Cantonese Braille

Cantonese Braille (Chinese: 粵語點字) is a Cantonese language version of Braille in Hong Kong. It is locally referred as tim chi (點字), dot character, or more commonly, tuk chi (凸字), raised character. Although Cantonese is written in Chinese characters, the Cantonese Braille is coded by purely Cantonese phonetics, with some special codes for Chinese punctuations, and numerals and Latin letters from the original Braille. It can be mixed with English text.

Braille

A Braille cell

Braille is coded by arranging 6 dots into a Braille cell of 2 columns and 3 rows. Each dot is numbered from 1-6; the left column is 1, 2 and 3 from top to down and right 4, 5 and 6. If a dot is used, it would be punched on paper or raised on plate for blinds, or shaded black in visual representation. With the coming of the electronic age, Braille is extended to 8 dots by adding seventh and eighth dot at the bottom for mapping ASCII.

In Cantonese Braille, the two extra dots are ignored and not shown.

See Braille Alphabet for details on using Braille.

Unicode rendering table

Main Chart

The following charts shows the Braille code used by Cantonese Braille. From traditional Chinese phonetics, the pronunciation of a Chinese character can divided in three parts, namely, initial, final and tone. For example, the Chinese character pun4 (盤), with its initial p, final un and tone 4, is translated into Cantonese Braille ⠯⠮⠄. Usually, there is no space (⠀) between Chinese characters until the end of a sentence.

For details about Cantonese phonetics, see Cantonese phonology.

Braille equivalent	Cantonese Braille	dot position	initial	final	tone
!	⠮	2346		un
"	⠐	5			8
$	⠫	1246		an
%	⠩	146		ai
&	⠯	12346	p	ip
'	⠄	3			4, 9
(	⠷	12356		yut
)	⠾	23456	t	it
*	⠡	16		au
+	⠬	346		aai
,	⠠	6			5
.	⠨	46		ak
/	⠌	34		aau
0	⠴	356		ing
1	⠂	2			6
2	⠆	23		yun
3	⠒	25		oeng
4	⠲	256		in
5	⠢	26		ap
6	⠖	235		im
7	⠶	2356		eng
8	⠦	236		ung
9	⠔	35		at
:	⠱	156		oe
;	⠰	56		ong
<	⠣	126		oi
>	⠜	345		aam
?	⠹	1456		yu
@	⠈	4			3
a	⠁	1			2
b	⠃	12		aa
c	⠉	14	z(dz)	aang
e	⠑	15		e
f	⠋	124	f	ot
g	⠛	1245	ng	ang
h	⠓	125	h	ei
i	⠊	24		i
j	⠚	245	j	oei
k	⠅	13	g	aak
l	⠇	123	l
m	⠍	134	m
n	⠝	1345	n	on
o	⠕	135		o
p	⠏	1234	b	aap
q	⠟	12345	gw	uk
r	⠗	1235	k	ik
s	⠎	234	s	oen
t	⠞	2345	d	aat
u	⠥	136		u
v	⠧	1236		ou
w	⠺	2456	w	ek
x	⠭	1346	c(ts)	eot
y	⠽	13456		iu
z	⠵	1356		ut
[	⠪	246		oek
\	⠳	1256		ui
]	⠻	12456	kw	ok
^	⠘	45		aan
_	⠸	456		am
space	⠀				1, 7

References

• Cantonese Braille is described pictorially at http://www.hadley-school.org/7_d_chineseBrailleAlphabet.asp

See also

• Cantonese
• Chinese Braille