DOCSLIB.ORG

Japanese Braille Tutorial

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Japanese Braille Tutorial Japanese Braille Tutorial By Mitsuji Kadota ([email protected]) Last update: 1997.10.20 Table of contents 1. Introduction 1.1 Difference in Japanese and English language 2. Transcribing Japanese sentence to Braille 2.1 Transcription from Kanji to Kana 2.2 Transcription from Kana to Braille 3. Japanse Braille 3.1 Normal characters 3.2 Daku-on 3.3 You-on 3.4 Tokusyu-on 3.5 Arabic numerals 3.6 Alpahbets 3.6 Other characters 4. Japanese sentence example 1. Introduction Braille system was invented by Louis Braille in 1825 and was established as the international standard in 1878. Japanese Braille system is based on Louis Braille's 6-dot system, and improved byKuraji Ishikawa. Ishikawa made Japanese Braille system fit to Japanese language. Phonological and orthographic difference in Japanese and English makes transcription process of Japanese Braille very unique. 1.1 Difference in Japanese and English language The noticeable phonological difference between Japanese and English is in syllable structure where English syllable is basically closed (CVC: a consonant + a vowel + a consonant) and Japanese syllable, open (CV). In terms of orthography, Japanese is written with Kanji, Kana (Hiragana and Katakana), western alphabet and Arabic numerals. Kanji is an ideogram imported from China and Kana is a phonogram created from Kanji by Japanese. While alphabet represents a single sound, Kana represents a syllable (a consonant and a vowel). Each Kanji can be transcribed by Kana's. Generally, Kanji's are used as independent words whereas Kana's, as function words. Since Japanese is written with a combination of Kanji and Kana, unlike English and other western languages, a space is not usually inserted between words. 2. Transcribing Japanese sentence to Braille In order to transcribe Japanese sentence to Braille, two levels of work is done. First, transcribe Kanji to Kana. Secondly, transcribe Kana to Braille based on Japanese Braille code. 2.1 Transcription from Kanji to Kana Generally, Japanese Braille is described by Kana's (The method which can represent Kanji's by 6 dots also exists). So first step is the transcription from Kanji to Kana's. A Kanji has multiple ways of reading: the sound of Japanese origin, "kun" and that of Chinese origin, "on". Appearance of these two sounds in sentence is based on complex rules of Japanese. After that, insert space between words in order to make all Kana strings easy to read.Finally, several Kana characters, which have the same sound as basic Kana have to be fixed. The rule of Japanese Braille provides the last two processes. But sometimes the rule is not unified, especially for numerals, personal nouns and foreign words. 2.2 Transcription from Kana to Braille Braille has 6 dots in a cell and each cell can represent 63 kinds of letters. This is not sufficient to cover Japanese orthography at all when Kanji's are considered. This is why Kanji-Kana conversion is necessary. However, we still need to secure 98 kinds and 63 is not enough. Therefore the following rules were defined by Ishikawa, the inventor of Japanese Braille. 1. Among 6 dots, 3 dots (dots 1-2-4) are to represent a vowel, the other 3 dots(dots 3-5-6) a consonant. 2. Braille for "Daku-on", voiced sounds and "You-on", sounds of combination of CyV such as in "kya" uses 2 cells where first cell contains an indicator for such sounds. Arabic numerals and alphabet are represented in different rules which basically follows the English Braille coding. 3. Japanese Braille In this section, I will describe combinations between Kana characters and Braille. Roman representation of Japanese is based on ISO3062, except Tokusyu- on. But this standard is sometimes incovenient, so I put down different representation with the standard. 