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Braille Exchange SeminarThe Changing Braille Code: How Did We Get to UEB and Why?

Jennifer Ottowitz Danette JohnsonVileen Shah

• History of Reading and Writing to the 1960s

• Earliest known reading and writing system was used in the 1600s

• Alphabet was cut into wood• People trace letters• Mimic motion with pen and paper.

• 1700s

• 1762 Mademoiselle DeSalignac• Good fortune/intelligent enough to develop own system• could read and write letter formed by pinpricks on paper.

• Entire books were printed for her

  

1785

•First school for teaching blind- Valentin Hauy

• Alphabet learned by cards cut out of pasteboard (embossed)• Read from cards pricked by pins.

• Books embossed by pressing moistened paper against raised wooden letters. At the time of Louis Braille’s entrance into Hauy’s school in 1819, only 14 books were embossed.

•All methods flawed

• expensive and cumbersome equipment• couldn’t be written; needed a printing press.

•

1800s Period of Experimentation

• Boston Line Type

• Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of New England School for the Blind, now Perkins

• Embossed Roman alphabet without capitals

• First book in 1834, primary mode for 50 years

 

New York Point

• William Bell Wait

• Point code with two dots high and 1,2,3, or 4 dots wide.

• Writing machine called Kleidograph

• Widely used in the late 1800s in US

Moon Type

Developed by Rev. William Moon in 1845

• Raised line code based on print letters

• Believed to be easier to learn and more tactually simple to discriminate than braille

• Still used in Great Britain for those with learning or fine motor difficulties

 

BrailleLouis Braille blinded at age 3 on an awl in father’s leather shop

Met army captain Charles Barbier

Raised dots and dashes for night writing messages.

Barbier adapted it presented it to Institution for Blind Youth.

Consisted of groups of 12 dots

Braille worked on it and changed it

Based on 6 dots

Published it in 1829

Braille Books

oFirst book published in 1829

oAdded symbols for math and music in 1837

oSystem not widely accepted in Louis's time.

o Introduced in the US in 1860s

oMarketable braille writer not available until 1890s.

CONTRACTIONS

•Braille originally just a one symbol for one letter translation, gradually abbreviations or contractions were added and grade 2 contracted braille was completed by 1905 in Great Britain.

UNIFORMITY First attempted in 1878 by

International Congress on work for the Blind

Didn’t address letters beyond the 26, so changes were made to meet those languages conventions

In US American Modified Braille attempted

Unification again attempted in 1951 by UNESCO, an agency of the UN

Decided to let English contractual

braille be the partial international standard

BRAILLE CODES 1960 - 2015

• Adoption of EBAE (English Braille American Edition) 1962: revised 1968, 1980, 1987, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2007.

• Adoption of textbook format code 1966

• Adoption of International Phonetic Alphabet 1972

• Adoption of CBC (Computer Braille Code) 1972: revised in 1987, 2000.

• Adoption of UEB (United English Braille) Code 2012.

UEB JUSTIFICATIONS

• Need to unify multiple codes

• Mainstreaming education and employment of blind

• Computer technology and braille impact

• Need for computer-generated translation

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON ENGLISH BRAILLE

• Birth of UEB 2004;

• Adoption by member countries: South Africa 2004; Nigeria, Australia, New Zealand 2005; Canada 2010; United Kingdom 2011; the United States 2012; Ireland 2013. Partial adoption of UEB by US: retained Nemeth Code. Full adoption by all other members.

• UEB as of now in the US: Role of NLS in adoption and implementation of UEB: Complete switch over to UEB by January 4, 2016.

• Hadley's leadership and initiatives in adopting and implementing UEB.

WHAT'S CHANGED WITH UEB?

NINE CONTRACTIONS ELIMINATED

• ation and ally

• to, into and by

• dd, com and ble

• o'clock

NO JOINING RULE

UEB SPACING 

•Remember UEB follows the print spacing, so…. 

= !…the contractions and, for, of, the, with are no longer written together

TO INTO BY• …the contractions for to, into, by have been dropped since these

contractions connected to the word that follows. Be aware that in situations like to be, by his, or into his, you may now contract the second lower contraction.

To 2

New Terms New Rules

Strong Groupsigns

Final Letter Groupsigns

Lower Groupsigns

Bridging PrefixesMany contractions can bridge prefix or suffix and root word

• There are Dots and then there are dots, but in UEB Periods, Decimals and other Dots are no longer strangers.

NEW PUNCTUATION AND SYMBOLS

BRAILLE WITH AUTHENTIC ACCENTS

piñata

niño

Zoë müsli

• Numbers and Symbols • Numbers with Words

• May the 4ce b with u 4ever!

• ,may ! #d;ce ;b ) ;u

#d;ever6

• Words with Symbols

• $ta$h the Ca$h $aving$ and

Loan

• `sta`sh ! ,ca`sh

`sav+`s & ,loan

NUMBERS AND SYMBOLS IN NEW WAYS

• Contractions are possible

• The Hadley School for the Blind

• http://www.hadley.edu

• http3_/_/www4_hley4$u

• 9fo@a_hley4$u

WEB AND E-MAIL ADDRESSES

Check us out on YouTube.Like us on Facebook.

Follow us on Twitter!

Explore Hadley Programs and Initiatives

ADDITIONAL UEB RESOURCES

http://www.brailleauthority.org/ueb.html

http://brailleliteracycanada.ca/en/what-is-braille/unified-english-braille-(ueb)/ueb-resources

http://uebonline.org/about/ueb-braille/

• Hadley has established partnerships/collaborations with national and international organizations.

• Building partnerships helps us become more innovative and continuously improve our services.

BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS

VISIT WWW.HADLEY.EDU

HADLEY SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND

For more information on our services, call us at 1-800-323-4238 or visit our Web site at www.hadley.edu

info@hadley.edu