Letter 23 of 26
The letter W in braille
W is dots 2, 4, 5 and 6.
Dots 2-4-5-6
Unicode ⠺ — U+283A
How to recognise it
Dots 2, 4, 5 and 6: j with dot 6 added. The other letters from u to z are a to e with dots 3 and 6 added; w is the one that is not.
Why W sits outside the pattern
w breaks the pattern: it is j with dot 6 added, where u, v, x, y and z are a to e with dots 3 and 6 added. In the book Louis Braille published in 1829, Procédé pour écrire les paroles, la musique et le plain-chant au moyen de points, the fourth series is the first with dot 6 added, and w is its tenth and last sign, outside alphabetical order. Edward T. Morman, in his introduction to the National Federation of the Blind's edition of that book, gives the reason: in French w “appears only in loan words from other languages”, and Braille put it at the end of that series so that the code could be used for English, German and other languages. On that account w was in the code from its first publication.
In Unified English Braille the other nine cells of that row — a to i with dot 6 added — are the contractions ch, gh, sh, th, wh, ed, er, ou and ow.
Where W turns up in Grade 2
Standing alone, W is the word “will”. Inside a word it is the letter again: “wig” is ⠺⠊⠛.
| Cell | Letters | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| with | one cell for “with”, whether it is a word of its own or letters inside one | |
| wh | one cell for the letters “wh”; standing alone it is the word “which” | |
| ow | one cell for the letters “ow” | |
| was | the word “was”, standing alone | |
| were | the word “were”, standing alone |
The contraction reference gives the rules for each.
Writing a capital W
Capital W is two cells: the capital sign, dot 6, then W. A word in capitals takes the sign twice, once for the whole word: “WIG” is ⠠⠠⠺⠊⠛. Capitals covers longer runs.
Easily confused with
W differs by a single dot from J — the letter to drill it against.
Practice words
Words that start with W, one cell per letter in Grade 1. Where Grade 2 writes one shorter, that form follows.
was
Grade 2: ⠴ — 1 cell instead of 3
with
Grade 2: ⠾ — 1 cell instead of 4
water
Grade 2: ⠺⠁⠞⠻ — 4 cells instead of 5
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the letter w is printed 2,674 times. Grade 2 still writes it as its own cell 820 times, 30.7%. The other 1,854 are inside contractions, most often “ow” (438), “wh” (435), “was” (329) and “with” (209).
The cell itself is written 1,003 times in the Grade 2 text: 820 as the letter, 30 as the word “will”, 106 inside shortforms and 47 as the second cell of a two-cell contraction.
W in braille as an image
