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What braille is, and what it is not
Braille is a way of writing by touch, not a language. The same six-dot cell writes English, Spanish, Arabic and Hindi, and means something different in each.
It is a code, not a language
Braille writes an existing language so that it can be read with the fingers. English braille writes English and Arabic braille writes Arabic; nobody speaks braille, any more than anybody speaks the printed alphabet.
World Braille Usage, the reference compiled by Perkins School for the Blind with the National Library Service and the International Council on English Braille, gives braille codes for 133 languages in its third edition (2013). This site covers five of them, each with its own tables.
One cell, five codes
The cells are the same everywhere; what they stand for is not. Each row below is one cell and what five codes write with it. A dash means that code has no letter there.
| Cell | English (Grade 2) | Spanish | Portuguese | Arabic | Hindi |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ⠮ dots 2-3-4-6 | the word “the” | é | — | ذ | ध |
| ⠯ dots 1-2-3-4-6 | the word “and” | — | ç | ص | ष |
| ⠡ dots 1-6 | “ch”, or the word “child” | — | â | ة | छ |
| ⠫ dots 1-2-4-6 | “ed” | — | à | ض | ड |
| ⠜ dots 3-4-5 | “ar” | ) | ã | آ | आ |
| ⠪ dots 2-4-6 | “ow” | — | õ | — | औ |
| ⠁ dot 1 | the letter a | a | a | ا | अ |
This is why braille in one language cannot be read with another language’s table, and why this site keeps its five codes apart: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Hindi. The dot lookup gives every reading of any cell.
The cell
Every braille character is one cell: two columns of three dots, numbered 1 to 3 down the left and 4 to 6 down the right. Six dots give 64 patterns. One of them is empty, which is the space, and the other 63 are all there is to write with.
Unified English Braille gives every one of the 63 a job. Computers number them the same way: Unicode starts the cells at U+2800 and adds one bit for each dot, so the letter d, dots 1-4-5, is U+2819.
How 63 cells write everything
Sixty-three is not enough for every letter, digit, punctuation mark and symbol, so cells are reused and a cell in front says how to read what follows.
- The number sign turns the letters a to j into digits: ⠁ is a, and ⠼⠁ is 1. Numbers has the rest.
- The capital sign, dot 6, makes the next letter a capital: ⠠⠁.
- Contracted braille goes further and lets one or two cells stand for a group of letters or a whole word: ⠮ is “the”. Grade 1 and Grade 2 are compared, with measurements, in the next guide.
Why it is still used
Braille shows what a recording cannot: how a word is spelled, where the punctuation falls and how the page is laid out.
There is some evidence that it matters beyond reading. One study interviewed 74 adults in Washington State who had been legally blind from infancy. Of the 43 who had learned to read in braille, 44 per cent were unemployed; of the 31 who had learned in print, 77 per cent were (Ryles, 1996). It is a small study from one state, and it shows an association, not a cause.
Sources
- World Braille Usage, third edition (2013), Perkins School for the Blind.
- R. Ryles (1996), “The impact of braille reading skills on employment, income, education, and reading habits”, Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness 90(3), 219–226, as reprinted by the National Federation of the Blind.
- Rules of Unified English Braille, third edition (2024), International Council on English Braille.
- The Unicode Character Database, Braille Patterns block, U+2800 to U+28FF.
Everything said here about which dots make which cell is computed from the tables this site’s translator uses, and checked before each change to the site.