Letter 9 of 26
The letter I in braille
I is dots 2 and 4.
Dots 2-4
Unicode ⠊ — U+280A
How to recognise it
Dots 2 and 4 sit diagonally, middle-left to top-right — the opposite diagonal to e. Nothing is raised in row 1 on the left.
I, S and the “the” sign
I is the base shape. Add dot 3 and it becomes S; add dots 3 and 6 and the cell is not a letter at all but the “the” 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 i plus dots 3 and 6 is “the”, not a letter. The contraction reference lists all five.
One row lower: the “in” sign
Slide every dot of I down one row — dots 2-4 become dots 3-5 — and the cell is the “in” sign.
I is also the digit 9
After the number sign, dots 3-4-5-6, I is read as 9 — and one number sign carries a whole run of digits, so 99 is three cells: ⠼⠊⠊. Braille numbers covers where the run ends.
Where I turns up in Grade 2
I is not one of the letters that stands for a whole word on its own, but it does appear inside contractions that combine it with another letter.
| Cell | Letters | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| with | one cell for “with”, whether it is a word of its own or letters inside one | |
| ing | one cell for the letters “ing”, but never at the start of a word | |
| in | one cell for the letters “in”; standing alone it is the word “in” | |
| dis | one cell for “dis” at the start of a word | |
| his | the word “his”, standing alone |
The contraction reference gives the rules for each.
Writing a capital I
Capital I is two cells: the capital sign, dot 6, then I. A word in capitals takes the sign twice, once for the whole word: “IS” is ⠠⠠⠊⠎. Capitals covers longer runs.
Easily confused with
I differs by a single dot from F, J and S — the letters to drill it against.
Practice words
Words that start with I, one cell per letter in Grade 1. Where Grade 2 writes one shorter, that form follows.
is
ink
Grade 2: ⠔⠅ — 2 cells instead of 3
into
Grade 2: ⠔⠞⠕ — 3 cells instead of 4
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the letter i is printed 7,508 times. Grade 2 still writes it as its own cell 3,099 times, 41.3%. The other 4,409 are inside contractions, most often “ing” (983), “in” (916), “it” (592) and “said” (460).
The cell itself is written 3,115 times in the Grade 2 text: 3,099 as the letter and 16 inside shortforms.
I in braille as an image
