You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(April 2022) |
French Braille | |
---|---|
Script type | (non-linear) |
Creator | Louis Braille |
Time period | 1837 |
Print basis | French alphabet |
Languages | French |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | night writing
|
Child systems | English Braille German Braille Arabic Braille etc., etc. |
Unicode | |
U+2800 to U+283F |
French Braille is the original braille alphabet, and the basis of almost all others. The alphabetic order of French has become the basis of the international braille convention, used by most braille alphabets around the world. However, only the 25 basic letters of the French alphabet plus w have become internationalized; the additional letters are largely restricted to French Braille and the alphabets of some neighboring European countries.
In numerical order by decade, the letters are:
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 | x | y | z | ç | é | à | è | ù |
â, 1 | ê, 2 | î, 3 | ô, 4 | û, 5 | ë, 6 | ï, 7 | ü, 8 | œ, ö, 9 | w |
For the purposes of accommodating a foreign alphabet, the letters ì, ä, ò may be added:
ì | æ, ä | ò |
There are also numerous contractions and abbreviations in French braille.
Punctuation is as follows:
, | ; | : ÷ | . / | ? subscript | ! + | " = | ( | × | ) |
’ . [lower-alpha 1] | – − | / | @ [lower-alpha 2] | * [lower-alpha 3] |
The lower values are readings within numbers (after the Antoine number marker: see below).
Formatting and mode-changing marks are:
Capitals | Emphasis | (start) | (end) | Super- script | Symbol | Currency | Traditional number | Antoine number |
As in English Braille, the capital sign is doubled for all caps.
⟨⠢⟩ and ⟨⠔⟩ are used to begin and end emphasis within a word.
The symbol marker combines with a following initial letter to produce the following:
The currency marker combines with a following initial for:
It is also used in comic strips:
The traditional system of digits is to add the number sign ⠼ in front of the letters of the first decade (a–j), with ⠼⠁ being ⟨1⟩ and ⠼⠚ being ⟨0⟩. This is the internationally recognized number system. However, in French Braille a new system, the Antoine braille digits, is used for mathematics and is recommended for all academic publications. This uses ⠠ combined with the first nine letters of the fourth decade, from ⠠⠡ for ⟨1⟩ to ⠠⠪ for ⟨9⟩, with the preceding ⠠⠼ for ⟨0⟩. The period/decimal and fraction bar also change. The Antoine numbers are being promoted in France and Luxembourg, but are not much used with French Braille in Quebec.
See the punctuation section above for Antoine mathematical notation.
Readings have changed slightly since modern braille was first published in 1837. The greatest change has been various secondary readings which were added to the alphabet and then abandoned.
In general, only the assignments of the basic 26 letters of the French alphabet are retained in other braille alphabets. For example, among the additional letters, in German Braille only ü and ö coincide with French Braille. However, there are several alphabets which are much more closely related. Italian Braille is identical to the French apart from doubling up French Braille ò to Italian ó and ò, since French has no ó. Indeed, a principal difference of these alphabets is the remapping of French vowels with a grave accent (à è ì ò ù) to an acute accent (á é í ó ú), as the French alphabet does not support acute accents apart from é. Spanish changes all five of these vowels, as well as taking ü. Portuguese Braille is also very similar to the French, though the shift of grave to acute accents necessitated a chain of other changes, such as circumflex to grave, and the Portuguese tildes were taken from French diaereses (Portuguese ã õ for French ä ö/œ). The continental Scandinavian languages took the extended French letters â (for å), ä/æ, and ö/ø. Vietnamese Braille is also quite similar, though it has added tone letters, and uses French ⠵z for d, which is pronounced like z.
Braille: | ||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
French | ç | é | à | è | ù | â | ê | î | ô | û | ë | ï | ü | œ/ö | w | ì | æ/ä | ò |
Portuguese | ç | é | à | è | ù | â | ê | í | ô | ú | á | ï | ü | õ | ò/w | ì | ã | ó |
Catalan | ç | é | à | è | ú | – | – | – | – | – | – | ï | ü | ó | w | í | – | ò |
Spanish/Galician | – | – | á | é | ú | – | – | – | – | – | – | ñ | ü | – | w | í | – | ó |
Italian | – | é | à | è | ù | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ó | w | ì | – | ò |
Luxembourgish (old) | – | é | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ë | – | – | – | w | – | ä | – |
Scandinavian [lower-alpha 4] | – | – | – | – | – | å | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ö/ø | w | – | ä/æ | – |
Vietnamese | – | – | [lower-alpha 5] | – | [lower-alpha 5] | â | ê | – | ô | – | – | – | ư | ơ | – | [lower-alpha 5] | ă | [lower-alpha 5] |
Braille Patterns | ⠯ | ⠿ | ⠷ | ⠮ | ⠾ | ⠡ | ⠣ | ⠩ | ⠹ | ⠱ | ⠫ | ⠻ | ⠳ | ⠪ | ⠺ | ⠌ | ⠜ | ⠬ |
Catalan Braille adds ⠇⠐⠇ for print ⟨ l·l ⟩, and Spanish Braille uses ⠻ (French ï) for the non-French consonant ñ. Luxembourgish Braille has since switch to eight-point braille, adding a dot at point 8 for the three vowels with accents.
