Braille is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who suffer from low vision, blindness, or deafblindness. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone devices. Braille can be written using a slate and stylus, a braille writer, an electronic braille notetaker or with the use of a computer connected to a braille embosser.
Bharati or Bharathi may refer to:
Hindustani has been written in several different scripts. Most Hindi texts are written in the Devanagari script, which is derived from the Brāhmī script of Ancient India. Most Urdu texts are written in the Urdu alphabet, which comes from the Persian alphabet. Hindustani has been written in both scripts. In recent years, the Latin script has been used in these languages for technological or internationalization reasons. Historically, Kaithi script has also been used.
Russian Braille is the braille alphabet of the Russian language. With suitable extensions, it is used for languages of neighboring countries that are written in Cyrillic in print, such as Ukrainian and Mongolian. It is based on the Latin transliteration of Cyrillic, with additional letters assigned idiosyncratically. In Russian, it is known as the Braille Script.
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.
Algerian Braille was a braille alphabet used to write the Arabic language in Algeria. It is apparently obsolete.
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.
Tamil Braille is the smallest of the Bharati braille alphabets.
Urdu Braille is the braille alphabet used for Urdu. There are two standard braille alphabets for Urdu, one in Pakistan and the other in India. The Pakistani alphabet is based on Persian Braille and is in use throughout the country, while the Indian alphabet is based on national Bharati Braille.
Telugu Braille is one of the Bharati braille alphabets, and it largely conforms to the letter values of the other Bharati alphabets.
Punjabi Braille is the braille alphabet used in India for Punjabi. It is one of the Bharati braille alphabets, and largely conforms to the letter values of the other Bharati alphabets.
Bengali Braille is used for the Bengali language. According to UNESCO (2013), there are slight different braille conventions for Bengali language in India, where the generic Bharati Braille is followed, and in Bangladesh. This article compares Bengali Braille in the two countries.
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 scripts.
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.
Sinhala Braille is one of the many Bharati braille alphabets. While it largely conforms to the letter values of other Bharati alphabets, it diverges in the values of the letters assigned toward the end of those alphabets.
Similar braille conventions are used for three languages of India and Nepal that in print are written in Devanagari script: Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali. These are part of a family of related braille alphabets known as Bharati Braille. There are apparently some differences between the Nepali braille alphabet of India and that of Nepal.
The braille alphabet used for the Kyrgyz language is based on Russian Braille, with a few additional letters found in the print Kyrgyz alphabet.
Faroese Braille is the braille alphabet of the Faroese language. It has the same basic letter assignments as the Scandinavian Braille and is quite similar to the Icelandic Braille.
