Two-cell Chinese Braille

Each syllable is rendered with two braille characters. The first combines the initial and medial; the second the rime and tone. The base letters represent the initial and rime; these are modified with diacritics for the medial and tone. Thus each of the braille cells has aspects of an abugida.

Braille charts

Onsets

The first cell indicates the initial, generally in dots 1 to 4, and the medial in dots 5 and 6. This design exploits restrictions on co-occurrence of initials and medials to fit all the allowable combinations in a single cell.

The medial -i- is represented by dot 5 (⠐), the medial -u- by dot 6 (⠠), and the medial -ü- by both dots 5 and 6 (⠰). The z c s series is derived from zh ch sh as if they contained a -i- medial; these two series are not distinguished in many Mandarin dialects. As in traditional Chinese Braille, k g h and q j x are unified, as they never contrast.

A null/zero initial (a vowel-initial syllable) is indicated with the null consonant ⠾.

At least one letter in each place of articulation comes from international use (⠖ f, ⠞ ti, ⠇ l, ⠅ k, ⠓ xi, ⠉ zh), with at least some of the others derived from these (cf. ⠅⠃⠁ k h g and ⠍⠋⠉ ch sh zh).

Rimes

The second cell represents the rime, generally in the top half of the cell, and the tone, generally in dots 3 and 6.

Tone 1 (mā) is indicated by dot 3 (⠄), tone 2 (má) by dot 6 (⠠), and tone 3 (mǎ) by dots 3 and 6 (⠤). (In rime -ei, which already contains a dot 3, the dot 3 for tones 1 and 3 is replaced by dot 5 (⠐ or ⠰).) Tone 4 (mà) and neutral/toneless syllables use the basic rime.

A null/zero rime (a syllable ending with medial i u ü) is written with ⠃.

• ⠃ is the 'zero' rime transcribed as -i after z c s zh ch sh r in pinyin; here it's also used to carry the tone for syllables where the medial is the rime, such as gu or mi. After b p m f, it is equivalent to pinyin -u.
• ⠊ is transcribed in pinyin as o after b p m f w and the medial u; otherwise it's e.

The rime er is written as if it were *ra; this is possible because *ra is not a possible syllable in Mandarin. At the end of a word, ⠔ -r is erhua, as in ⠣⠞⠔ huār (花儿). Within a word, hyphenate erhua (⠔⠤) to avoid confusion with an initial r- in the following syllable.

The exclamation ê is ⠐⠊, yo is ⠈⠊, and o is ⠠⠊, with appropriate modification for tone.

Combining onset and rime

Combinations of onset and rime follow the conventions of zhuyin, and are therefore not obvious from pinyin transcription.

• for pinyin -in, use medial -i- with rime -en; for -ing, use -i- and -eng
• for -un (the equivalent of wen), use -u- and -en; for -ong (the equivalent of weng), use -u- and -eng
• for -iong (the equivalent of yueng, though written yong in pinyin), use -ü- and -eng

Several syllables are palindromes, with the onset and rime written the same:

⠾⠾ ǎ, ⠊⠊ bò, ⠪⠪ mó, ⠮⠮ tuǒ, ⠯⠯ nuǎn, ⠗⠗ liāo, ⠧⠧ lǔ, ⠑⠑ jìng, ⠕⠕ qīng, ⠥⠥ kǔn, ⠓⠓ xiào, ⠣⠣ hú, ⠉⠉ zhòu, ⠙⠙ zàng, ⠍⠍ chōu, ⠝⠝ cāng, ⠋⠋ shàn, ⠛⠛ sài

A toneless or 4th-tone zero rime is omitted at the end of a polysyllabic word. (Words ending in ⠔⠃ rì (日) 'day' are an exception, to prevent confusion with the erhua suffix.) When context makes it unambiguous, the zero rime in other tones may also be omitted.

Sandhi is not rendered; rather, the inherent tone of a morpheme is written.

The following are rendered as toneless syllables:

• Interjections and grammatical particles such as 啊 a, 呀 ya, 哇 wa, 吧 ba, 啦 la, 呢 ne, 吗 ma.
• The verbal aspectual suffixes 了 -le, 着 -zhe, 过 -guo
• The nominal suffixes 子 -zi and 头 -tou.

Common abbreviations

Suffixes

Words