Braille is a great way for blind people to read and write.
Braille is just the alphabet and numbers, designed to be read by fingers rather than eyes.
Who uses braille?
Braille is for anyone who has or is likely to lose their sight and would find that using large print becomes difficult.
Braille can be learnt and used by children or adults to read and write pretty much anything!
Six little dots
Braille is a code based on six dots, arranged in two columns of three dots.
There are different types of
braille codes. These use variations of the six dots to represent all the letters of the alphabet, numbers, punctuation marks and commonly-occurring groups of letters.
There are 63 possible combinations of the six dots.
A blind French schoolboy named
Louis Braille devised the code over 200 years ago.
There are two grades of braille:
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Uncontracted (previously Grade 1) braille is a straightforward letter for letter translation from print and includes the alphabet, numbers and punctuation marks.
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Contracted (previously Grade 2) braille has special signs for combinations of letters and more commonly occuring words, such as 'sh', 'ing', 'the' and 'for'. This reduces the size of braille documents by about 25 per cent, and generally increases reading speed.
The UK has recently adopted a revised braille code known as
Unified English Braille code (UEB). There are also
special braille codes, for instance for music, mathematics, science and foreign languages.
Braille alphabet card
The braille alphabet card shows the embossed braille alphabet, punctuation marks and numbers, together with the print translation. You can
order one free copy of the English card from our online shop or call 0303 123 9999. If you would like multiple copies of the card there will be a small charge. For details of the Welsh alphabet card, please call 0303 123 9999.