3.1 Normal characters Vowel in Japanese ("a","i","u","e","o") is represented by dots 1-2-4. This representation is same as "a","b","c","d","e" in Englis Braille. *- *- ** ** -* -- *- -- *- *- -- -- -- -- -- a i u e o You can write most of normal characters by adding dots 3-5-6, which represent consonant("k","s","t","n","h","m"). *- *- ** ** -* -- *- -- *- *- -* -* -* -* -* ka ki ku ke ko *- *- ** ** -* -* ** -* ** ** -* -* -* -* -* sa si su se so *- *- ** ** -* -* ** -* ** ** *- *- *- *- *- ta ti tu te to *- *- ** ** -* -- *- -- *- *-. *- *- *- *- *- na ni nu ne no *- *- ** ** -* -- *- -- *- *-. ** ** ** ** ** ha hi hu he ho *- *- ** ** -* -* ** -* ** **. ** ** ** ** ** ma mi mu me mo And the rest of normal characters("ya","ra","wa","n" line) are represented as follows: -* -* -* -- -- -* *- ** *- ya yu yo *- *- ** ** -* -* ** -* ** ** -- -- -- -- -- ra ri ru re ro -- -- -- -- -* -* *- *- ** wa o(wo) n Tyou-on and Soku-on(normally represented as small "tu") are: -- -- ** *- -- -- (tyou-on) (soku-on) (Ex) ** -- ** -* ** -* -* -- *- su - tu ("suits") *- -- *- *- *- -* -- -- *- i t ta ("said" or "went") 3.2 Daku-on (voiced sounds) Daku-on are represented by placing a indicator before normal character. Two types of indicator are used: dot 5 and dot 6. -- *- -- *- -- ** -- ** -- -* -* -- -* *- -* -- -* *- -* *- -- -* -- -* -- -* -- -* -- -* ga gi gu ge go (daku-on of "ka" line) -- *- -- *- -- ** -- ** -- -* -* -* -* ** -* -* -* ** -* ** -- -* -- -* -- -* -- -* -- -* za zi zu ze zo (daku-on of "sa" line) -- *- -- *- -- ** -- ** -- -* -* -* -* ** -* -* -* ** -* ** -- *- -- *- -- *- -- *- -- *- da di du de do (daku-on of "ta" line) -- *- -- *- -- ** -- ** -- -* -* -- -* *- -* -- -* *- -* *- -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** ba bi bu be bo (daku-on of "ha" line) -- *- -- *- -- ** -- ** -- -* -- -- -- *- -- -- -- *- -- *- -* ** -* ** -* ** -* ** -* ** pa pi pu pe po (han-daku-on of "ha" line) 3.3 You-on (CyV) Basically, you-on are represented by placing a indicator (dot 4) before normal character. you on of daku-on's indicator is 4-5 or 4-6. -* *- -* ** -* -* -- -- -- -- -- *- -- -* -- -* -- -* kya kyu kyo (you-on of "ka" line) -* *- -* ** -* -* -- -* -- -* -- ** -- -* -- -* -- -* sya syu syo (you-on of "sa" line) -* *- -* ** -* -* -- -* -- -* -- ** -- *- -- *- -- *- tya tyu tyo (you-on of "ta" line) -* *- -* ** -* -* -- -- -- -- -- *- -- *- -- *- -- *- nya nyu nyo (you-on of "na" line) -* *- -* ** -* -* -- -- -- -- -- *- -- ** -- ** -- ** hya hyu hyo (you-on of "ha" line) -* *- -* ** -* -* -- -* -- -* -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** mya myu myo (you-on of "ma" line) -* *- -* ** -* -* -- -* -- -* -- ** -- -- -- -- -- -- rya ryu ryo (you-on of "ra" line) You-on of daku-on : -* *- -* ** -* -* -* -- -* -- -* *- -- -* -- -* -- -* gya gyu gyo (you-on of "ga" line) -* *- -* ** -* -* -* -* -* -* -* ** -- -* -- -* -- -* zya zyu zyo (you-on of "za" line) -* *- -* ** -* -* -* -* -* -* -* ** -- *- -- *- -- *- zya zyu zyo (dya dyu dyo = "ti" + daku-ten + vowel) -* *- -* ** -* -* -* -- -* -- -* *- -- ** -- ** -- ** bya byu byo (you-on of "ba" line) -* *- -* ** -* -* -- -- -- -- -- *- -* ** -* ** -* ** pya pyu pyo (you-on of "pa" line) 3.4 Tokusyu-on (special sounds) Tokusyu-on are represented by placing a indicator before normal character. Five types of indicator are used: dot 4, 2-6, 4-6, 2-5-6,and 4-5-6. -* ** -- *- -- -- ye ("i" + small "e") -- *- -- ** -- -* *- *- *- *- *- *- -* -- -* -- -* -- wi we wo ("u" + small vowel) -- *- -- *- -- ** -- -* *- -* *- ** *- ** *- ** -* *- -* *- -* *- -* *- tsa tsi tse tso ("tu" + small vowel) -- *- -- *- -- ** -- -* *- -- *- *- *- *- *- *- -* ** -* ** -* ** -* ** fa