According to the trend, nearly 253 million people have a visual impairment, 36 million of whom have a severe visual impairment, for a total of almost 3.44% having a visual impairment and 2.95% having other impairments. This translates to almost 3.44% having a visual impairment and 2.95% having other impairments. Of those, some have lost the tendency or vision, and some are blind from birth.
You must have seen them reading books and even writing pieces of text, but how do they actually read books and gather knowledge? For this purpose, they need a unique tool to read books, through which they can feel the letters in a book. Let’s look at the particular tool
What is Braille?
In the Braille system, raised dots are used as the letters of the alphabet in the Braille system of touch reading and writing for the blind. Additionally, it offers symbols to represent letter groupings and contains analogues for punctuation marks.
Braille is written by moving the hands back and forth and from left to right. Both hands should be used and the average speed is found to be 125 words per minute. More than that, 200 words at max will be taken as a measure.
The Braille alphabets are the same as the alphabet that we study in our primary schooling, but the difference is the methodology of the study. There are six dots in each cell and a pattern resembling raised dots in a 3*2 configuration. The cells represent the letters, punctuation marks, and numerics.
This was invented by a French teacher who worked as a teacher of blind students, Louis Braille. He was also blind by birth and was known as the “father of Braille”. He found the importance of education for blind students and developed something that is used widely till now.
Where is This System Used?
The Braille system is used at various public places to ensure that blind people have equality in the marketplace too. These are in the form of educational readings such as books, novels, and journals. These are present in financial statements such as credit cards, loan documents, cheques, etc.
We can also see it on debit cards, where the name of the cardholder is written in raised letters. Apart from all these, we can find them on restaurant menus. Braille also provides the scope to learn various hobbies and recreational activities such as music, playing cards, board games, scores and hymnals etc.
The Initial Beginning of Braille
The Braille system was known as the system that was developed in the early 1800s.
During that time, there was a man named Charles Barbier. He was the one who served in Napolean Bonapart’s army, and he was French. Now, during the time after dark, the French soldiers used lamps to read the crucial conflict messages. Due to this, the enemy found it easy to aim the French soldiers at night.
There, Barbier came up with the approach of “Night Writing”. The outlook was quite different back then. The Braille was divided into cells, each having 12 dots, 2 columns, and 6 rows. Where each dot represented a letter or punctuation mark, the limitation was the inability to feel all the dots with one touch.
Louis Braille’s Entry
Soon after Barbier’s invention, Braille came into the picture. He lost his eyesight at a very young age when he accidentally stabbed himself with his father’s awl. At the age of 11, he found the inspiration to modify Barbier’s “Night Writing”. His only motive was to make reading and writing feasible for the blind population.
After a year, he enrolled himself in the National Blind Institute of the Blind in Paris. There, he started the development of Braille, and it took approximately 9 years to make it useful for the blind population. After the victory, it was finally named Braille. There, he redefined the system into a 6-cell, which was earlier a 12-cell.
There are certain modifications and changes were made, such as contractions within the group of letters. The contractions help to read the language faster. It also reduces the size of braille books, which makes them easy to carry.
Benefits of Braille on Today’s Date
The sources of history have always proved fruitful to the present generation. This particular resource is still helping millions of people who are in need of education and research. Today, the Braille language has been moulded into different languages worldwide.
There are various schools that are using this resource in order to make the future of blind students bloom. The advancements in this resource benefit a large group of our population, which Braille would be very proud of. This is making blind people more confident and provides them with the equality to live a normal life.
Braille resources are also needed in workplaces and offices to enable blind employees to participate in teams. A number of films, including Proof and The Color of Paradise, are also based on the Braillesuch concept. Numerous organizations for its advancement are being run in an effort to normalize Braille.
Written by: Khushbu Arora
Edited by: Nidhi Jha
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