Letter 8 of 26
The letter H in braille
H is dots 1, 2 and 5.
Dots 1-2-5
Unicode ⠓ — U+2813
How to recognise it
Dots 1, 2 and 5 form a shape like a squared-off C facing right. h and j are mirror images of each other across the cell.
H, R and the “of” sign
H is the base shape. Add dot 3 and it becomes R; add dots 3 and 6 and the cell is not a letter at all but the “of” sign, ⠷.
Adding dots 3 and 6 turns a, b, c, d and e into u, v, x, y and z. For f, g, h, i and j the same step gives the words and, for, of, the and with — so h plus dots 3 and 6 is “of”, not a letter. The contraction reference lists all five.
One row lower: the question mark
Slide every dot of H down one row — dots 1-2-5 become dots 2-3-6 — and the cell is the question mark.
H is also the digit 8
After the number sign, dots 3-4-5-6, H is read as 8 — and one number sign carries a whole run of digits, so 88 is three cells: ⠼⠓⠓. Braille numbers covers where the run ends.
Where H turns up in Grade 2
Standing alone, H is the word “have”. Inside a word it is the letter again: “has” is ⠓⠁⠎.
| Cell | Letters | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| the | one cell for “the”, whether it is a word of its own or letters inside one | |
| with | one cell for “with”, whether it is a word of its own or letters inside one | |
| ch | one cell for the letters “ch”; standing alone it is the word “child” | |
| sh | one cell for the letters “sh”; standing alone it is the word “shall” | |
| th | one cell for the letters “th”; standing alone it is the word “this” | |
| wh | one cell for the letters “wh”; standing alone it is the word “which” | |
| gh | one cell for the letters “gh” | |
| his | the word “his”, standing alone |
The contraction reference gives the rules for each.
Writing a capital H
Capital H is two cells: the capital sign, dot 6, then H. A word in capitals takes the sign twice, once for the whole word: “HAS” is ⠠⠠⠓⠁⠎. Capitals covers longer runs.
Easily confused with
H differs by a single dot from B, E, G and R — the letters to drill it against.
Practice words
Words that start with H, one cell per letter in Grade 1. Where Grade 2 writes one shorter, that form follows.
has
help
hand
Grade 2: ⠓⠯ — 2 cells instead of 4
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the letter h is printed 7,374 times. Grade 2 still writes it as its own cell 1,213 times, 16.4%. The other 6,161 are inside contractions, most often “the” (2,077), “sh” (793), “th” (506) and “wh” (435).
The cell itself is written 1,687 times in the Grade 2 text: 1,213 as the letter, 76 as the word “have”, 161 inside shortforms and 237 as the second cell of a two-cell contraction.
H in braille as an image
