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South African braille

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Several braille alphabets are used in South Africa. For English, Unified English Braille has been adopted. Nine other languages have been written in braille: Afrikaans, Ndebele, Sesotho, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu.[1] All print alphabets are restricted to the basic Latin alphabet, with diacritics in some cases; the braille alphabets are likewise basic braille with additional letters to render the diacritics.

Basic braille alphabet
⠁ (braille pattern dots-1) ⠃ (braille pattern dots-12) ⠉ (braille pattern dots-14) ⠙ (braille pattern dots-145) ⠑ (braille pattern dots-15) ⠋ (braille pattern dots-124) ⠛ (braille pattern dots-1245) ⠓ (braille pattern dots-125) ⠊ (braille pattern dots-24) ⠚ (braille pattern dots-245) ⠅ (braille pattern dots-13) ⠇ (braille pattern dots-123) ⠍ (braille pattern dots-134)
a b c d e f g h i j k l m
⠝ (braille pattern dots-1345) ⠕ (braille pattern dots-135) ⠏ (braille pattern dots-1234) ⠟ (braille pattern dots-12345) ⠗ (braille pattern dots-1235) ⠎ (braille pattern dots-234) ⠞ (braille pattern dots-2345) ⠥ (braille pattern dots-136) ⠧ (braille pattern dots-1236) ⠺ (braille pattern dots-2456) ⠭ (braille pattern dots-1346) ⠽ (braille pattern dots-13456) ⠵ (braille pattern dots-1356)
n o p q r s t u v w x y z

The Nguni languages – Ndebele, Swazi, Xhosa, and Zulu – have no diacritics and will not be discussed further. The braille diacritics are shared by South African languages and are described in the sections that follow.

Punctuation for all South African braille alphabets is as in English Braille.

Afrikaans Braille

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Afrikaans Braille
Script type
alphabet
Print basis
Afrikaans alphabet
LanguagesAfrikaans
Related scripts
Parent systems
Braille
  • South African
    • Afrikaans Braille

Afrikaans has braille cells for acute, ; grave, ; circumflex, ; and diaeresis, :

á, é, í, ó, ú, ý
à, è
ê, î, ô, û
ë, ï, ö, ü

Sesotho and Tswana Braille

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Sotho Braille
Tswana Braille
Script type
alphabet
Print basis
Sesotho alphabet
Tswana alphabet
LanguagesSesotho, Northern Sotho, Tswana
Related scripts
Parent systems
Braille
  • South African
    • Sotho Braille

Sesotho and Tswana treat the caron (haček) as an acute:

ê, ô, : š

Venda Braille

[edit]
Venda Braille
Script type
alphabet
LanguagesVenda
Related scripts
Parent systems
Braille
  • South African
    • Venda Braille

Venda has a unique letter, , for the subscript circumflex, and treats as acute:

, , , ,

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Ethnologue 17 reports that Tsonga is also written in braille.