fi fe fo ("hu" + small vowel) -- *- -- *- -- ** -- ** -- -* ** -- ** *- -* -- ** *- ** *- -* ** -* ** -- -- -* ** -* ** va vi vu ve vo ("u" + daku-ten + small vowel, except for "vu") -* ** -- ** -- -* sye ("si" + small "e") -* ** -* ** -- -* je ("zi" + small "e") -* ** -- ** -- *- tye ("ti" + small "e") -* *- -- ** -- *- tyi ("te" + small "i") -* *- -* ** -- *- dyi ("de" + small "i") -- ** *- -* -* *- twu ("to" + small "u") -- ** ** -* -* *- dwu ("do" + small "u") -* ** -- -* -* *- tyu ("te" + small "yu") -* ** -* -* -* *- dyu ("de" + small "yu") -- *- *- -- -* -* kwa ("ku" + small"a") -- *- ** -- -* -* gwa ("gu" + small"a") 3.5 Arabic numerals Arabic numerals are represented by placing indicator(3-4-5-6) before the cells. -* *- -* *- -* ** -* ** -* *- -* -- -* *- -* -- -* -* -* -* ** -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** -- 1 2 3 4 5 -* ** -* ** -* *- -* -* -* -* -* *- -* ** -* ** -* *- -* ** ** -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** -- 6 7 8 9 0 (ex) -* *- -- ** -* -- *- ** ** -- -- -- 1 . 7 Once a indicator appeared, following characters are treated as numerals, unless the cell doesn't represent any numerals. If you want to stop this treatment, you can place a "connector"(3-6). (Ex) -* *- *- -* -* *- -* *- ** -- -- -* 2 5 ko -* *- *- ** -* *- -* *- ** -- -- -- 2 5 6 -* *- *- -- ** -- -* *- -* -- *- -* ** -- -- ** -- ** 2 5 e n 3.6 Alphabets Alphabet coding rules are basically same as English Braille. You can write Alphabets in Japanese Braille by two methods. 1)Using indicator 5-6. (Ex) -- *- -* *- -* *- l 2)Placing cells between 2-3-6 and 3-5-6. (Ex) -- -- -* *- ** *- ** -- *- -- ** -- *- -- -* -* ** -* -- -- *- -- *- ** J a p a n 3.7 Other characters -- ** -* .(Japanse period) -- *- -* ? -- ** *- ! -- -* -* , (Japanse comma) -- -* -- (dot) -- -- -- .. -- ** ** (Japanse quotation) -- -- ** .. ** ** ** "(" ")" 4. Japanse sentence example (Ex) *- ** -- -- *- -- ** -- -- -* *- *- *- -- -- ** -- -- -- -* ** *- -- ** *- *- -* ** -* -- *- ** *- -- -* -* ** *- -* -- *- -* ka re wa " na ze ? " to ki i ta . (He asked, "Why?") Japanese Braille Japanese Braille ⠇⠮⠴⠟⠴⠐⠳ Type Abugida Languages Japanese Night writing Parent Braille systems o Japanese Braille Two-Cell Chinese Braille (in Child
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Study of Old Documents of Hokkaido and Kuril Ainu
    NINJAL International Symposium 2018 Approaches to Endangered Languages in Japan and Northeast Asia, August 6-8 The study of old documents of Hokkaido and Kuril Ainu: Promise and Challenges Tomomi Sato (Hokkaido U) & Anna Bugaeva (TUS/NINJAL) [email protected] [email protected]) Introduction: Ainu • AINU (isolate, North Japan, moribund) • Is the only non-Japonic lang. of Japan. • Major dialect groups : Hokkaido (moribund), Sakhalin (extinct since 1993), Kuril (extinct since the end of XIX). • Was also spoken in Tōhoku till mid XVIII. • Hokkaido Ainu dialects: Southwestern (well documented) Northeastern (less documented) • Is not used in daily conversation since the 1950s. • Ethnical Ainu: 100,000. 2 Fig. 2 Major language families in Northeast Asia （excluding Sinitic） Amuric Mongolic Tungusic Ainuic Koreanic Japonic • Ainu shares only few features with Northeast Asian languages. • Ainu is typologically “more like a morphologically reduced version of a North American language.” (Johanna Nichols p.c.). • This is due to the strongly head-marking character of Ainu (Bugaeva, to appear). Why is it important to study Ainu? • Ainu culture is widely regarded as a direct descendant of the Jōmon culture which was spread in the Japanese archipelago in the Prehistoric time from about 14,000 BC. • Ainu is the only surviving Jōmon language; there had been other Jōmon lgs too: about 300 lgs (Janhunen 2002), cf. 10 lgs (Whitman, p.c.) . • Ainu is likely to be much more typical of what languages were like in Northeast Asia several millennia ago than the picture we would get from Chinese, Japanese or Korean. • Focusing on Ainu can help us understand a period of northeast Asian history when political, cultural and linguistic units were very different to what they have been since the rise of the great historically-attested states of East Asia.
