braille

human language /breyl/ (Often capitalised) A class of

writing systems, intended for use by blind and low-vision

users, which express glyphs as raised dots. Currently

employed braille standards use eight dots per cell, where a

cell is a glyph-space two dots across by four dots high; most

glyphs use only the top six dots.

Braille was developed by Louis Braille (pronounced /looy

bray/) in France in the 1820s. Braille systems for most

languages can be fairly trivially converted to and from the

usual script.

Braille has several totally coincidental parallels with

digital computing: it is binary, it is based on groups of

eight bits/dots and its development began in the 1820s, at the

same time Charles Babbage proposed the Difference Engine.

Computers output Braille on braille displays and brailleprinters for hard copy.

British Royal National Institute for the Blind.

(1998-10-19)