Talk:Braille

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Contents 1 Algorithms 2 Speed & Japanese 3 ff 4 Article depends too much on diagrams 5 Braille gallery 6 History of Braille 7 Braille ASCII 8 Braille printing 9 Gallery 10 Braille physical diagram 11 Spoken version of this article 12 Braille in Pokémon? 13 Spelling 14 Braille 'the world's first binary character encoding'? 15 Display Braille Characters On Web Pages

[edit] Algorithms

Are Grade 2 or 3 machinable? I mean,is there a good enough algorithm that takes plain ASCII and renders it as Grade 2 or 3? I suppose that's what Braille line interfaces use. (by User:80.224.97.246 09:37, 2 June 2004)

I'm not sure what you mean by "are grade two and three machineable". (Then again, I hadn't heard of grade 3 until reading the article). If by that you mean grade2 can be taken from plain text, there are programs such as Duxberry that do this (Granted not always perfectly). Duxberry isn't made to handle a lot of symbols that are more commonly rendered in Nemith (Though some surprise me, such as its refusal to print a + correctly). (by USer:165.29.91.1, 17:41, 1 April 2005)

[edit] Speed & Japanese

Could someone include information about readers of braille? e.g. Do they read faster/slower than visual readers. Also, how do the blind read languages with ideographic alphabets, such as Japanese? (by user:72.19.88.167, 06:00, 6 March 2005)

So far as I can tell, the span of speeds for braille readers is similar to the span for sighted readers, though I'm not absolutely certain. I agree that it would be nice to know about such systems for charactersets such as kana or kanji. (by User:165.29.91.1, 17:36, 1 April 2005)

How do the blind read Japanese? I will research this! Currently I rely on finding things in romaji. (by USer:165.29.91.1, 17:43, 1 April 2005)

There are alternate systems for languages that are very different from english. http://www.hi.sfc.keio.ac.jp/access/arc/NetBraille/etc/brttrl.html is a website containing a tootorial for Japanese braille that explains a little (That's just the first result, a google search comes up with much more).

It might also need to be noted that accented characters(ë, ç, ì +ñ) can be displayed in different ways in braille (The methods have say in grade2 sommantics). (by USer:165.29.91.1, 17:59, 1 April 2005)

[edit] ff

"For example, the numeral 6 stands for "ff," but may only be used within a word, not at the beginning or end." How does this save space, if two characters need to be used to represent the numeral six anyways (the number sign, then F)? Also, why is it explicitly stated that it can't be used at the beginning of a word, since there are no words beginning with "ff"? — Ливай | ☺ 23:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Ever hear of Jasper Fforde? DS 12:04, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

The reference to the number 6 means the braille dot pattern that you get for the ASCII number "6" if you send a "6" to a braille embosser or refreshable display. This assumes that the embosser uses the Code for Computer Braille Notation that's in common use in North America. So, this "6" is a single character having dots 2-3-5, what we'd call a "dropped f", the letter "f" lowered in the dot pattern so that it occupies the lower 4 dots area of the standard 6-dot cell. In grade 2 braille, (now often called "contracted braille") the number 6 would be written as a number sign followed by the letter "f", but that's a completely different character than that "6" that represents "ff". As for the position dependence of that "6" for "ff", a dropped f at the beginning of a word is an abbreviation for the word "to". In the middle of the word it's "ff". At the end of a word it's an exclamation point. So you see, it's a busy little symbol. Weichbrodt 16:59, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article depends too much on diagrams

The article explains braille number encodings with photographs. This may be a problem for blind users of the Wikipedia. The article could not purport to teach braille to anyone without providing raised dots, of course, but the meaning of the article should not depend on the images. DanielHolth 1 July 2005 00:19 (UTC)

