Vietnamese Braille

Vietnamese Braille
Type	alphabet
Languages	Vietnamese
Parent systems	Braille French Braille Vietnamese Braille
Print basis	Vietnamese alphabet

Vietnamese Braille is the braille alphabet used for the Vietnamese language. It is very close to French Braille (and thus to a lesser degree to English Braille), but with the addition of tone letters. Vietnamese Braille is known in Vietnamese as chữ nổi, literally "raised letters", while electronic braille displays are called màn hình chữ nổi.

Alphabet

Apart from đ and d (for French Braille d and z)^[1] and the addition of five tone letters, the Vietnamese Braille alphabet is nearly identical to French Braille: the only other difference is the substitution of Vietnamese ư ơ for French ü œ, and the dropping of those letters which are not needed in Vietnamese. However, because of the tone letters, the design is different: Vietnamese Braille has separate letters for vowels and tones, so the French Braille letters for é à è ù are not used; they are written instead as tone ◌́ or ◌̀ plus the vowels a e u.

Vietnamese Braille^[2][3]

a	b	c	đ	e		g	h	i
k	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t		(caps)
u	v	x	y	d							(num)
â	ê		ô				ư	ơ			ă
,	;	:	.	◌̉				◌́			◌̀
		◌̃									◌̣
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0		(space)

• One braille letter is used for each Latin letter.
• Tone letters (transcribing the diacritics ◌̉ ◌́ ◌̀ ◌̃ ◌̣) are written immediately before the vowel.

For example,

Màn	hình	chữ	nổi.
cap–m–◌̀–a–n	h–◌̀–i–n–h	c–h–◌̃–ư	n–◌̉–ô–i–stop

Punctuation

,

;

:

.

“...”

?

!

...

-

*

(...)

[...]

{...}

/

See also

• Vietnamese sign languages

Notes

1. Vietnamese Braille đ is written and pronounced as French Braille d, Vietnamese Braille d as French Braille z. Print z does not occur in Vietnamese, but if it needs to be transcribed, it is written ⠠⠵ in Vietnamese Braille (Unesco 2013).
2. A photo of a braille chart at a Vietnamese school
3. Sao Mai Education Fund