    [Show full text]
  • UNIT 2 Braille
    Mathematics Enhancement Programme Codes and UNIT 2 Braille Lesson Plan 1 Braille Ciphers Activity Notes T: Teacher P: Pupil Ex.B: Exercise Book 1 Introduction T: What code, designed more than 150 years ago, is still used Whole class interactive extensively today? discussion. T: The system of raised dots which enables blind people to read was Ps might also suggest Morse code designed in 1833 by a Frenchman, Louis Braille. or semaphore. Does anyone know how it works? Ps might have some ideas but are T: Braille uses a system of dots, either raised or not, arranged in unlikely to know that Braille uses 3 rows and 2 columns. a 32× configuration. on whiteboard Here are some possible codes: ape (WB). T puts these three Braille letters on WB. T: What do you notice? (They use different numbers of dots) T: We will find out how many possible patterns there are. 10 mins 2 Number of patterns T: How can we find out how many patterns there are? Response will vary according to (Find as many as possible) age and ability. T: OK – but let us be systematic in our search. What could we first find? (All patterns with one dot) T: Good; who would like to display these on the board? P(s) put possible solutions on the board; T stresses the logical search for these. Agreement. Praising. (or use OS 2.1) T: Working in your exercise books (with squared paper), now find all possible patterns with just 2 dots. T: How many have you found? Allow about 5 minutes for this before reviewing.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal Issue 26 | October 2019
    journal Issue 26 | October 2019 Communicating Astronomy with the Public Spotlighting a Black Hole What did it take to create the largest outreach campaign for an astronomical result? Tactile Subaru A project to make telescope technology accessible Naming ExoWorlds Update on the IAU100 NameExoWorlds campaign www.capjournal.org As part of the 100th anniversary commemorations, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is organising the IAU100 NameExoWorlds global competition to allow any country in the world to give a popular name to a selected exoplanet and its News News host star. The final results of the competion will be announced in Decmeber 2019. Credit: IAU/L. Calçada. Editorial Welcome to the 26th edition of the CAPjournal! To start off, the first part of 2019 brought in a radical new era in astronomy with the first ever image showing a shadow of a black hole. For CAPjournal #26, part of the team who collaborated on the promotion of this image hs written a piece to show what it took to produce one of the largest astronomy outreach campaigns to date. We also highlight two other large outreach campaigns in this edition. The first is a peer-reviewed article about the 2016 solar eclipse in Indonesia from the founder of the astronomy website lagiselatan, Avivah Yamani. Next, an update on NameExoWorlds, the largest IAU100 campaign, as we wait for the announcement of new names for the ExoWorlds in December. Additionally, this issue touches on opportunities for more inclusive astronomy. We bring you a peer-reviewed article about outreach for inclusion by Dr. Kumiko Usuda-Sato and the speech “Diversity Across Astronomy Can Further Our Research” delivered by award-winning astronomy communicator Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Assessment of Options for Handling Full Unicode Character Encodings in MARC21 a Study for the Library of Congress
