Braille is a form of written language used by visually impaired and blind individuals. It is made of a series of six raised dots arranged within a unit of space known as a cell. People read these dots with their fingers. That's why we have referred to the tactile channel. The dots, or bumps, represent letters, numbers, punctuation marks and even whole words. But where does braille come from? Braille was invented in 1821 by Louis Braille, a Frenchman who became blind when he was a child. However, the braille language was not widely used until after his death. Many improvements have been made to braille over the years, and now, thanks to advanced braille technology, visually impaired people can use electronic devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones to read braille. Braille is available in different foreign languages. In the reading material, we have included the basics of braille as proposed by the Braille Authority of North America, an American organization whose mission is to assure literacy for tactile readers through the standardization of braille and/or tactile graphics. You might wonder whether this alphabet is used in all languages in all countries. Well, sixty years ago UNESCO published the first edition of the World Braille Usage, focusing on the establishment of a universal, worldwide code. While there is still interest in universal agreement on the characters to be used worldwide, the emphasis is now on unification within languages. Many new countries have also adopted official codes, and countries with shared languages have grouped together to evaluate current usage and to make recommendations for the future. The International Council on English Braille (ICEB), for example, brought together Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States to develop a Unified English Braille Code (UEB) for both technical and literary purposes. In the reading material, we have included the link to the third edition of the World Braille Usage, which attempts to document the current state of braille around the world. The document dates back to 2013, but it should include relevant information for your own country. If you intend to produce braille texts in-house, you will need a braille embosser, the appropriate paper and software to translate electronic files into braille. As far as the software is concerned, there are commercial braille translators available and free software such as NFBTRANS, Braille Translator or Turbo Braille, and probably more. You will find more information about this software online. As far as printers are concerned, some examples of braille embosser producers are Braillo, Enabling Technologies, Index Braille and ViewPlus. If you intend to buy material, make sure that the software and the printer are compatible. When producing a document that will have to be translated into braille, remember that pictures, diagrams, tables, charts and graphs may be more difficult to render in braille than basic text. When the document is ready to be translated into braille, you will need to make decisions about the presentation of the final product. The American Council of the Blind has formulated a few recommendations in its Guide to Making Documents Accessible to People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired, that same document I referred to earlier and for which there is a link in the reading material. The recommendations deal with questions such as: Will the document be embossed on one side of the paper or on two? Or which size paper will be used? So make sure you read these recommendations before starting. As you will soon realize, producing documents in braille is not something for improvisation. If you don’t have the time or resources to produce these documents yourself, know that you can outsource the job. In Flanders, for example, braille documents can be made by the non-profit organization Licht en Liefde, for which a link is available. But I’m confident there are comparable organizations in your coutry. Well, that's all for me now. I hope you enjoyed this part of the unit and in particular, that you will remember the main points. Bye!
