Dot number
Dot 5 in braille
Dot 5 is the opening cell of 22 initial-letter contractions. It is the one raised position out of the six a cell has.
Dot 5
Unicode ⠐ — U+2810, nothing on the left and 1 dot on the right
What this cell is
This cell has a single job, which is unusual: most of the sixty-three carry more than one.
| Reading | Kind | Where it applies |
|---|---|---|
| the opening cell of 22 initial-letter contractions | Prefix | character, day, ever, father, here, know and 16 more |
In full UEB this cell also begins a set of mathematical signs — *, + and = are all written with it. This engine covers letters, numbers, punctuation and the Grade 2 contractions, so it does not produce them, and a page here will not show you one.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| one | 43rd commonest | |
| time | 48th commonest | |
| there | 61st commonest | |
| here | 68th 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 opening cell of 22 initial-letter contractions |
| Spanish braille | the mark @ |
| Portuguese braille | no reading of its own — see its alphabet |
| Arabic braille | the mark ، |
| Hindi braille | the nukta |
One dot away
Under the fingers a missed or imagined dot turns this cell into 5 others. These are the ones to check against when a word will not resolve.
| Cell | Dots | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 1-5 | the letter e; the word “every” standing alone; the digit 5 after a number sign | |
| 2-5 | the letters cc between two letters; the prefix con- at the start of a word; the colon | |
| 3-5 | the letters in inside a word; the word “in” standing alone | |
| 4-5 | the opening cell of 5 initial-letter contractions | |
| 5-6 | the letter sign; the grade 1 symbol; the opening cell of 7 final-letter contractions |
Look up something else
The braille dot numbers page 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.
Dot 5 as an image
The cell on its own: dot 5 filled, the other five positions shown empty — which is the part a description in words tends to leave out.
