Mainland Chinese Braille

(Mainland) Chinese Braille is a braille script used for Standard Mandarin in China.^[1] Consonants and basic finals conform to international braille, but additional finals form a semi-syllabary, as in zhuyin (bopomofo). Each syllable is written with up to three Braille cells, representing the initial, final, and tone, respectively. In practice tone is generally omitted as it is in pinyin.

Braille charts

Traditional Chinese Braille is as follows:^[2]

Initials

Chinese Braille initials generally follow the pinyin assignments of international braille. However, j, q, x are replaced with g, k, h, as the difference is predictable from the final. (This reflects the historical change of g, k, h (and also z, c, s) to j, q, x before i and ü.) The digraphs ch, sh, zh are assigned to ⠟ (its pronunciation in Russian Braille), ⠱ (a common pronunciation in international braille), and ⠌. R is assigned to ⠚, reflecting the old Wade-Giles transcription of ⟨j⟩. (⠗ is used for the final er, the pronunciation of the name of that letter in English Braille.)

Pinyin	b	c	d	f	g/j	h/x	r	k/q	l	m	n	p	ch	s	t	z	sh	zh
Braille

Finals

The finals approximate international values for several of the basic vowels (⠢ e (o), ⠊ yi, ⠕ wo, ⠥ wu, ⠬ yü, ⠳ you, ⠮ ei), but then necessarily diverge. However, there are a few parallels with other braille alphabets: ⠗ er and ⠽ wai are pronounced like the names of those letters in English braille; ⠑ ye, ⠫ ya, and ⠳ you are pronounced like those letters in Russian Braille. ⠯ yuan, ⠾ yue, ⠣ yin, are similar to the old French pronunciations oin, ieu, in. For the most part, however, Chinese Braille finals do not obviously derive from previous conventions.

The pinyin final -i is only written where it corresponds to yi. Otherwise* (in ci zi si ri chi zhi shi) no final is written, a convention also found in zhuyin. The final -e is not written in ⠙ de, a common grammatical particle written with several different characters in print.^[3]

Pinyin Braille a e/o ai ei ao ou an en ang eng

Pinyin Braille yi, -i* ya, -ia ye, -ie yao, -iao you, -iu yan, -ian yang, -iang yin, -in ying, -ing

Pinyin Braille wu, -u wa, -ua wo, -uo wai, -uai wei, -ui wan, -uan wen, -un wang, -uang weng, -ong

Pinyin Braille yu, -ü yue, -üe yuan, -üan yun, -ün yong, -iong er

Tones

Tone is marked sparingly.

Tone	1	2	3	4	neutral
Pinyin	¯	´	ˇ	`	(none)
Braille					(none)

Punctuation

Chinese Braille punctuation approximates the form of international braille punctuation, but several spread the corresponding dots across two cells rather than one. For example, the period is ⠐⠆, which is the same pattern as the international single-cell norm of ⠲.

Print	。	,	、	?	!	:	;	-	—	…	·	(	)	[ ]	《	》	"	'
Chinese Braille
French equivalent	⠲	⠂		⠢	⠖	⠒	⠆	⠤		⠄⠄⠄	⠀	⠦	⠴	⠶

Rules

• Spaces are added between words, rather than between syllables.
• Tone is marked when needed. It comes after the final.
• As in zhuyin, the finals of the syllables zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, ri are not marked.

Two examples, the first with full tone marking, the second with tone for disambiguation only:

时间不早了！ (時間不早了！)

⠱⠂⠛⠩⠁⠀⠃⠥⠆⠀⠵⠖⠄⠀⠇⠢⠰⠂

⠱⠂⠛⠩⠁⠀	⠃⠥⠆⠀	⠵⠖⠄⠀	⠇⠢⠰⠂
时间	不	早	了！
Shíjiān	bù	zǎo	le!
time	not	early	PFV

草地上的花是风吹开的。

⠉⠖⠄⠙⠊⠆⠀⠱⠦⠀⠙⠀⠓⠿⠁⠀⠱⠀⠋⠼⠀⠟⠺⠅⠪⠀⠙⠐⠆

⠉⠖⠄⠙⠊⠆⠀	⠱⠦⠀	⠙⠀	⠓⠿⠁⠀	⠱⠀	⠋⠼⠀	⠟⠺⠅⠪⠀	⠙⠐⠆
草地	上	的	花	是	风	吹开	的。
cǎodì	shang	de	huā	shi	feng	chuikai	de.
grass	above	which	flower	is	wind	blown away	by ]]

Ambiguity

Chinese Braille has the same level of ambiguity that pinyin does. In practice, tone is omitted 95% of the time, which leads to a space saving of a third. Tone is also omitted in pinyin military telegraphy, and causes little confusion in context.

The initial pairs g/j, k/q, h/x are distinguished by the final: initials j, q, x are followed by the vowels i or ü, while the initials g, k, h are followed by other vowels. This reflects the historical derivation of j, q, x from g, k, h before i and ü,^[4] and parallels the dual pronunciations of c and g in Spanish and Italian. In pinyin, the redundancy is resolved in the other direction, with the diaeresis omitted from ü after j, q, x. Thus braille ⟨gü⟩ is equivalent to pinyin ju:

⠛⠥ gu,

⠛⠬ ju.

Usage

The China Library for the Blind (中国盲文图书馆) in Beijing has several thousand volumes, mostly published by the China Braille Press (中国盲文出版社).^[5] The National Taiwan Library has a Braille room with a postal mail service and some electronic documents.^[6]

See also

• Two-Cell Chinese Braille
• Taiwanese Braille
• Cantonese Braille

Notes

1. ↑ Pace Unesco (2013), a different alphabet is used in Taiwan, Taiwanese Braille.
2. ↑ Vivian Aldridge, 2000 [2002] How is Chinese written in braille?
3. ↑ UNESCO (2013) World Braille Usage, 3rd edition.
   (⠙ is mistakenly said to be a contraction of di in the charts, but is confirmed as de in the sample.)
4. ↑ They also derive from z, c, s before i or ü, and this is the identity reflected in Taiwanese braille.
5. ↑ Fruchterman, Jim (2008-10-08). "Beneblog: Technology Meets Society: China Braille Press". Benetech.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2012-08-13. 
6. ↑ "Delivery of Library Materials". Southernlibrarianship.icaap.org. Retrieved 2012-08-13. 

References

• J. Grotz, "The necessary reform of Chinese Braille writing", Rehabilitation (Stuttgart) 1991 Aug 30(3):153-5. Abstract available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1947424&dopt=Abstract

Further reading

• Constance Frederica Gordon Cumming. Work for the blind in China. Printed by Gilbert & Rivington, Limited, St. John's House, Clerkenwell, London E.C.: Gilbert & Rivington, Ld. p. 79. Retrieved April 23, 2012.  [Original from Columbia University; digitized August 18, 2009]

External links

Listen to this article (info/dl)

This audio file was created from a revision of the "Mainland Chinese Braille" article dated 2011-01-24, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)

More spoken articles

• Omniglot: Braille for Chinese
• 学点盲文
• Braille at the Dongli Disabled Persons' Federation