    1 Assessment of Options for Handling Full Unicode Character Encodings in MARC21 A Study for the Library of Congress Part 1: New Scripts Jack Cain Senior Consultant Trylus Computing, Toronto 1 Purpose This assessment intends to study the issues and make recommendations on the possible expansion of the character set repertoire for bibliographic records in MARC21 format. 1.1 “Encoding Scheme” vs. “Repertoire” An encoding scheme contains codes by which characters are represented in computer memory. These codes are organized according to a certain methodology called an encoding scheme. The list of all characters so encoded is referred to as the “repertoire” of characters in the given encoding schemes. For example, ASCII is one encoding scheme, perhaps the one best known to the average non-technical person in North America. “A”, “B”, & “C” are three characters in the repertoire of this encoding scheme. These three characters are assigned encodings 41, 42 & 43 in ASCII (expressed here in hexadecimal). 1.2 MARC8 "MARC8" is the term commonly used to refer both to the encoding scheme and its repertoire as used in MARC records up to 1998. The ‘8’ refers to the fact that, unlike Unicode which is a multi-byte per character code set, the MARC8 encoding scheme is principally made up of multiple one byte tables in which each character is encoded using a single 8 bit byte. (It also includes the EACC set which actually uses fixed length 3 bytes per character.) (For details on MARC8 and its specifications see: http://www.loc.gov/marc/.) MARC8 was introduced around 1968 and was initially limited to essentially Latin script only.
    [Show full text]
  • A Functional MRI Study on the Japanese Orthographies
    Modulation of the Visual Word Retrieval System in Writing: A Functional MRI Study on the Japanese Orthographies Kimihiro Nakamura1, Manabu Honda2, Shigeru Hirano1, Tatsuhide Oga1, Nobukatsu Sawamoto1, Takashi Hanakawa1, Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/14/1/104/1757408/089892902317205366.pdf by guest on 18 May 2021 Hiroshi Inoue3, Jin Ito3, Tetsu Matsuda1, Hidenao Fukuyama1, and Hiroshi Shibasaki1 Abstract & We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to left sensorimotor areas and right cerebellum. The kanji versus examine whether the act of writing involves different neuro- kana comparison showed increased responses in the left psychological mechanisms between the two script systems of prefrontal and anterior cingulate areas. Especially, the lPITC the Japanese language: kanji (ideogram) and kana (phono- showed a significant task-by-script interaction. Two additional gram). The main experiments employed a 2 Â 2 factorial control tasks, repetition (REP) and semantic judgment (SJ), design that comprised writing-to-dictation and visual mental activated the bilateral perisylvian areas, but enhanced the lPITC recall for kanji and kana. For both scripts, the actual writing response only weakly. These results suggest that writing of the produced a widespread fronto-parietal activation in the left ideographic and phonographic scripts, although using the hemisphere. Especially, writing of kanji activated the left largely same cortical regions, each modulates the visual word- posteroinferior temporal cortex (lPITC), whereas that of retrieval system according to their graphic features. Further- kana also yielded a trend of activation in the same area. more, comparisons with two additional tasks indicate that the Mental recall for both scripts activated similarly the left parieto- activity of the lPITC increases especially in expressive language temporal regions including the lPITC.