I like the images (I made them...) but you made a good point. Is the previous version any better? Any suggestion?- Nabla 17:53, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the diagrams to the older tables. I haven't tried it, but I suspect that the alt text on the diagrams would be at least as intelligible via a screen reader as the diagrams (probably more so). How would you show what Braille was without some diagrams? — KayEss | talk 05:20, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the dot patterns could be laid out in a table. My screen reader, JAWS, permits walking up and down, left and right through a table so that one can visit each location to see what's there. I'm sure the other major screen readers have similar facilities. Alternatively, perhaps 3 lines of 2 characters per line could be used to show what dots were present on each line. I do agree, though, that I groaned a bit when I came across an article on braille that had so much in it that a blind person couldn't really access. It was a little like walking up to most automatic teller machines, finding braille labeling for the keypad, but then having no means of gaining feedback. Perhaps if alternative, more blind-friendly presentations are cumbersome to have on the main page, they could at least be available via links. In particular, I would like to be able to read some of the alternate braille code samples that are shown in the article. Weichbrodt 14:57, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean something like this?

Sample 1:

Image	Sign	Table
	A or 1	X . . . . .
	B or 2	X . X . . .

Sample 2

(different table coding, looks almost the same but is probably different for braille readers):

Image	Sign	Table
	A or 1	X .
		.  .
		.  .
	B or 2	X .
		.  .
		.  .

Sample 3

(yet another table coding, this looks not so good as the previous but if works... fine!):

Image	Sign	Table
	A or 1	X . . . . .
	B or 2	X . X . . .

There are still a few more coding choices that can be done. Anything good on the previous samples, we can use to work on? - Nabla 18:41, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely, and I personally appreciate the thought that went into the above samples. I personally think the first sample has real elegance--the nested tables where the overall scheme of what's being represented is laid out in the "super-table" and the braille cell itself in the encapsulated "sub-table". Here are a couple of additional thoughts that might be helpful or at least spark discussion. First, can I suggest "Represents" or some similar word for the second column heading? The word "sign" to me implies that there's going to be an actual character under that column, and the stuff in the first and third columns is, I think, ore like a "sign" than what's in the middle column. Maybe the third column could have something a tad more descriptive like "dot pattern grid" (I don't like that, either, but it was the first verbage that came to mind). Otherwise a blind person might not have that "aha" feeling like, "Hey, here's something I can explore to build up the layout in my mind! Cool!" Maybe, somewhere, perhaps even on a separate linked page, there could be a legend that says something like, "In the dot pattern grids, 'x' represents a dot that is present in the cell, and '.' is a placeholder for a dot that is absent." Again, I'm just shooting from the hip, here. The HTML specification for tables includes a table "summary" attribute that might also be useful in cluing in a non-visual viewer of the page about what's in the table representing the braille symbols. The summary could clarify that the first column's a picture of the symbol, the second is what the symbol represents in writing, and the third is a table laying out the dot pattern.

Just some possibilities. Thanks again for giving us some wonderful food for thought.

Weichbrodt 14:29, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Braille gallery

If there was a way to specify thumb sizes for the new <gallery> tag thing, using a gallery would be much neater than the (now) current heap of little images. This would rely on wikimedia introducing new code allowing image size to be specified in a gallery, or on resizing all the images. So I'm keeping an alternative view here, Talk:Braille/gallery, in case one of the above magically happens.

There has also been talk of making the images more accessible to blind readers, which neither display mode helps with at present.

see Talk:Braille/gallery

—Pengo 23:36, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by the gallery being "neater". To me it looks the same as the table, except that the images are larger and the rows are broken in the gallery. That is, to me it is the gallery that looks like a "heap of little images". kwami 23:56, 2005 August 14 (UTC)

The non-gallery images don't line up properly (top and bottom), or at least that happens using a largish font size. Also the gallery images sit next to each other with a "nice" amount of spacing, rather than sitting as seperate entities that (to me at least) look like they're floating in space. Anyway it's a moot point really as long as the gallery tag is as inflexible as it is. —Pengo 01:20, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, the new gallery looks horrible. Anyone able to use Wikipedia can probably read the images at the size they were, and if not, they could use a magnifyer. But now for the rest of us the table has become page after page of jumbled images. The internal organization is lost. kwami 01:43, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] History of Braille

The article really needs a History of Braille section.

