Chinese braille is a 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...

 system for the Chinese language

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, especially in People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

. It is different from other braille systems, although a few of the patterns have been borrowed from alphabetical Braille as can be seen in the tables below.

One Chinese character

Chinese character

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

 is generally represented by 1 to 3 Braille cells, following its pronunciation in Standard Chinese

Standard Chinese

Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....

. Every Mandarin syllable is decomposed into 3 parts: onset or initial , rime

Syllable rime

In the study of phonology in linguistics, the rime or rhyme of a syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda. It is the part of the syllable used in poetic rhyme, and the part that is lengthened or stressed when a person elongates or stresses a word in speech.The rime is usually the...

 or final , and tone

Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...

 .

Onsets

Pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...	b	c	d	f	g/j	h/x	r	k/q	l	m	n	p	ch	s	t	z	sh	zh
Braille	⠃	⠉	⠙	⠋	⠛	⠓	⠚	⠅	⠇	⠍	⠝	⠏	⠟	⠎	⠞	⠵	⠱	⠌
Equivalent Braille ASCII Braille ASCII Braille ASCII is a subset of the ASCII character set which uses 64 of the printable ASCII characters to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dot Braille...	B	C	D	F	G	H	J	K	L	M	N	P	Q	S	T	Z	:	/

Rimes

Pinyin	Braille	equivalent Braille ASCII Braille ASCII Braille ASCII is a subset of the ASCII character set which uses 64 of the printable ASCII characters to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dot Braille...
ye/ie	⠑	E
yi/i	⠊	I
wo/uo	⠕	O
er	⠗	R
wu/u	⠥	U
an	⠧	V
wei/ui	⠺	W
yang/iang	⠭	X
wai/uai	⠽	Y
yuan/üan	⠯	&
wa/ua	⠿	=
ou	⠷	(
ei	⠮	!
yue/üe	⠾	)
ying/ing	⠡	*
yin/in	⠣	<
yan/ian	⠩	%
yong/iong	⠹	?
ya/ia	⠫	$
wan/uan	⠻	]
you/iu	⠳	\
ai	⠪	[
wen/un	⠒	3 (i.e. lower 3)
weng/ong	⠲	4 (i.e. lower 4)
o/e	⠢	5 (i.e. lower 5)
ao	⠖	6 (i.e. lower 6)
wang/uang	⠶	7 (i.e. lower 7)
ang	⠦	8 (i.e. lower 8)
a	⠔	9 (i.e. lower 9)
en	⠴	0 (i.e. lower 0)
yao/iao	⠜	>
yu/ü	⠬
eng	⠼	#
yun/ün	⠸	_

Tones

tones	1	2	3	4	neutral
Pinyin marks	¯	´	ˇ	`	(none)
Braille	⠁	⠂	⠄	⠆	(none)
Equivalent Braille ASCII Braille ASCII Braille ASCII is a subset of the ASCII character set which uses 64 of the printable ASCII characters to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dot Braille...	A	1 (i.e. lower 1)	'	2 (i.e. lower 2)	(none)

Symbols

Symbols	。	,	?	!	:	;
…	· (interpunct Interpunct An interpunct —also called an interpoint—is a small dot used for interword separation in ancient Latin script, which also appears in some modern languages as a stand-alone sign inside a word. It is present in Unicode as code point .... )	(	)	[/]
Braille	⠐⠆	⠐	⠐⠄	⠰⠂	⠒	⠰	⠠⠤	⠐⠐⠐	⠠⠄	⠰⠄	⠠⠆	⠰⠆
equivalent Braille ASCII Braille ASCII Braille ASCII is a subset of the ASCII character set which uses 64 of the printable ASCII characters to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dot Braille...	"2	"	"'	;1	3	;	,-	"""	,'	;'	,2	;2

Rules

• Spaces are added between words, rather than between syllables.
• Tone is marked only in case of necessity. It is represented immediately after the rime.
• The rimes of the syllables zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, ri are not marked.

Example
Simplified Chinese: 时间不早了！
Traditional Chinese: 時間不早了！
Pinyin: Shíjiān bù zǎo le!
Literally: time not early (perfective particle

Grammatical particle

In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...

)!

Braille: ⠱⠂⠛⠩⠁⠀⠃⠥⠆⠀⠵⠖⠄⠀⠇⠢⠰⠂

Equivalent Braille ASCII

Braille ASCII

Braille ASCII is a subset of the ASCII character set which uses 64 of the printable ASCII characters to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dot Braille...

: :1G%A BU2 Z6' L5;1

Ambiguity

The onset pairs g/j, k/q, h/x each has the same dot pattern. This, however, leads to no ambiguity, because the onsets j, q, x are only followed by rimes which begin with i or ü while the onsets g, k, h are never followed by such rimes. Note that the syllable spelled in pinyin as ju is actually a combination of j and ü, and is represented as such (⠛⠬ for ju; ⠛⠥ for gu). Similarly, most rime pairs that have the same dot patterns do not cause ambiguity. There are only three pairs of syllables (mo/me, e/o, le/lo) which are ambiguous. None of them seems to cause real confusion.

