Esperanto Braille

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

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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] Esperanto ŭ is made by reflecting u, so that dot 1 becomes dot 4: ⠬ ŭ. The alphabet is thus as follows.^[2]

a

b

c

ĉ

d

e

f

g

ĝ

h

ĥ

i

j

ĵ

k

l

m

n

o

p

r

s

ŝ

t

u

ŭ

v

z

q

w

x

y

Contracted braille^[3] is in limited use.

Transcribing foreign letters

Beside the basic-Latin foreign letters q, w, x, y above, there are dedicated letters for the accented vowels that occur in print Hungarian, ä, ö, ü, ő, ű. 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:

ä

ö

ü

ő

ű

◌́

◌̀, ◌̄

◌̃

◌̂, ◌̌

◌̈, ◌̇

◌̊, ◌̆

◌̧, ◌̨, ◌̣, ◌̩

◌̸, ◌̵, etc.

Text in another braille alphabet, rather than just foreign names adapted to Esperanto Braille, is indicated by the code ⠐⠂.

Punctuation

Single punctuation

,

' (abbr.)

.

?

!

;

:

*

/

...

-

—

The apostrophe and abbreviation point are both transcribed ⠄, which is distinct from the period/stop, ⠲.

Paired punctuation

(outer quotes)

(inner quotes)

( ... )

[ ... ]

Quotation marks in print Esperanto are highly variable, and tend to follow the conventions of the country a text is published in. This is considered irrelevant for printing in braille.

Numbers

The apostrophe/abbreviation point ⠄ is used as the digit-separator in numbers. In print Esperanto, the comma is used as the decimal mark, so:

print English 100,000.00

= print Esperanto 100 000,00

= braille ⠼⠁⠚⠚⠄⠚⠚⠚⠂⠚⠚.

Formatting

Capitals are only marked for proper names, not at the beginning of a sentence.

(digit)	(caps)	(emph.)	(alternative emphasis)	(foreign braille text)

There are two signs for emphasis, ⠸ and ⠠⠄. It is not clear if they differentiate print italic and bold. A simple ⠸ in used to mark each of one to three words; for more than that, a colon precedes: ⠒⠸, and an additional sign ⠸ is placed before the last emphasized word.

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

External links

• Ligo internacia de blindaj esperantistoj