Letter 2 of 26
The letter B in braille
B is dots 1 and 2.
Dots 1-2
Unicode ⠃ — U+2803
How to recognise it
Dots 1 and 2 make a short vertical line down the left column.
B, L and V: one shape
B is the base shape. Add dot 3 and it becomes L; add dots 3 and 6 and it becomes V.
One row lower: the semicolon
Slide every dot of B down one row — dots 1-2 become dots 2-3 — and the cell is the semicolon.
B is also the digit 2
After the number sign, dots 3-4-5-6, B is read as 2 — and one number sign carries a whole run of digits, so 22 is three cells: ⠼⠃⠃. Braille numbers covers where the run ends.
Where B turns up in Grade 2
Standing alone, B is the word “but”. Inside a word it is the letter again: “boy” is ⠃⠕⠽.
| Cell | Letters | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| bb | one cell for “bb” in the middle of a word, never at its start or end | |
| be | one cell for “be” at the start of a word; standing alone it is the word “be” |
The contraction reference gives the rules for each.
Writing a capital B
Capital B is two cells: the capital sign, dot 6, then B. A word in capitals takes the sign twice, once for the whole word: “BOY” is ⠠⠠⠃⠕⠽. Capitals covers longer runs.
Easily confused with
B differs by a single dot from A, F, H and L — the letters to drill it against.
Practice words
Words that start with B, one cell per letter in Grade 1.
boy
bag
bell
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the letter b is printed 1,476 times. Grade 2 still writes it as its own cell 720 times, 48.8%. The other 756 are inside contractions, most often “be” (279), “but” (170), “bb” (132) and “about” (94).
The cell itself is written 987 times in the Grade 2 text: 720 as the letter, 170 as the word “but” and 97 inside shortforms.
B in braille as an image