    [Show full text]
  • A Student Model of Katakana Reading Proficiency for a Japanese Language Intelligent Tutoring System
    A Student Model of Katakana Reading Proficiency for a Japanese Language Intelligent Tutoring System Anthony A. Maciejewski Yun-Sun Kang School of Electrical Engineering Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 Abstract--Thls work describes the development of a kanji. Due to the limited number of kana, their relatively low student model that Is used In a Japanese language visual complexity, and their systematic arrangement they do Intelligent tutoring system to assess a pupil's not represent a significant barrier to the student of Japanese. proficiency at reading one of the distinct In fact, the relatively small effort required to learn katakana orthographies of Japanese, known as k a t a k a n a , yields significant returns to readers of technical Japanese due to While the effort required to memorize the relatively the high incidence of terms derived from English and few k a t a k a n a symbols and their associated transliterated into katakana. pronunciations Is not prohibitive, a major difficulty In reading katakana Is associated with the phonetic This work describes the development of a system that is modifications which occur when English words used to automatically acquire knowledge about how English which are transliterated Into katakana are made to words are transliterated into katakana and then to use that conform to the more restrictive rules of Japanese information in developing a model of a student's proficiency in phonology. The algorithm described here Is able to reading katakana. This model is used to guide the instruction automatically acquire a knowledge base of these of the student using an intelligent tutoring system developed phonological transformation rules, use them to previously [6,8].
    [Show full text]
  • Chinese Script Generation Panel Document
    Chinese Script Generation Panel Document Proposal for the Generation Panel for the Chinese Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone 1. General Information Chinese script is the logograms used in the writing of Chinese and some other Asian languages. They are called Hanzi in Chinese, Kanji in Japanese and Hanja in Korean. Since the Hanzi unification in the Qin dynasty (221-207 B.C.), the most important change in the Chinese Hanzi occurred in the middle of the 20th century when more than two thousand Simplified characters were introduced as official forms in Mainland China. As a result, the Chinese language has two writing systems: Simplified Chinese (SC) and Traditional Chinese (TC). Both systems are expressed using different subsets under the Unicode definition of the same Han script. The two writing systems use SC and TC respectively while sharing a large common “unchanged” Hanzi subset that occupies around 60% in contemporary use. The common “unchanged” Hanzi subset enables a simplified Chinese user to understand texts written in traditional Chinese with little difficulty and vice versa. The Hanzi in SC and TC have the same meaning and the same pronunciation and are typical variants. The Japanese kanji were adopted for recording the Japanese language from the 5th century AD. Chinese words borrowed into Japanese could be written with Chinese characters, while Japanese words could be written using the character for a Chinese word of similar meaning. Finally, in Japanese, all three scripts (kanji, and the hiragana and katakana syllabaries) are used as main scripts. The Chinese script spread to Korea together with Buddhism from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD.