Braille has a rich and amazing history. It started when the blind 14 year old Louis Braille adapted the failed military night writing system by simplifying it (iirc the failed system was a syllaby, not an alphabet, and had too many and too large symbols to be practicable). The students at his school found the new ability to write so compelling that they practiced the system underground when the headmaster decided to burn all their books and tools (there might be something to be said about some people not wanting the blind to become too independent). Louis Braille introduced the letter 'W' into the system at the request of a non-Francophone friend.

Other things happen...

Years ca. 1900 ... in America several different writing systems are in use for the blind. New york point was used a lot with symbols two dots high and variable width. Helen Keller knew at least three different tactile writing systems. The British had a different system. The Americans went through a lot of politics and debate known as 'The War of the Dots' with vigorous argument between proponents of each system. Eventually a system similar to the British system was agreed upon, it was compelling that the American blind could read British books. And the British made a few minor changes to their system (things they weren't interested in very much anyway, like the representation of capital letters) to standardize on what we have today.

If this can be written, it's the kind of narrative that would make for a very interesting article instead of a mostly technical one. The references and available online sources are a wonderful read and include entire books written on the subject and history of braille.

[edit] Braille ASCII

I have added an article on Braille ASCII. It could use some attention if anyone is interested. cannona 05:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Braille printing

Some description of the method by which books in Braille are produced would be useful. (E.g. lacquering so the "bumps" don't wear out, etc.) - Nunh-huh 10:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gallery

The gallery is absurd as stands - it should be possible to have all the Braille on screen at once, without making them particularly small. I state here my intention to change it. Morwen - Talk 16:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I support that decision. The claim that making them that big would make it any easier for a blind or visually impaired person to see them is absurd. 66.229.160.94 21:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Braille physical diagram

I've made a pair of diagrams detailing the specifications of Braille, as described on dots.physics.orst.edu. However, the current article seems too busy to add them.

—Daelin2006-01-05 04:19:12

[edit] Spoken version of this article

I created a spoken version of this article (for Spoken Wikipedia) but I'm not sure I'm happy with how it came out. The text of the article around the major graphics section doesn't flow well when read out loud; I am probably going to re-record it. (It came out to about 18 minutes, btw.) -Etoile 23:01, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Braille in Pokémon?

Does anyone else find this a little silly? I'm very tempted to delete this entry as I just don't see how it brings any value at all to the article. Phauge 15:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

Does braile in English use the same crappy spelling system, or is it easier?Cameron Nedland 02:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If we find the answer to that, we might be tempted to use it, and all hell might be let loose. Etaonsh 21:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

US Braille is English, so yes. The only diff is that Braille optionally uses a lot of ligatures so that it doesn't take up so much space. A Latin equivalent would be to use & "et", 1 "one", and 8 "eight" for all orthrgraphic instances of et, one, eight, so that better, stone, freight would be written "b&ter, st1, fr8". kwami 23:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanx 4 that - I was already using '8' for 'ate'/'-eight' in Qixpel, my reformed spelling system, as chance would have it. But '4' for 'for,' also. Etaonsh 15:56, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Braille 'the world's first binary character encoding'?

When I first found the article alleging this I altered it simply because the writer appears not to have heard of the ancient geomantic figures. I wake up this morning to find that, in the space of my few hours of sleep, a Finnish contributor called Petri Kohn has submitted a discussion article containing the phrase 'occult nonsense' (the article already no longer visible) and the Braille article has reverted to its original apparent inaccuracy. Whatever we think of occult practices, the fact remains that the geomantic figures are a binary code just as much as Braille. This is therefore skulduggery and POV gone mad, but I have merely placed a 'factually disputed' notice for the time being. Etaonsh 04:50, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

