Esperanto Braille

Esperanto Braille
Type
alphabet
Languages Esperanto
Parent systems
Braille
  • Esperanto Braille
Print basis
Esperanto alphabet

Esperanto Braille is the braille alphabet of the Esperanto language. One Esperanto Braille magazine, Aŭroro, has been published since 1920, and another, Esperanta Ligilo, since 1904.

Alphabet

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-134)
ŭ
⠧ (braille pattern dots-1236)
v
⠵ (braille pattern dots-1356)
z

Contracted braille is in limited use.[3]

Transcribing foreign letters

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-2456)
◌̂, ◌̌
⠒ (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

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, .

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

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 100000,00
= braille .

Formatting

Capitals are only marked for proper names and 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 blank)⠸ (braille pattern dots-456)⠀ (braille pattern blank)
(span emphasis)
⠠ (braille pattern dots-6)⠄ (braille pattern dots-3)⠀ (braille pattern blank)⠠ (braille pattern dots-6)⠄ (braille pattern dots-3)
(alternative span emphasis)
⠐ (braille pattern dots-5)⠂ (braille pattern dots-2)⠀ (braille pattern blank)⠐ (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

  1. World Braille Usage, UNESCO, 2013
  2. Esperanta stenografio, Nizhny Novgorod, 2003

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, May 01, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.