Punctuation and formatting are in general similar as well, though changes in French punctuation over time means that some languages use older French conventions. For example, French parentheses and quotation marks originally had the opposite values they do today, values which remain in English Braille. Other changes have accrued over time, and in some cases vary from country to country. For example, Italian Braille uses the old French quotation marks ⠦⠀⠴ and asterisk ⠔, but also shifted the old French parentheses ⠶⠀⠶ to brackets and innovated ⠢⠀⠔ for parentheses; in addition, it uses point 3, ⠄, for both apostrophe and full stop / period.
Moon type is a simplification of the Latin alphabet for embossing. An adaptation of French-reading blind people has been proposed.
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek διακριτικός, from διακρίνω. The word diacritic is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritics, such as the acute ⟨ó⟩, grave ⟨ò⟩, and circumflex ⟨ô⟩, are often called accents. Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.
The acute accent, ◌́, is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed characters are available.
The Danish and Norwegian alphabet is the set of symbols, forming a variant of the Latin alphabet, used for writing the Danish and Norwegian languages. It has consisted of the following 29 letters since 1917 (Norwegian) and 1948 (Danish):
AZERTY is a specific layout for the characters of the Latin alphabet on typewriter keys and computer keyboards. The layout takes its name from the first six letters to appear on the first row of alphabetical keys; that is,. Similar to the QWERTZ layout, it is modelled on the English QWERTY layout. It is used in France and Belgium, although each of these countries has its own national variation on the layout. Luxembourg and Switzerland use the Swiss QWERTZ keyboard. Most residents of Quebec, the mainly French-speaking province of Canada, use a QWERTY keyboard that has been adapted to the French language such as the Multilingual Standard keyboard CAN/CSA Z243.200-92 which is stipulated by the government of Quebec and the Government of Canada.
The grave accent is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan and many other western European languages as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages using the Latin alphabet, such as Mohawk and Yoruba, and with non-Latin writing systems such as the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets and the Bopomofo or Zhuyin Fuhao semi-syllabary. It has no single meaning, but can indicate pitch, stress, or other features.
The Zaghawa or Beria alphabet, Beria Giray Erfe, is an indigenous alphabetic script proposed for the Zaghawa language of Darfur and Chad.
Greek Braille is the braille alphabet of the Greek language. It is based on international braille conventions, generally corresponding to Latin transliteration. In Greek, it is known as Κώδικας Μπράιγ Kódikas Bráig "Braille Code".
The Esperanto language has a dedicated braille alphabet. One Esperanto braille magazine, Esperanta Ligilo, has been published since 1904, and another, Aŭroro, since 1920.
The braille alphabet used to write Hungarian is based on the international norm for the 27 basic letters of the Latin script. However, the letters for q and z have been replaced, to increase the symmetry of the accented letters of the Hungarian alphabet, which are largely innovative to Hungarian braille.
Luxembourgish Braille is the braille alphabet of the Luxembourgish language. It is very close to French Braille, but uses eight-dot cells, with the extra pair of dots at the bottom of each cell to indicate capitalization and accent marks. It is the only eight-dot alphabet listed in UNESCO (2013). Children start off with the older six-dot script, then switch to eight-dot cells when they start primary school and learn the numbers.
Italian Braille is the braille alphabet of the Italian language, both in Italy and in Switzerland. It is very close to French Braille, with some differences in punctuation.
Scandinavian Braille is a braille alphabet used, with differences in orthography and punctuation, for the languages of the mainland Nordic countries: Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish. In a generally reduced form it is used for Greenlandic.
EPortuguese Braille is the braille alphabet of the Portuguese language, both in Portugal and in Brazil. It is very close to French Braille, with slight modification of the accented letters and some differences in punctuation.
Turkish Braille is the braille alphabet of the Turkish language.
Irish Braille is the braille alphabet of the Irish language. It is augmented by specifically Irish letters for vowels with acute accents in print:
IPA Braille is the modern standard Braille encoding of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as recognized by the International Council on English Braille.
Spanish Braille is the braille alphabet of Spanish and Galician. It is very close to French Braille, with the addition of a letter for ñ, slight modification of the accented letters and some differences in punctuation. Further conventions have been unified by the Latin American Blind Union, but differences with Spain remain.
Catalan Braille is the braille alphabet of the Catalan language.
Navajo Braille is the braille alphabet of the Navajo language. It uses a subset of the letters of Unified English Braille, along with the punctuation and formatting of that standard. There are no contractions.