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Esperanto Braille

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Esperanto Braille
Script type
alphabet
Print basis
Esperanto alphabet
LanguagesEsperanto
Related scripts
Parent systems
Braille
  • Esperanto Braille

The Esperanto language has a dedicated braille alphabet. One Esperanto braille magazine, Esperanta Ligilo, has been published since 1904, and another, Aŭroro, since 1920.

Alphabet

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The basic braille alphabet is extended for the print letters with diacritics. The circumflex is marked by adding dot 6 (lower right) to the base letter: ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ. Therefore, the letter ĵ has the same form as the unused French/English Braille letter w; to write a w in a foreign name, dot 3 is added: w [1] (see next section). Esperanto ŭ is made by reflecting u, so that dot 1 becomes dot 4: ŭ. The alphabet is thus as follows.[2]

⠁ (braille pattern dots-1)
a
⠃ (braille pattern dots-12)
b
⠉ (braille pattern dots-14)
c
⠩ (braille pattern dots-146)
ĉ
⠙ (braille pattern dots-145)
d
⠑ (braille pattern dots-15)
e
⠋ (braille pattern dots-124)
f
⠛ (braille pattern dots-1245)
g
⠻ (braille pattern dots-12456)
ĝ
⠓ (braille pattern dots-125)
h
⠳ (braille pattern dots-1256)
ĥ
⠊ (braille pattern dots-24)
i
⠚ (braille pattern dots-245)
j
⠺ (braille pattern dots-2456)
ĵ
⠅ (braille pattern dots-13)
k
⠇ (braille pattern dots-123)
l
⠍ (braille pattern dots-134)
m
⠝ (braille pattern dots-1345)
n
⠕ (braille pattern dots-135)
o
⠏ (braille pattern dots-1234)
p
⠗ (braille pattern dots-1235)
r
⠎ (braille pattern dots-234)
s
⠮ (braille pattern dots-2346)
ŝ
⠞ (braille pattern dots-2345)
t
⠥ (braille pattern dots-136)
u
⠬ (braille pattern dots-346)
ŭ
⠧ (braille pattern dots-1236)
v
⠵ (braille pattern dots-1356)
z

Contracted braille is in limited use.[3]

Transcribing foreign letters

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Beside the basic-Latin foreign letters q, w, x, y, there are dedicated letters for the umlauted vowels that occur in print German, ä, ö, ü:

⠟ (braille pattern dots-12345)
q
⠾ (braille pattern dots-23456)
w
⠭ (braille pattern dots-1346)
x
⠽ (braille pattern dots-13456)
y
⠜ (braille pattern dots-345)
ä
⠪ (braille pattern dots-246)
ö
⠷ (braille pattern dots-12356)
ü

Additional accented letters in other languages are handled by separate braille cells for the diacritics. These do not have a one-to-one correspondence with print:

⠈ (braille pattern dots-4)
◌́
(and ő, ű
from ö, ü)
⠘ (braille pattern dots-45)
◌̀, ◌̄
⠲ (braille pattern dots-256)
◌̃
⠐ (braille pattern dots-5)
◌̂, ◌̌
⠒ (braille pattern dots-25)
◌̈, ◌̇
⠰ (braille pattern dots-56)
◌̊, ◌̆
⠠ (braille pattern dots-6)
◌̧, ◌̨, ◌̣, ◌̩
⠔ (braille pattern dots-35)
◌̸, ◌̵, etc.

These conventions are used for foreign names adapted to Esperanto Braille. Unassimilated text in another braille alphabet is indicated by the code .

Punctuation

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Single punctuation
⠀ (braille pattern blank)
(space)
⠂ (braille pattern dots-2)
,
⠄ (braille pattern dots-3)
' (abbr.)
⠲ (braille pattern dots-256)
.
⠢ (braille pattern dots-26)
 ?
⠖ (braille pattern dots-235)
 !
⠆ (braille pattern dots-23)
 ;
⠒ (braille pattern dots-25)
 :
⠔ (braille pattern dots-35)
*
⠌ (braille pattern dots-34)
/
⠄ (braille pattern dots-3)⠄ (braille pattern dots-3)⠄ (braille pattern dots-3)
...
⠤ (braille pattern dots-36)
-
⠠ (braille pattern dots-6)⠤ (braille pattern dots-36)

The apostrophe and abbreviation point are both transcribed , which is distinct from the period/stop, . A series of colons, , is a common dinkus for dividing sections of texts.

Paired punctuation
⠦ (braille pattern dots-236)...⠴ (braille pattern dots-356)
(outer quotes)
⠠ (braille pattern dots-6)⠦ (braille pattern dots-236)...⠴ (braille pattern dots-356)⠄ (braille pattern dots-3)
(inner quotes)
⠶ (braille pattern dots-2356)...⠶ (braille pattern dots-2356)
( ... )
⠶ (braille pattern dots-2356)⠶ (braille pattern dots-2356)...⠶ (braille pattern dots-2356)⠶ (braille pattern dots-2356)
[ ... ]

Quotation marks in print Esperanto are highly variable, and tend to follow the conventions of the country a text is published in. This is irrelevant for printing in braille.

Numbers

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The apostrophe/abbreviation point is used to group digits within numbers, like the comma in English. In both print and braille Esperanto, the comma is used as the decimal mark, so:

print English 100,000.00
= print Esperanto 100 000,00
= braille .

Formatting

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Capitals are only marked for proper names. They are not used at the beginning of a sentence.

⠼ (braille pattern dots-3456)
(digit)
⠨ (braille pattern dots-46)
(caps)
⠸ (braille pattern dots-456)
(emph.)
⠒ (braille pattern dots-25)⠸ (braille pattern dots-456)...⠸ (braille pattern dots-456)..
(span emphasis)
⠠ (braille pattern dots-6)⠄ (braille pattern dots-3)...⠠ (braille pattern dots-6)⠄ (braille pattern dots-3)
(alternative span emphasis)
⠐ (braille pattern dots-5)⠂ (braille pattern dots-2)...⠐ (braille pattern dots-5)⠂ (braille pattern dots-2)
(foreign braille text)

For emphasis (bold or italics in print), a simple is used to mark each of one to three words. For longer emphatic text, there are two formats: Either a colon precedes the simple emphatic sign, , and an additional sign is placed before the last emphasized word, or the sign is placed before and after the emphasized text.

In contracted (grade 2) braille, a different sign is used for capital letters, (dot 6). As in most braille orthographies, proper names are not contracted, and words preceded by this sign are not contracted in Esperanto Braille.

References

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  1. ^ "Redirecting to Google Groups".
  2. ^ "World Braille Usage". UNESCO. 2013. Archived from the original on 2014-09-08. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
  3. ^ Esperanta stenografio, Nizhny Novgorod, 2003
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