Sinhalese Braille

Sinhalese Braille; Sinhala Braille
Type	Alphabet
Languages	Sinhala
Parent systems	Braille English Braille Bharati Braille Sinhalese Braille; ; ;
Print basis	Sinhalese script

Last updated February 22, 2019

Sinhalese 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.^[1]

Introduction

Sinhala braille just as any other braille code is used in education and a vast range of literature whether it be for information, pleasure or commercial purposes.

The blind community of Sri Lanka is alienating gradually from the use of braille due to a number of reasons. A recent survey reveals that only 15% of blind people use braille. Today, braille usage is limited to examination purposes in educational institutions. It is worth inquiring as to what could be the possible reasons leading to this alienation from braille.

However, the key factor is issues related to the Sinhala braille code. Current Sinhala braille code has its own shortcomings, the main drawback being the lack of an efficient set of standard contractions. It is important that contractions are created for Sinhala braille as braille books are large, bulky and often come in multiple volumes and, in general, lack the convenience of portability that we find in a sighted print paperback book. Users who have been exposed to grade 2 English braille realise the importance of establishing a set of standard contractions for Sinhala Braille as well. Care must be taken to create contractions which are appropriate for the present day learners of braille and not complicated and difficult to use.

History

Education for the blind started in 1912 when Mary F. Chapman, a missionary lady founded a special school for the deaf and blind at Ratmalana. The use of Sinhala braille too runs as far as the beginning of the 20th century. At the beginning, English characters were used to represent Sinhala letters. The Sinhala alphabet comprises 60 letters whereas English has only 26. Moreover, Sinhala has a syllable based alphabet and two English characters had to be used to represent one Sinhala consonant, thus distorting the semblance to sighted print. Therefore, this method was not practical although many users continued to use it as there was no alternative at the time.

In 1947, the first non-foreign principal of the school for the blind at Ratmalana, Kingsley C. Dassanaike, introduced a more practical code which was influenced by the principles and practices of the English braille code. Since then, Sinhala braille has played a significant role in education and communication. Nevertheless, a grade 2 or braille contraction code had not yet been adapted for Sinhala braille, causing lot of inconvenience in using and storing braille material.^[2]

Kingsley Clarence Dassanaike, the first non-foreign Principal of the Ceylon School for the Deaf & Blind in Ratmalana, Sri Lanka was the inventor of the Sinhalese Braille system, and served as the Chairman of the Extension Scout Committee for handicapped Scouts of the World Organization of the Scout Movement as well as National Headquarters Commissioner, District Commissioner for Colombo of the Sri Lanka Scout Association from 1958 to 1963 and acting District Commissioner of Moratuwa–Piliyandala in the 1960s.

Several attempts were made in 1959, 1968 and 1997 to introduce Sinhala braille contractions. But, none of these attempts can be observed today.

The contractions introduced in 1959, were mere shortening of long words. Sufficient consideration was not given to the structure of the Sinhala language. Although, the structure of the language was taken into consideration in contractions introduced in 1968, users were reluctant to accept it as there were mainly morphological issues. A large amount of words were contracted in 1997, but it too received the same fate because, some of the contractions were illogical.

In addition to these attempts, most braille users use their own personal methods of contractions. But, these personal ways of contractions has been confined only to them and have not being standardised. To remedy this, a standard braille contraction system should be adapted for Sinhala braille soon. This will certainly result in increasing the productivity of the blind and thus it will make Sinhala braille more popular.

Alphabet

Although Sinhalese Braille was adopted from Bharati Braille, several letters toward the end of the Bharati alphabet (in the row of 'extra' letters) have been reassigned in Sinhalese: ⠟ (Bharati kṣ) is used for Sinhalese ඥ gn (Sanskrit jñ), ⠱ (Bharati jñ) for Sinhalese ඵ ph, ⠷ (Bharati ḻ) for Sinhalese ඇ æ, ⠻ (Bharati ṟ) for Sinhalese ඈ ǣ, and ⠵ (Bharati z) for Sinhalese ණ ṇ.

