Braille is a tactile recording system used in books, inscriptions, currencies and other objects for blind and visually impaired people. Thanks to displays designed based on Braille, the blind can use computers and other electronic means. You can record using special devices, such as a portable notepad or Braille keyboard.
Braille is named after its creator, the Frenchman Louis Braille, who became blind in childhood as a result of an injury. In 1824, at the age of 15, he developed this font for the French alphabet as an improvement in the military technique of night reading. The publication of this system, which subsequently included musical notation, occurred in 1829. The second edition, published in 1837, became the first
binary recording
system .
The alphabet for the blind is a sign in the form of rectangular blocks (cells) with convex points. The number and location of these points distinguish one letter from another. Since Braille is a transcription of existing writing systems, the order and number of characters varies depending on the language. Thanks to software capable of sound reproduction of text, the use of the font has been significantly reduced. The alphabet of the blind continues to play a large role in the development of reading skills in blind children, and literacy can increase the level of employment among people with disabilities.
The braille was based on a military code, the so-called "night letter", developed by Charles Barbier in connection with the need to exchange information at night, without attracting the attention of the enemy with the help of sound or light. In the Barbier system, a set of 12 convex points corresponded to one of 36 sounds. This method was rejected by the army, as it was too complicated for the military. In 1821, Barbier visited the Paris Royal Institute of the Blind, where he met with Louis Braille. Braille noted two significant drawbacks of this cipher. Firstly, the signs corresponded only to sounds, and therefore could not display the spelling of words. Secondly, the signs of the 12 convex points were too large to recognize them by touch without moving their fingers, which significantly slowed down the reading process. Braille is a modification where cells of 6 points correspond to individual letters of the alphabet.
Initially, the Braille font included only the letters of the French alphabet, but soon a lot of abbreviations, abbreviations and even logograms appeared, which made the use of the system more convenient. Today, Braille is more an independent writing system for the blind than a spelling code for words. There are three levels of font. The first is used by those who are just starting to read in Braille, and consists of letters and
punctuation marks. The most common is the second level, where there are abbreviations that save space on the page. Less often you can find the third level, where whole words are reduced to a few letters or written using special characters.