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Devanagari Braille

Braille used in India and Nepal

  • 3 min read
  • 4 chapters

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System

Although basically alphabetic, Devanagari Braille retains one aspect of Indian abugidas, in that the default vowel a is not written unless it occurs at the beginning of a word or before a vowel. For example, braille ⠅ (the consonant K) renders print क ka, and braille ⠹ (TH), print थ tha. To indicate that a consonant is not followed by a vowel (as when followed by another consonant, or at the end of a syllable), a halant (vowel-cancelling) prefix is used: ⠈⠅ (∅–K) is क् k, and ⠈⠹ (∅–TH) is थ् th. (When writing in Hindi, the halant is generally omitted at the end of a word, following the convention in print.) However, unlike in an abugida, there are no vowel diacritics in Devanagari Braille: Vowels are written with full letters following the consonant regardless of their order in print. For example, in print the vowel i is prefixed to a consonant in a reduced diacritic form, कि ki, but in braille it follows in its full form: ⠅⠊ (K–I), equivalent to writing ⟨कइ⟩ for ki in print. Thus क्लिक klika is written in braille as ⠈⠅⠇⠊⠅ (∅–K–L–I–K). The one time when a non-initial a is written in braille is when it is followed by another vowel. In this environment the a must be written to indicate that it exists, as otherwise the subsequent vowel will be read as following the consonant immediately. Thus a true ⟨कइ⟩ kai in print is rendered in braille as ⠅⠁⠊ (K–A–I).

Apart from kṣ and jñ, which each have their own braille letter, Devanagari Braille does not handle conjuncts. Print conjuncts are rendered instead with the halant in braille. Devanagari braille is thus equivalent to Grade-1 English braille, though there are plans to extend it to conjuncts.

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