Dot number
Dots 2-3 in braille
Dots 2-3 is the letters bb between two letters — and 3 other things besides, because one cell in braille almost never means one thing. The raised positions are 2 and 3, out of the six a cell has.
Dots 2-3
Unicode ⠆ — U+2806, 2 dots on the left and nothing on the right
The 4 things this cell can be
One cell, 4 jobs. Which one applies is decided by where the cell sits — beside a letter, between two, or alone between spaces — and never by the cell itself.
| Reading | Kind | Where it applies |
|---|---|---|
| the letters bb between two letters | Lower sign | By position inside a word |
| the prefix be- at the start of a word | Lower sign | By position inside a word |
| the word “be” standing alone | Wordsign | Standing alone between spaces |
| the semicolon | Punctuation | By position |
Where you will meet it
Taken from the five thousand commonest English words in frequency order, so the first one is a word you will meet constantly. Each is drawn in Grade 2, where the cell actually appears.
| Word | In braille | How common |
|---|---|---|
| be | 17th commonest | |
| before | 216th commonest | |
| because | 222nd commonest | |
| between | 246th commonest |
The same cell in the other codes
Braille is not one code. This site publishes five, and they do not put this cell to the same use. Text written with one table and read with another does not come out as an accent or two — it comes out as different words.
| Code | What this cell is |
|---|---|
| Unified English Braille | the letters bb between two letters, and the prefix be- at the start of a word (and 2 others) |
| Spanish braille | the mark ; |
| Portuguese braille | the mark ; |
| Arabic braille | the tanween fath |
| Hindi braille | no reading of its own — see its alphabet |
One dot away
Under the fingers a missed or imagined dot turns this cell into 6 others. These are the ones to check against when a word will not resolve.
| Cell | Dots | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | the letters ea between two letters; the comma | |
| 3 | the apostrophe | |
| 1-2-3 | the letter l; the word “like” standing alone | |
| 2-3-4 | the letter s; the word “so” standing alone | |
| 2-3-5 | the letters ff between two letters; the exclamation mark | |
| 2-3-6 | the word “his” standing alone; the question mark; opening double quote |
Look up something else
The dot picker takes any combination of the six, the decoder reads a whole passage back, and the chart runs the other way, from the letter to the dots.
Dots 2-3 as an image
The cell on its own: dots 2 and 3 filled, the other four positions shown empty — which is the part a description in words tends to leave out.
