Reference
Punctuation in braille
Punctuation reuses the same six dots, positioned lower in the cell. Several marks take two cells, and one is genuinely ambiguous with a letter — here is the full set.
| Symbol | Name | Cells | Dots |
|---|---|---|---|
, | Comma | dot 2 | |
; | Semicolon | dots 2 and 3 | |
: | Colon | dots 2 and 5 | |
. | Full stop / period | dots 2, 5 and 6 | |
? | Question mark | dots 2, 3 and 6 | |
! | Exclamation mark | dots 2, 3 and 5 | |
' | Apostrophe | dot 3 | |
- | Hyphen | dots 3 and 6 | |
( | Opening parenthesis | dot 5, then dots 1, 2 and 6 | |
) | Closing parenthesis | dot 5, then dots 3, 4 and 5 | |
/ | Slash | dots 4, 5 and 6, then dots 3 and 4 | |
@ | At sign | dot 4, then dot 1 | |
# | Number / hash sign | dots 4, 5 and 6, then dots 1, 4, 5 and 6 | |
$ | Dollar sign | dot 4, then dots 2, 3 and 4 | |
% | Percent sign | dots 4 and 6, then dots 3, 5 and 6 | |
& | Ampersand | dot 4, then dots 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 | |
* | Asterisk | dot 5, then dots 3 and 5 | |
+ | Plus sign | dot 5, then dots 2, 3 and 5 | |
= | Equals sign | dot 5, then dots 2, 3, 5 and 6 | |
" | Double quotes | opening is dots 2, 3 and 6, closing is dots 3, 5 and 6 |
Lower-cell shapes
Most punctuation sits in the lower part of the cell — dots 2, 3, 5 and 6 — with nothing in row 1. No letter has an empty top row, so a cell with nothing in row 1 is never a letter: it is punctuation, or in Grade 2 one of the lower contractions.
The comma is a single dot 2. The full stop is dots 2-5-6. The question mark is dots 2-3-6.
The quotation mark problem
The opening double quote and the question mark are the same cell in Unified English Braille. Position tells them apart: a question mark follows a word, and an opening quotation mark comes before one. This is a real ambiguity in the code, not an error in this table, and it is why automatic braille-to-text decoding cannot be perfectly reliable — given the cell by itself in Grade 1, the decoder reads a question mark.
The closing double quote, dots 3-5-6, is unambiguous.
Two-cell symbols
| Symbol | Cells | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| ( Opening parenthesis | Braille (invented in 1824) is still in use. | |
| / Slash | Read the and/or clause. | |
| @ At sign | Write to me at name@example.com. | |
| # Number / hash sign | See note #3. | |
| $ Dollar sign | It cost $40. | |
| % Percent sign | Around 10% of readers. | |
| & Ampersand | Marks & Spencer. | |
| * Asterisk | See the footnote *below. | |
| + Plus sign | Add 2 + 2. | |
| = Equals sign | So 2 + 2 = 4. |
Symbols like parentheses, the dollar sign and the percent sign take two cells: a prefix that signals the category, then a shape. The prefix dots 4 or dots 5 do not stand for anything alone — they only modify the cell that follows. Six of the eight single-cell marks above are one of the first ten letters shifted down one row: the comma is a lowered, the semicolon b, the colon c, the full stop d, the exclamation mark f and the question mark h. The apostrophe and the hyphen are not. The full stop doubles as the decimal point inside a number.
The single-cell marks as one image
The eight marks that take one cell, with their dot numbers. The two-cell symbols are in the table above — a symbol drawn small enough to fit a chart of twenty is not a symbol anyone can read.
Questions and answers
How is punctuation written in braille?
Punctuation reuses the same six dots, positioned lower in the cell. Several marks take two cells rather than one.
Why is the braille question mark ambiguous?
Dots 2-3-6 is both the question mark and the opening double quote. It is a genuine ambiguity in Unified English Braille, resolved by where the cell sits rather than by the cell itself.
Do any braille punctuation marks take two cells?
Yes. Several symbols are written as two cells, a prefix followed by a second cell, rather than as a single character.