50 Fun Facts About Braille

How many raised dot positions make up a standard braille cell?

They are arranged in a 3-by-2 matrix, numbered 1 to 3 down the left column and 4 to 6 down the right.

How many possible patterns can a six-dot braille cell form, counting the empty cell used as a space?

Because there are only 64, most braille characters carry several meanings depending on context.

How old was Louis Braille when he developed his code in 1824?

He was still a student at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris when he presented it to his peers.

How did Louis Braille lose his sight?

He was three when the awl glanced off the leather into one eye; the infection spread to the other and he was fully blind by five.

In which small town about twenty miles east of Paris was Louis Braille born in 1809?

His childhood home there is now a museum, and the town square was renamed Braille Square.

Whose tactile code, later known as 'night writing', inspired Louis Braille?

Barbier's system used up to twelve dots for 36 sounds; Braille cut it to six dots that fit under one fingertip and stood for letters, not sounds.

How many embossed dots did each symbol use in Barbier's original system?

Braille objected that a 12-dot symbol could not fit under the pad of a reading finger, slowing reading down.

Which school, founded by Valentin Haüy, did Louis Braille attend from 1819 and later teach at?

Haüy taught reading with heavy paper embossed with raised Latin letters; the school owned three books when it opened.

Braille's 1829 system used dots and what other element, dropped by the 1837 edition?

The dashes were too hard to tell apart by touch; the 1837 revision is described as the first binary form of writing of the modern era.

Which two instruments did Louis Braille play as an accomplished musician?

He was organist at the Church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs in Paris from 1834 to 1839, and his system included musical notation from the start.

Which subjects did Louis Braille teach as a professor at the Institute?

He was made a full professor in 1833 and stayed at the school for most of his life.

How old was Louis Braille when he died of a respiratory illness in 1852?

He died two days after his birthday, having lived with what was long believed to be tuberculosis for 16 years.

Which part of Louis Braille was left in his home town when his remains moved to the Panthéon?

They were reverently buried near his childhood home in a symbolic gesture.

In what year did the Institute finally adopt Braille's system, at the insistence of its blind pupils?

That was two years after his death; a rival teacher, Pierre-Armand Dufau, had banned it in 1840 before it was reintroduced in 1844.

In what year was braille officially adopted by schools for the blind in the United States?

Dr. Armitage had complained in 1882 that North America was the last holdout; a universal English braille code followed in 1932.

Which part of the cell do the first ten braille letters, a to j, use?

The same ten cells double as the digits 1 to 9 and 0 when preceded by the number sign.

How are the letters k to t formed from a to j in braille?

The next decade adds dots at both 3 and 6, and w was tacked on at the end because it was not in the French alphabet of Braille's day.

Why was the letter w left out of Louis Braille's original alphabetical sequence?

It was eventually added at the end of the 39-letter French series to accommodate English.

In braille, the same cell that means the letter d also stands for which digit?

A number sign placed before a cell switches it from letter to digit, since a-j double as 1-9 and 0.

What is the traditional hand tool for writing braille, punching each dot in mirror image from the back?

Mistakes can be rubbed out with a braille eraser or overwritten with all six dots.

How many keys does a standard braille writing machine have?

One key per dot; the first widely accepted braille typewriter was Frank Haven Hall's, presented in 1892.

Who produced the 1951 braille typewriter that became the best-known machine of its kind?

He worked at the Perkins School for the Blind, and the Perkins Brailler that bears its name fits up to 42 cells per line.

What was DOTSYS, written by Robert Mann at MIT in 1960?

DOTSYS III, from the Mitre Corporation, became the first braille translator written in a portable programming language.

What is 'interpoint' in braille printing?

The dots on one side sit between the divots that form the dots on the other, halving the paper needed.

In English contracted braille, the word 'afternoon' is written with how many letters?

It becomes 'afn', much like stenoscript; the letter for 'and' can also appear inside words like 'grand'.

What was uncontracted braille previously known as?

Contracted braille was grade 2, and grade 3 refers to non-standardised personal shorthands.

How many characters fit on a line of a standard 11-by-11.5-inch braille page?

With 25 lines per page, that is why almost all English braille books are transcribed in contracted braille to save space.

By the 2020s, braille codes existed for roughly how many languages?

Unified English Braille has been adopted by all seven International Council on English Braille member countries plus Nigeria.

Where are the two additional positions placed in eight-dot braille?

That gives 256 combinations, enough to encode every printable ASCII character, including letter case, in one cell.

In which Unicode version was the braille pattern block added?

The block runs from U+2800 to U+28FF and encodes patterns by their binary appearance rather than their alphabetical order.

What does a refreshable braille display use to form characters?

They can work as stand-alone devices or connect to computers and smartphones, converting on-screen text into braille.

According to Wikipedia, what share of all printed books has been translated into hardcopy braille?

The fastest readers use a light touch with the index fingers of both hands.

How do Canada's polymer banknotes indicate their denomination by touch?

Both braille readers and non-readers can simply count the cells; Australia added a tactile feature to its five-dollar note in 2016.

How many clusters of raised dots does the UK's polymer £20 note carry in its top left corner?

The £10 note has two clusters; the feature helps blind and partially sighted people tell notes apart.

Which 2003 US state quarter carried the first known braille on a US coin, honouring Helen Keller?

Her name appears in both English script and braille on the coin's obverse.

In the United Kingdom, what product is legally required to carry its name in braille on the packaging?

Euro coins were also designed with blind people's organisations so they can be told apart by touch alone.

On which date is World Braille Day observed?

It marks Louis Braille's birthday and has been recognised by the United Nations as an official day since 2019.

What was named 9969 Braille in 1992 in honour of the inventor?

Encyclopædia Britannica lists him among the '100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time'.

Which two European countries struck 2-euro coins for the 200th anniversary of Louis Braille's birth in 2009?

India issued two coins and the United States a one-dollar coin the same year.

What was 'decapoint', described in Louis Braille's 1839 book?

It used a special grill and number table; his friend Foucault's Raphigraphe machine later sped the process up and was shown at the 1855 Paris World's Fair.

Braille is described as the first writing system with what kind of encoding?

Each character maps to a six-bit tuple, which is why braille slots so neatly into computer displays and embossers today.

Which 1973 US law, moving blind children into mainstream schools, is blamed for declining braille literacy?

Only a small share of public schools could hire braille-qualified teachers; 27 states have since mandated that legally blind children get the chance to learn braille.

How old was Louis Braille when the workshop accident that led to his blindness happened?

The injury to one eye became infected and the infection spread to the other, leaving him totally blind.

What trade did Louis Braille's father Simon-René follow?

Young Louis played among the awls and leather of the harness shop from the time he could walk.

Which teacher, who took over the Institute in 1840, opposed the teaching of Braille's system?

Dufau forced out the supportive director Pignier; the system was reintroduced in 1844 with the backing of Joseph Guadet.

In what year, the centenary of his death, were Louis Braille's remains moved to the Panthéon?

The town square in Coupvray was also renamed Braille Square in his honour.

Who devised the tactile music-notation code used by blind musicians?

Braille music uses the same six-dot cell as literary braille but with its own meanings, syntax and abbreviations.

How many ICEB member countries have adopted Unified English Braille?

Work to standardise braille codes across the English-speaking world began in 1991; Nigeria has also adopted UEB.

According to a study by Lowenfield and Abel, braille is read fastest by students using what?

Skilled readers finish a line with the right hand while the left hand is already finding the start of the next line.

Which of these was NOT a Royal Institute classmate whom Louis Braille counted as a lifelong friend?

Barbier was the army officer whose 'night writing' inspired Braille, not a fellow pupil.