as a neutral third party, i will step in and try to resolve this, since i dislike seeing "disputed" signs. i read the pages on geomancy, and see that it is indeed a binary encoding scheme (4-bit), and that it is indeed ancient. however, it is not a character-encoding scheme, rather it is a concept-encoding scheme. the codes are not used in contiguous sequences by themselves to represent natural language, but taken one by one and incorporated into larger structures which they inform. thus the use of the work "character" here is key. i can see how this could be interpreted outside the context of natural language representation, too. my solution is to change the wording to "world's first binary encoding scheme for representing the characters of a writing system", which i will now do, and remove the disputed sign. we'll see if it sticks :) Eupedia 18:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Supposing geomantic figures have any claim to being a character encoding (or a binary character encoding), the issue should be covered in the article on character encoding or encoding, not here. If Etaonsh wants to push his point-of-view and advance this new interpritation on the history on computing and information theory, he should first do it in the relevant articles.

The section, originally written by me, tries to give a dense and precise technical definition of Braille, using todays terminology. It is not the the place to point out the fine details of encoding history. If the "claim" of Barille being the first binary character encoding were found not to be true, then the appropriate correction would have been to just simply state that "it is one of the first". Inserting references to the occult serves no purpose.

I still stand by my original "claim". Braille was a binary character encoding a hundred years before anyone knew what a binary encoding is. Morse code is younger then Barille, but even more important, it is not a binary encoding.

I feel that the new text is inferior to the original. What you have done, is spelled out character encoding as an "encoding scheme for representing the characters of a writing system". The orignal emphasis in the sentence was on the word binary. Now I do not know where to place this word.

I propose a return to the original form. If a definition of character encoding is needed, it could be incorporated into the introduction. -- Petri Krohn 23:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you are correct to disagree and overtly suggest that geomantic figures have a claim to being an earlier binary character encoding system. But you are the first person to do so - I merely indicated it by repudiating your original claim that Braille was, with likely evidence. The suggested revision "it is one of the first" would obscure the facts of the matter, particularly, as you suggest, as the information still needs to be inserted into the character encoding entry, and it would be best to achieve consensus here before wading into a further altercation. I repudiate your suggestion that I am 'pushing' a 'point-of-view' when merely indicating the existence of what appears to be an earlier binary character encoding system which you weren't aware of. Your continuing public attack on, and link to the 'occult' is, on the other hand, 'pushing a point-of-view' - and an irrelevance.

You say 'I still stand by my original "claim". Braille was a binary character encoding a hundred years before anyone knew what a binary encoding is.' This is not disputed, except in so far as these were not your original words, and doubt remains as to whether Braille himself was aware 'what a binary encoding is.'

