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Braille is a writing system read with the fingertips: each letter is a pattern of raised dots within a small cell of six.

Perkins School for the Blind

LanguageMindDesign

The story behind the card

The system takes its name from Louis Braille, a blind French student who published it in 1829. Each cell has two columns of three dot positions, which gives 63 possible patterns in a space small enough to be felt with one touch of a fingertip. Besides letters, braille has contractions, short patterns for common words that make reading faster, and separate codes for mathematics, science and music. Today there are braille codes for more than 133 languages, including Turkish, which has its own signs for letters such as ç, ğ and ş. Many blind readers also use refreshable braille displays, devices whose small pins rise and fall to show text from a computer or phone. Since 2019 the United Nations has marked 4 January, Louis Braille's birthday, as World Braille Day.

Türkçe oku
Braille alfabesi parmak uçlarıyla okunan bir yazı sistemidir: Her harf, altı noktalık küçük bir hücrede kabartılmış noktaların farklı bir dizilişidir.

Sistem adını, onu 1829'da yayımlayan kör Fransız öğrenci Louis Braille'den alır. Her hücrede üçer noktalık iki sütun vardır; bu, parmak ucunun tek dokunuşta algılayabileceği kadar küçük bir alanda 63 farklı diziliş demektir. Harflerin yanında, sık kullanılan sözcükleri kısa işaretlerle yazan kısaltmalar ve matematik, fen ve müzik için ayrı kodlar da vardır. Bugün 133'ten fazla dilin Braille kodu bulunur; Türkçenin de ç, ğ, ş gibi harfler için kendi işaretleri vardır. Birçok görme engelli, bilgisayar ya da telefondaki metni, küçük iğneleri inip kalkan “yenilenebilir Braille ekranları” ile de okur. Birleşmiş Milletler 2019'dan beri Louis Braille'in doğum günü olan 4 Ocak'ı Dünya Braille Günü olarak anıyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Braille
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