Hello, I am trying to explain the development of Bengali braille. In the late nineteenth century, Ramananda Chattopadhyay, the renowned editor of the Bengali monthly Prabasi, first arranged a braille script for Bengali language. This script or alphabet was adopted by Lal Bihari Shah when he established the Calcutta Blind School in 1894. I am not sure if he accepted Shri Chattopadhyay's code exactly or modified it somewhat. This braille code was known as "Shah Braille" after Lal Bihari Shah.
Later most probably in the fifties, Louis Braille's arrangement of seven lines of braille characters was used for writing Bengali braille. In this system the standard braille characters were used to represent the Bengali alphabet in order of sequence without any heed to the sound. This was popular as "New Braille" and was mainly in vogue in Calcutta Blind School also. However, when embossed books came into use in the seventies, the current Bharati braille was adopted in Bengali. In fact, Bharati braille was recognised in 1949 in India on the initiative of the government and the UNESCO. A committee was formed to devise a code for all Indian languages. Here standard English braille characters represent Indian characters phonetically, i.e. English A represents Bengali "aw", B represents "baw" and so on. So is the system for braille in all Indian languages. Since sightless people had to depend on manuscribed material in braille in the early part of the twentieth century, there were several varieties of braille codes. With the introduction of the Bharati braille and embossed books along with it in the sixties, there has developed a uniform braille code all over India. As one can learn Standard English Braille and read all European languages, one can learn Bharati braille and read all Indian languages. What he needs is to know the specific alphabet and pronunciation rules. I would request others to discuss the matter in detail in other languages. Best regards, Amiyo Biswas. Cell: +91-9433464329 Skype ID: amiyo11 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Subramani L" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 10:44 AM Subject: [AI] braille in different languages > Hai folks: > > I need information on how Braille scripts are different in different > languages, how the writing pattern changes and how easy or difficult it > is for a V I person to write the scripts? Pl enlighten me. > > Subramani > > > To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