    [Show full text]
  • A Comparative Analysis of the Simplification of Chinese Characters in Japan and China
    CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO CHINESE CHARACTER REFORM: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SIMPLIFICATION OF CHINESE CHARACTERS IN JAPAN AND CHINA A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ASIAN STUDIES AUGUST 2012 By Kei Imafuku Thesis Committee: Alexander Vovin, Chairperson Robert Huey Dina Rudolph Yoshimi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express deep gratitude to Alexander Vovin, Robert Huey, and Dina R. Yoshimi for their Japanese and Chinese expertise and kind encouragement throughout the writing of this thesis. Their guidance, as well as the support of the Center for Japanese Studies, School of Pacific and Asian Studies, and the East-West Center, has been invaluable. i ABSTRACT Due to the complexity and number of Chinese characters used in Chinese and Japanese, some characters were the target of simplification reforms. However, Japanese and Chinese simplifications frequently differed, resulting in the existence of multiple forms of the same character being used in different places. This study investigates the differences between the Japanese and Chinese simplifications and the effects of the simplification techniques implemented by each side. The more conservative Japanese simplifications were achieved by instating simpler historical character variants while the more radical Chinese simplifications were achieved primarily through the use of whole cursive script forms and phonetic simplification techniques. These techniques, however, have been criticized for their detrimental effects on character recognition, semantic and phonetic clarity, and consistency – issues less present with the Japanese approach. By comparing the Japanese and Chinese simplification techniques, this study seeks to determine the characteristics of more effective, less controversial Chinese character simplifications.
    [Show full text]
  • A New Research Resource for Optical Recognition of Embossed and Hand-Punched Hindi Devanagari Braille Characters: Bharati Braille Bank
    I.J. Image, Graphics and Signal Processing, 2015, 6, 19-28 Published Online May 2015 in MECS (http://www.mecs-press.org/) DOI: 10.5815/ijigsp.2015.06.03 A New Research Resource for Optical Recognition of Embossed and Hand-Punched Hindi Devanagari Braille Characters: Bharati Braille Bank Shreekanth.T Research Scholar, JSS Research Foundation, Mysore, India. Email: [email protected] V.Udayashankara Professor, Department of IT, SJCE, Mysore, India. Email: [email protected] Abstract—To develop a Braille recognition system, it is required to have the stored images of Braille sheets. This I. INTRODUCTION paper describes a method and also the challenges of Braille is a language for the blind to read and write building the corpora for Hindi Devanagari Braille. A few through the sense of touch. Braille is formatted to a Braille databases and commercial software's are standard size by Frenchman Louis Braille in 1825.Braille obtainable for English and Arabic Braille languages, but is a system of raised dots arranged in cells. Any none for Indian Braille which is popularly known as Bharathi Braille. However, the size and scope of the combination of one to six dots may be raised within each English and Arabic Braille language databases are cell and the number and position of the raised dots within a cell convey to the reader the letter, word, number, or limited. Researchers frequently develop and self-evaluate symbol the cell exemplifies. There are 64 possible their algorithm based on the same private data set and combinations of raised dots within a single cell.
    [Show full text]
  • The Fontspec Package Font Selection for XƎLATEX and Lualatex
    The fontspec package Font selection for XƎLATEX and LuaLATEX Will Robertson and Khaled Hosny [email protected] 2013/05/12 v2.3b Contents 7.5 Different features for dif- ferent font sizes . 14 1 History 3 8 Font independent options 15 2 Introduction 3 8.1 Colour . 15 2.1 About this manual . 3 8.2 Scale . 16 2.2 Acknowledgements . 3 8.3 Interword space . 17 8.4 Post-punctuation space . 17 3 Package loading and options 4 8.5 The hyphenation character 18 3.1 Maths fonts adjustments . 4 8.6 Optical font sizes . 18 3.2 Configuration . 5 3.3 Warnings .......... 5 II OpenType 19 I General font selection 5 9 Introduction 19 9.1 How to select font features 19 4 Font selection 5 4.1 By font name . 5 10 Complete listing of OpenType 4.2 By file name . 6 font features 20 10.1 Ligatures . 20 5 Default font families 7 10.2 Letters . 20 6 New commands to select font 10.3 Numbers . 21 families 7 10.4 Contextuals . 22 6.1 More control over font 10.5 Vertical Position . 22 shape selection . 8 10.6 Fractions . 24 6.2 Math(s) fonts . 10 10.7 Stylistic Set variations . 25 6.3 Miscellaneous font select- 10.8 Character Variants . 25 ing details . 11 10.9 Alternates . 25 10.10 Style . 27 7 Selecting font features 11 10.11 Diacritics . 29 7.1 Default settings . 11 10.12 Kerning . 29 7.2 Changing the currently se- 10.13 Font transformations . 30 lected features .
