Wakhi is an Indo-European language in the Eastern Iranian branch of the language family spoken today in Wakhan District, Northern Afghanistan and also in Tajikistan, Northern Pakistan and Western China.
The Urdu alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet used for writing Urdu. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which itself is derived from the Arabic script. It has official status in the republics of Pakistan, India and South Africa. The Urdu alphabet has up to 39 or 40 distinct letters with no distinct letter cases and is typically written in the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script, whereas Arabic is more commonly written in the Naskh style.
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.
Tibetan Braille is the Braille alphabet for writing the Tibetan language. It was invented in 1992 by German social worker Sabriye Tenberken. It is based on German braille, with some extensions from international usage. As in print, the vowel a is not written.
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.
Arabic Braille is the braille alphabet for the Arabic language. It descends from a braille alphabet brought to Egypt by an English missionary prior to 1878, so the letter assignments generally correspond to English Braille and to the same romanization as in other braille systems, like Greek and Russian. However, there were once multiple standards, some of which were unrelated to Coptic Braille. A unified Arabic Braille was adopted in the 1950s as part of the move toward international braille, and it is the standard throughout the Arab world. Other Arabic-based alphabets have braille systems similar to Arabic Braille, such as Urdu and Persian Braille, but differ in some letter and diacritic assignments.
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.
Tamil Braille is the smallest of the Bharati braille alphabets.
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.
Gujarati Braille is one of the Bharati braille alphabets, and it largely 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.
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.
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.
Dzongkha Braille or Bhutanese Braille, is the braille alphabet for writing Dzongkha, the national language of Bhutan. It is based on English braille, with some extensions from international usage. As in print, the vowel a is not written.
Khmer Braille is the braille alphabet of the Khmer language of Cambodia.
