Chinese braille (literally "Current Braille") is a braille system for the Chinese language, especially in People's Republic of China. It is different from other braille systems. One Chinese character is generally represented by 1 to 3 Braille cells, following its pronunciation in Standard Mandarin. Every Mandarin syllable is decomposed into 3 parts: onset or initial rime or final and tone ().

Symbols

Onsets

Pinyin	b	c	d	f	g/j	h/x	r	k/q	l	m	n	p	ch	s	t	z	sh	zh
Brailles	⠃	⠉	⠙	⠋	⠛	⠓	⠚	⠅	⠇	⠍	⠝	⠏	⠟	⠎	⠞	⠵	⠱	⠌

Rimes

Pinyin	Brailles
ye/ie	⠑
yi/i	⠊
wo/uo	⠕
er	⠗
wu/u	⠥
an	⠧
wei/ui	⠺
yang/iang	⠭
wai/uai	⠽
yuan/üan	⠯
wa/ua	⠿
ou	⠷
ei	⠮
yue/üe	⠾
ying/ing	⠡
yin/in	⠣
yan/ian	⠩
yong/iong	⠹
ya/ia	⠫
wan/uan	⠻
you/iu	⠳
ai	⠪
wen/un	⠒
weng/ong	⠲
o/e	⠢
ao	⠖
wang/uang	⠶
ang	⠦
a	⠔
en	⠴
yao/iao	⠜
yu/ü	⠬
eng	⠼
yun/ün	⠸

Tones

tones	1	2	3	4	neutral
Pinyin marks	¯	´	ˇ	`	(none)
Brailles	⠁	⠂	⠄	⠆	(none)

Symbols

Symbols	。	,	?	!	:	;	-	…	· (interpunct)	(	)	[/]
Brailles	⠐⠆	⠐	⠐⠄	⠰⠂	⠒	⠰	⠠⠤	⠐⠐⠐	⠠⠄	⠰⠄	⠠⠆	⠰⠆

Rules

• Spaces are added between words, rather than between syllables.
• Tone is marked only in case of necessity. It is represented immediately after the rime.
• The rimes of the syllables zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, ri are not marked.

Ex) Simplified Chinese 时间不早了！

Traditional Chinese 時間不早了！

Pinyin Shíjiān bù zǎo le!

literally time not early (perfective particle)!

Braille ⠱⠂⠛⠩ ⠃⠥ ⠵⠖ ⠇⠢⠰⠂

Transcription Sh´jian bu zao le!

Ambiguity and future of Chinese Braille

The onset pairs g/j, k/q, h/x each has the same dot pattern. This, however, leads to no ambiguity, because the onsets j, q, x are only followed by rimes which begin with i or ü while the onsets g, k, h are never followed by such rimes. Note that the syllable spelled in pinyin as ju is actually a combination of j and ü, and is represented as such (⠛⠬ for ju; ⠛⠥ for gu). Similarly, most rime pairs that have the same dot patterns do not cause ambiguity. There are only three pairs of syllables (mo/me, e/o, le/lo) which are ambiguous. None of them seems to cause real confusion.

Whilst the Braille assignment does not cause much ambiguity, the rule of tone omission does. In practice, most tones are omitted, which leads to a lot of confusion. Nevertheless, this practice is barely reproachable because the representation of tone by an extra Braille cell is quite uneconomical. Systematic indication of tones in the current system could lengthen the text by 50%.

A more delicate system known as Two-Cell Chinese Braille was designed in the 1970s. It encodes all the information (onset, rime and tone) of one syllable in two Braille cells, thus is at the same time unambiguous and economical. This new system is now used in parallel with the current system.

See also

• Japanese braille
• Vietnamese braille
• Hebrew braille
• Korean braille

References

• http://www.braille.ch/pschin-e.htm (but note that the dots are missing from some of the U's on that page)
• Cantonese Braille is described pictorially at http://www.hadley-school.org/7_d_chineseBrailleAlphabet.asp
• J Grotz, "The necessary reform of Chinese Braille writing", Rehabilitation (Stuttgart) 1991 Aug 30(3):153-5. Abstract available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1947424&dopt=Abstract