Whilst the Braille assignment does not cause much ambiguity, the rule of tone omission does. In practice, most tones are omitted, which leads to a lot of confusion. Nevertheless, this practice is barely reproachable because the representation of tone by an extra Braille cell is quite uneconomical. Systematic indication of tones in the current system could lengthen the text by 50%.

Two-Cell Chinese Braille

A more delicate system known as Two-Cell Chinese Braille was designed in the 1970s. It encodes all the information (onset, rime and tone) of one syllable in two Braille cells, thus is at the same time unambiguous and economical. This new system is now used in parallel with the current system.

Initial and medial is coded in the first cell; final and tone is coded in the second cell.

Initials (in first cell):
b ⠉ p ⠦ m ⠪ f ⠖
d ⠌ t ⠎ n ⠏ l ⠇ r ⠔
g/j ⠁ k/q ⠅ h/x ⠃
zh ⠉ ch ⠍ sh ⠋
z ⠙ c ⠝ s ⠛
y ⠒ w ⠢ yu ⠲
The zero initial consonant is represented by ⠾

Medials:
i = dot 5 (⠐) u = dot 6 (⠠) ü = 5+6⠰

• Initials that use dots 5+6 themselves cannot have medials.
• i is used to distinguish between g/k/h and j/q/x; if i (dot 5) is present then it's j/q/x.

Vowels (in second cell):
a ⠚ e/o ⠒ ai ⠛ ao ⠓ ei ⠌ ou ⠅ an ⠋ ang ⠙ en ⠁ eng ⠑
No vowel: ⠃

• ⠒ is o after b/p/m/f, otherwise e. No vowel (? or no dots) is u after b/p/m/f.

Tones:

• Tone 1 (mā): add dot 3 to second cell: ⠄ unless the second cell already contains dot 3 (ei ⠌ and ou ⠅) in which case add dot 5 ⠐
• Tone 2 (má): add dot 6 to second cell: ⠠
• Tone 3 (mǎ): add dots 3 and 6 to second cell: ⠤ unless the second cell already contains dot 3 (ei ⠌ and ou ⠅) in which case add dots 5 and 6 (⠰)
• Tone 4 (mà) and neutral: no change to second cell (note that there is ambiguity between tone 4 and neutral; this should not cause trouble in practice)

Special representations:

• ér or èr: ⠔⠚, ěr: ⠔⠾
• ⠔ as a suffix means erhua
  Erhua
  Erhua ; also called erhuayin refers to a phonological process that adds r-coloring or the "ér" sound to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. It is most common in the speech varieties of North China, especially in the Beijing dialect, as a diminutive suffix for nouns, though some dialects also...
  
  . ⠔⠤ is used as an erhua in mid-word.
• shi on its own = ⠋, as a suffix it is ⠔ and elsewhere ⠋⠃
• the sound that occurs in the first half of "ei" and the second half of "ye" is represented by⠐⠊
• yo =⠈⠊
• the exclamation 哦 (o) = ⠠⠊

Resolving common homophones:

• tā: 他 (he) ⠎⠞, 她 (she) ⠈⠎⠶, 它 (it) ⠐⠎⠶ (i.e. precede "she" with dot 4, and "it" with dot 5)
• zài: 在 (at) ⠙⠛, 再 (again) ⠈⠙⠛ (i.e. precede "again" with dot 4)
• shì: 是 (is) by itself and as an ending is ⠋, 事 (thing) ⠋⠃
• de: for 的 write ⠌ with spaces before and after; for 地 (adverbial particle) write ⠌⠒ with spaces before and after; for 得 write ⠌⠒ with no space before but with a space after.

Other combinations:

• for -in, use medial i and ending "en"; for -ing, use i + eng
• for -un, use u + en; u + eng gives -ong
• for -n, use en

ong ⠠⠑ iong ⠰⠑

Digits: Use ⠼ (the standard Braille number sign) followed by 1=⠁ 2=⠃ 3=⠌ 4=⠙ 5=⠑ 6=⠋ 7=⠛ 8=⠓ 9=⠊ 0=⠚

Punctuation marks:

• comma=⠐
• stop=⠐⠆
• question mark = ⠐⠄(dot 5, dot 3)
• dunhao (、) ⠈
• quotes ⠘
• colon ⠤
• semicolon ⠰
• apostrophe ⠐⠐⠐
• title quotes 《》 ⠠⠄ and ⠠
• exclamation mark ⠰⠂

The reference adds some Chinese rhymes to help remember the above.

Usage

The China Library for the Blind (中国盲文图书馆) in Beijing has several thousand volumes, mostly published by the China Braille Press (中国盲文出版社). The National Taiwan Library

National Taiwan Library

The National Taiwan Library is the oldest public library in Taiwan. Founded in 1914, the library is home to a large collection of documents concerning the history, culture, politics and geography of Taiwan.- History :...

has a Braille room with a postal mail service and some electronic documents.

External links

• Omniglot: Braille for Chinese