Esperanto Braille
Esperanto Braille | |
---|---|
Script type | alphabet
|
Print basis | Esperanto alphabet |
Languages | Esperanto |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Braille
|
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The Esperanto language has a dedicated braille alphabet. One Esperanto braille magazine, Esperanta Ligilo, has been published since 1904, and another, Aŭroro, since 1920.
Alphabet
[edit]The basic braille alphabet is extended for the print letters with diacritics. The circumflex is marked by adding dot 6 (lower right) to the base letter: ⠩ ĉ, ⠻ ĝ, ⠳ ĥ, ⠺ ĵ, ⠮ ŝ. Therefore, the letter ĵ has the same form as the unused French/English Braille letter ⠺ w; to write a w in a foreign name, dot 3 is added: ⠾ w [1] (see next section). Esperanto ŭ is made by reflecting u, so that dot 1 becomes dot 4: ⠬ ŭ. The alphabet is thus as follows.[2]
a |
b |
c |
ĉ |
d |
e |
f |
g |
ĝ |
h |
ĥ |
i |
j |
ĵ |
k |
l |
m |
n |
o |
p |
r |
s |
ŝ |
t |
u |
ŭ |
v |
z |
Contracted braille is in limited use.[3]
Transcribing foreign letters
[edit]Beside the basic-Latin foreign letters q, w, x, y, there are dedicated letters for the umlauted vowels that occur in print German, ä, ö, ü:
q |
w |
x |
y |
ä |
ö |
ü |
Additional accented letters in other languages are handled by separate braille cells for the diacritics. These do not have a one-to-one correspondence with print:
◌́ (and ő, ű from ö, ü) |
◌̀, ◌̄ |
◌̃ |
◌̂, ◌̌ |
◌̈, ◌̇ |
◌̊, ◌̆ |
◌̧, ◌̨, ◌̣, ◌̩ |
◌̸, ◌̵, etc. |
These conventions are used for foreign names adapted to Esperanto Braille. Unassimilated text in another braille alphabet is indicated by the code ⠐⠂.
Punctuation
[edit]- Single punctuation
(space) |
, |
' (abbr.) |
. |
? |
! |
; |
: |
* |
/ |
... |
- |
— |
The apostrophe and abbreviation point are both transcribed ⠄, which is distinct from the period/stop, ⠲. A series of colons, ⠒⠒⠒, is a common dinkus for dividing sections of texts.
- Paired punctuation
(outer quotes) |
(inner quotes) |
( ... ) |
[ ... ] |
Quotation marks in print Esperanto are highly variable, and tend to follow the conventions of the country a text is published in. This is irrelevant for printing in braille.
Numbers
[edit]The apostrophe/abbreviation point ⠄ is used to group digits within numbers, like the comma in English. In both print and braille Esperanto, the comma is used as the decimal mark, so:
- print English 100,000.00
- = print Esperanto 100 000,00
- = braille ⠼⠁⠚⠚⠄⠚⠚⠚⠂⠚⠚.
Formatting
[edit]Capitals are only marked for proper names. They are not used at the beginning of a sentence.
(digit) |
(caps) |
(emph.) |
(span emphasis) | ||
(alternative span emphasis) |
(foreign braille text) |
For emphasis (bold or italics in print), a simple ⠸ is used to mark each of one to three words. For longer emphatic text, there are two formats: Either a colon precedes the simple emphatic sign, ⠒⠸, and an additional sign ⠸ is placed before the last emphasized word, or the sign ⠠⠄ is placed before and after the emphasized text.
In contracted (grade 2) braille, a different sign is used for capital letters, ⠠ (dot 6). As in most braille orthographies, proper names are not contracted, and words preceded by this sign are not contracted in Esperanto Braille.
References
[edit]- ^ "Redirecting to Google Groups".
- ^ "World Braille Usage". UNESCO. 2013. Archived from the original on 2014-09-08. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
- ^ Esperanta stenografio, Nizhny Novgorod, 2003