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. Sinhalese Braille largely conforms to other Bharati, but differs significantly toward the end of the alphabet, and is covered in its own article.

In addition, the pairs of letters e/ē and ś/ṣ have interchanged braille values from what one would expect from other Bharati alphabets, and the syllable codas (last row below) are mostly innovative. Punctuation and the digits, however, are as in the rest of Bharati braille. Also as in other Bharati alphabets, letters rather than diacritics are used for vowels, and they occur after consonants in their spoken order.

ISO	a	ā	æ	ǣ	i	ī	u	ū	e	ē	ai	o	ō	au
Print	අ	ආ	ඇ^[3]	ඈ^[3]	ඉ	ඊ	උ	ඌ	එ^[4]	ඒ^[4]	ඓ	ඔ	ඕ	ඖ
Braille

ISO	ṛ		ṝ		ḷ		ḹ
Print	ඍ		ඎ		ඏ^[5]		ඐ^[5]
Braille

ISO	k	kh	g	gh	ṅ	c	ch	j	jh	ñ
Print	ක	ඛ	ග	ඝ	ඞ	ච	ඡ	ජ	ඣ	ඤ
Braille

ISO	ṭ	ṭh	ḍ	ḍh	ṇ	t	th	d	dh	n
Print	ට	ඨ	ඩ	ඪ	ණ^[3]	ත	ථ	ද	ධ	න
Braille

ISO	p	ph	b	bh	m	y	r	l	ḷ	v
Print	ප	ඵ^[3]	බ	භ	ම	ය	ර	ල	ළ	ව
Braille

ISO	ś	ṣ	s	h	gn	f
Print	ශ^[6]	ෂ^[6]	ස	හ	ඥ^[3]	ෆ
Braille

Codas

Diacritics	Halant	Anusvara	Visarga	Candrabindu
Print	ක්	කං^[7]	කඃ^[7]	(see below)*
Braille

* In print Sinhala, this is indicated by an additional set of letters:

The Sinhalese script is a writing system used by the Sinhalese people and most Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to write the Sinhalese language, as well as the liturgical languages Pali and Sanskrit. The Sinhalese Akṣara Mālāva, one of the Brahmic scripts, is a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script and closely related to the South Indian Grantha script and Kadamba alphabet.

ඟn̆ga⠆⠛, ඬn̆ḍa⠆⠫, ඳn̆da⠆⠙, ඹm̆ba⠆⠃

Punctuation

See Bharati Braille#Punctuation

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References

↑ World Braille Usage, UNESCO, 2013
↑ Dassanaike K.C., (1960) Sinhala Braille kramaya.
1 2 3 4 5 These letters are out of keeping with the values of Bharati braille, as described in the text.
1 2 Sinhala e and ē are reversed from what one would expect from other Bharati alphabets.
1 2 Not listed in Unesco (2013)
1 2 Ś and ṣ are reversed from the expected Bharati order, and also from the Acharya website.
1 2 Apart from the halant (hal kirīma), the diacritics differ from Bharati norms. Acharya, however, has කං⠰ and කඃ⠠ as expected for Bharati.

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[unesco3-1] World Braille Usage, UNESCO, 2013

[2] Dassanaike K.C., (1960) Sinhala Braille kramaya.

[s-3] 1 2 3 4 5 These letters are out of keeping with the values of Bharati braille, as described in the text.

[e-4] 1 2 Sinhala e and ē are reversed from what one would expect from other Bharati alphabets.

[notUnesco-5] 1 2 Not listed in Unesco (2013)

[ss-6] 1 2 Ś and ṣ are reversed from the expected Bharati order, and also from the Acharya website.

[diacritic-7] 1 2 Apart from the halant (hal kirīma), the diacritics differ from Bharati norms. Acharya, however, has කං⠰ and කඃ⠠ as expected for Bharati.