point-6. Thus ខkhâ is ⠅, while ឃkhô (an unrelated letter in print) is ⠠⠅. The exceptions are four ô-class consonants which do not have â-class partners, ⠻⠍⠗⠺ngô, mô, rô, vô.
Most of the stand-alone vowels are derived from the combining vowels (next section) by a prefix or suffix.
Shaded cells either have not been assigned braille codes, or are derived with combinations of diacritics not included in UNESCO (2013).
Conjuncts (combinations of full and subscript consonants) in print are indicated with a linking ⠧ in braille. Thus the print ខ្មkhm of "Khmer" is ⠅⠧⠍ in braille.
Vowels are diacritics in print, but in braille they are full letters and follow what is the host letter in print. Thus in print ខ្មែរkhmêr, the vowel ែê precedes the consonant cluster ខ្មkhm, but in braille the vowel ⠣ê follows the consonant cluster ⠅⠧⠍khm, thus: ⠅⠧⠍⠣⠗khmêr. The vowels are as follows. (In order to display properly on all browsers, the print diacritics are hosted on the letter អ, which is not repeated in braille. On that host, the vowels take the upper romanized value; on a class-ô consonant they would have the lower value.)
| Braille |  | | |  |  | |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Print (on អ) | អា a éa | អិ ĕ ĭ | អី ei i | អឹ œ̆ | អឺ œ | អុ ŏ ŭ | អូ o u | អួ uŏ |
| Braille |  |  |  | |  |  | | |
| អើ aeu eu | អឿ œă | អៀ iĕ | អេ é | អែ ê | អៃ ai ey | អោ aô oŭ | អៅ au ŏu | |
| Braille |  | |  | | |  |  | |
| អុំ om ŭm | អំ âm um | អាំ ăm ŏâm | អះ ăh eăh | អុះ ŏh uh | អេះ éh | អោះ aŏh uŏh |
A final h is added to several additional vowels tacking ⠁អះ on to one of the braille letters above: អិះ⠌⠁ĕh / ĭh, អឹះ⠪⠁œ̆h, អែះ⠣⠁êh.
Print Khmer has several other diacritics which are not listed in UNESCO (2013) for braille.
Cambodian Braille punctuation is modified from Western braille. The traditional full stop, ។, is braille ⠿.
 |  |  | |  |  |  ... |  ... |
| , | . | ។ | ? ; | : | ! | “ ... ” | ( ... ) |
The same character ⠆ is used for the semicolon and the question mark. The colon also differs from international norms.
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Khmer script is an abugida (alphasyllabary) script used to write the Khmer language, the official language of Cambodia. It is also used to write Pali in the Buddhist liturgy of Cambodia and Thailand.
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Bharati braille, or Bharatiya Braille, is a largely unified braille script for writing the languages of India. When India gained independence, eleven braille scripts were in use, in different parts of the country and for different languages. By 1951, a single national standard had been settled on, Bharati braille, which has since been adopted by Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh. There are slight differences in the orthographies for Nepali in India and Nepal, and for Tamil in India and Sri Lanka. There are significant differences in Bengali Braille between India and Bangladesh, with several letters differing. Pakistan has not adopted Bharati braille, so the Urdu Braille of Pakistan is an entirely different alphabet than the Urdu Braille of India, with their commonalities largely due to their common inheritance from English or International Braille. Sinhala Braille largely conforms to other Bharati, but differs significantly toward the end of the alphabet, and is covered in its own article.
The goal of braille uniformity is to unify the braille alphabets of the world as much as possible, so that literacy in one braille alphabet readily transfers to another. Unification was first achieved by a convention of the International Congress on Work for the Blind in 1878, where it was decided to replace the mutually incompatible national conventions of the time with the French values of the basic Latin alphabet, both for languages that use Latin-based alphabets and, through their Latin equivalents, for languages that use other scripts. However, the unification did not address letters beyond these 26, leaving French and German Braille partially incompatible and as braille spread to new languages with new needs, national conventions again became disparate. A second round of unification was undertaken under the auspices of UNESCO in 1951, setting the foundation for international braille usage today.
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Telugu Braille is one of the Bharati braille alphabets, and it largely conforms to the letter values of the other Bharati alphabets.
Gujarati Braille is one of the Bharati braille alphabets, and it largely conforms to the letter values of the other Bharati alphabets.
Odia Braille is one of the Bharati braille alphabets. Apart from using Hindi æ for Odia ẏ, it conforms to the letter values of the other Bharati alphabets.
Kannada Braille is one of the Bharati braille alphabets, and it largely conforms to the letter values of the other Bharati alphabets.
Malayalam Braille is one of the Bharati braille alphabets, and it largely conforms to the letter values of the other Bharati alphabets.
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