I too feel dissatisfied with the text as it stands, and suggest we modify to 'Braille is the world's third known binary character encoding (after geomantic figures and the I Ching).' Etaonsh 07:49, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I second Petri Krohn's suggestion of returning to the original wording. Even though both geomantic figures and I Ching are binary encodings, they are not character encodings since they don't encode characters, but a small number of certain concepts (or words, if you will). If the wording were only: "Braille can be seen as the world's first binary encoding", then it would be wrong; however, it appears to be correct to assert that "Braille can be seen as the world's first binary character encoding". Likewise, I consider the specification suggested by Eupedia is not necessary, since it is already included within the article on character encodings. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 10:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This is getting very technical and quite conceptually tricky so I'm hoping someone isn't going to jump in at this stage, 'revert first and ask questions afterwards.' I've just looked at the character encoding entry and I don't feel convinced, on the basis of the definition given there, that geomantic figures and the I Ching (assuming the I Ching isn't geomantic!) are not examples of character encoding. To answer this question properly, we really need someone at home both with semiotics and with what elements of geomantic figures and the I Ching are used to represent. I don't get the impression that both sides in the argument here are in that position, particularly when mention of geomantic figures was initially repudiated apparently on a dogmatically held point-of-view basis. Etaonsh 14:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Having now had a little more time to look at this issue, it seems to hinge on the definition of 'character.' Either we can look upon it as meaning strictly an artificial signum, or we can consider signa as things that occur naturally in the universe around us - this seems very much in accord with the philosophy behind geomantic figures, the I Ching and divination in general (altho the prefix 'super-' in the latter link's definition of divination could be misleading). Clearly the notion that the universe communicates to us with meaningful characters/signa is typically occultist and has the potential to offend the anti-occultist. But science itself habitually reads natural signa in the environment. But can we describe the signum rectus/natural sign, or elements thereof, as a 'character/characters'? Why not? After all, it seems to at last neatly reunite the two otherwise disparate meanings of the word 'character' into a unity, and assists us in understanding the thinking behind what I would, myself, describe as 'the world's earliest known binary character encoding systems' (for which I would like to thank you all for stimulating this insight); and perhaps also explains, at last, why the English homophone 'character' happens to share those two particular meanings (therefore again!). Etaonsh 23:19, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I started a new section in Character encoding on history. This discussion might be more usefull in Talk:Character encoding -- Petri Krohn 00:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I saw your new section in character encoding but it looks more like a history of binary character encoding. The topic you have chosen to initiate is a potentially enormous one, encompassing all known writing systems. Otherwise, I don't oppose your suggestion, and also feel that students of the I Ching and geomantic figures might benefit from a link to this discussion, at least. But to give Braille his due, it is his writing system which initially inspired this fascinating and insightful discussion, not dry character encoding or ancient, occult geomantic figures/the I Ching. Etaonsh 08:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I concede that we may debate whether I Ching and geomantic figures are character encodings, but they are certainly not writing systems. The primary purpose of a writing system is to transcribe language which is not possible with these systems – It's only a writing system if you can write with it. Neither am I happy with having them labeled charater encodings, since it appears to be a very specific term from computer science (and as I've said, Braille isn't a character encoding either, but an alphabetic code). ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 19:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone stated that I Ching and geomantic figures are writing systems - but it could, however, be argued that they are systems for writing something - the language of nature, arguably. I'm a little worried about the way fashionable computer science and its terminology seems to begin in denial of any kind of related precedents and antecedent intelligence, and vies for academic funding with university linguistics departments - sometimes to the cost of the latter, their knowledge database, their work, their students and their witness to posterity. Etaonsh 00:50, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to argue that Braille is not a binary encoding: at least not a pure one. A binary encoding would encode everything with symantic meaning into a pattern that could be interpreted as on/off. It is true that a single braille character consists of 6 points that can be raised or not. However, (please correct me if I'm wrong here) braille text uses whitespace also, which cannot be considered to be part of the string of binary. For example, paragraphs and notes in margins (e.g. this braille page from the Book of Jeremiah). The white space cannot be considered simply "000000" as it is not interpreted as such by the reader.

If braille were binary, then the characters could be turned into a binary sequence and then back into braille without any additional symbols or interpretation and no meaning would be lost. However this is not the case, as paragraph (marks) and margin-text has meaning. It's a technical point but uh, it might stop you arguing :) (All that said, shorter lengths of braille could still be considered a binary sequence). —Pengo 01:52, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Braille uses a whitespace the size of a Braille cell between words. This may be omitted from tables listing the Braille characters, as it's use is assumed to be self-evident. This makes it no less a space character.

"Notes in margins" are not relevant to this issue, as similar layout issues appear with any character set including plain .txt. The fact that Braille does not have non-printing characters for formating like ASCII, does not make it any less a character encoding. -- Petri Krohn 06:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

...Does anyone else seem to notice that there is no colon mentioned?

[edit] Display Braille Characters On Web Pages

Unicode defines "Braille Patterns" character block at codepoint range hex 2800–28FF. As of now (July 2006) following fonts GNU Unifont ("unifont"), Code2000 ("Code2000"), ClearlyU ("ClearlyU"), Y.OzFontN supports / includes Braille characters. Requesting to include the free font GNU Unifont in the class="Unicode". Thanks. ~ Tarikash 21:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC).