Cantonese Braille is a Cantonese language version of Braille

Braille

The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...

 in Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

. It is locally referred as tim chi (點字), dot character, or more commonly, tuk chi (凸字), raised character. Although Cantonese is written in Chinese character

Chinese character

Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

s, the Cantonese Braille is coded by purely Cantonese phonetics

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...

, with some special codes for Chinese punctuations, and numeral

Number names

In linguistics, number names are specific words in a natural language that represent numbers.In writing, numerals are symbols also representing numbers...

s and Roman alphabets from original Braille. It can be mixed with English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 text.

Braille

Braille is coded by arranging 6 dots into a Braille cell of 2 columns and 3 rows. Each dot is numbered from 1-6; the left column is 1, 2 and 3 from top to down and right 4, 5 and 6. If a dot is used, it would be punched on paper or raised on plate for blinds, or shaded black in visual representation. With the coming of the electronic age, Braille is extended to 8 dots by adding seventh and eighth dot at the bottom for mapping ASCII

ASCII

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

.

In Cantonese Braille, the two extra dots are ignored and not shown.

See Braille Alphabet for details on using Braille.

Main Chart

The following charts shows the Braille code used by Cantonese Braille. From traditional Chinese phonetics, the pronunciation of a Chinese character can divided in three parts, namely, initial, final and tone. For example, the Chinese character pun4 (盤), with its initial p, final un and tone 4, is translated into Cantonese Braille ⠯⠮⠄. Usually, there is no space (⠀) between Chinese characters until the end of a sentence.

For details about Cantonese phonetics, see Cantonese phonology.

Braille equivalent	Cantonese Braille	dot position	initial	final	tone
!	⠮	2346		un
"	⠐	5			8
$	⠫	1246		an
%	⠩	146		ai
&	⠯	12346	p	ip
'	⠄	3			4, 9
(	⠷	12356		yut
)	⠾	23456	t	it
*	⠡	16		au
+	⠬	346		aai
,	⠠	6			5
.	⠨	46		ak
/	⠌	34		aau
0	⠴	356		ing
1	⠂	2			6
2	⠆	23		yun
3	⠒	25		oeng
4	⠲	256		in
5	⠢	26		ap
6	⠖	235		im
7	⠶	2356		eng
8	⠦	236		ung
9	⠔	35		at
:	⠱	156		oe
;	⠰	56		ong
<	⠣	126		oi
>	⠜	345		aam
?	⠹	1456		yu
@	⠈	4			3
a	⠁	1			2
b	⠃	12		aa
c	⠉	14	z(dz)	aang
e	⠑	15		e
f	⠋	124	f	ot
g	⠛	1245	ng	ang
h	⠓	125	h	ei
i	⠊	24		i
j	⠚	245	j	oei
k	⠅	13	g	aak
l	⠇	123	l
m	⠍	134	m
n	⠝	1345	n	on
o	⠕	135		o
p	⠏	1234	b	aap
q	⠟	12345	gw	uk
r	⠗	1235	k	ik
s	⠎	234	s	oen
t	⠞	2345	d	aat
u	⠥	136		u
v	⠧	1236		ou
w	⠺	2456	w	ek
x	⠭	1346	c(ts)	eot
y	⠽	13456		iu
z	⠵	1356		ut
[	⠪	246		oek
\	⠳	1256		ui
]	⠻	12456	kw	ok
^	⠘	45		aan
_	⠸	456		am
space	⠀				1, 7