    [Show full text]
  • EAST WIND Official Newsletter of the World Blind Union-Asia Pacific No
    EAST WIND Official Newsletter of the World Blind Union-Asia Pacific No. 7 Contents of this issue: The Look at Our New President of The World Blind Union The New Board and Policy Council Members of Our Region First Blind Sports Association in Hong Kong Visit to Mongolian Federation of the Blind Reflections on the Commemoration of Bicentenary of Louis Braille’s Birth Historical Workshop in Papua New Guinea 3rd Asia Pacific Disability Forum: General Assembly and Conference Women in Action Sight World: Exhibition in Tokyo Exclusively for Blindness/WBUAP Fundraising Campaign for Cyclone-Hit Myanmar Coming Up From the Editor Contact Details THE LOOK AT OUR NEW THE NEW BOARD AND PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD POLICY COUNCIL IN BLIND UNION: OUR REGION Ms. Maryanne Diamond: the lady the local media in Australia named as PRESIDENT: “Sparkling Diamond” Mr. Chuji Sashida Maryanne is blind and has been all of her life. I became vision-impaired when I was 15 years She has 4 children one who is vision impaired. old. I entered school for the blind. Then I went on She was employed in the information technology to a university and studied law. Currently I am industry for many years before moving into the making researches on employment systems for community sector. She spent four years as the persons with disabilities at the institution set by Executive officer of Blind Citizens Australia, the the Japanese Government. In recent days, I am recognized representative organization of people working on topics such as Convention on the who are blind. three years as the inaugural CEO Rights of Persons with Disabilities, prohibition of of the Australian Federation of Disability disabilities discrimination, employment of Organizations, The peak organization of state and disabilities in each country, and measures for national organizations of people with disability.
    [Show full text]
  • Haptiread: Reading Braille As Mid-Air Haptic Information
    HaptiRead: Reading Braille as Mid-Air Haptic Information Viktorija Paneva Sofia Seinfeld Michael Kraiczi Jörg Müller University of Bayreuth, Germany {viktorija.paneva, sofia.seinfeld, michael.kraiczi, joerg.mueller}@uni-bayreuth.de Figure 1. With HaptiRead we evaluate for the first time the possibility of presenting Braille information as touchless haptic stimulation using ultrasonic mid-air haptic technology. We present three different methods of generating the haptic stimulation: Constant, Point-by-Point and Row-by-Row. (a) depicts the standard ordering of cells in a Braille character, and (b) shows how the character in (a) is displayed by the three proposed methods. HaptiRead delivers the information directly to the user, through their palm, in an unobtrusive manner. Thus the haptic display is particularly suitable for messages communicated in public, e.g. reading the departure time of the next bus at the bus stop (c). ABSTRACT Author Keywords Mid-air haptic interfaces have several advantages - the haptic Mid-air Haptics, Ultrasound, Haptic Feedback, Public information is delivered directly to the user, in a manner that Displays, Braille, Reading by Blind People. is unobtrusive to the immediate environment. They operate at a distance, thus easier to discover; they are more hygienic and allow interaction in 3D. We validate, for the first time, in INTRODUCTION a preliminary study with sighted and a user study with blind There are several challenges that blind people face when en- participants, the use of mid-air haptics for conveying Braille. gaging with interactive systems in public spaces. Firstly, it is We tested three haptic stimulation methods, where the hap- more difficult for the blind to maintain their personal privacy tic feedback was either: a) aligned temporally, with haptic when engaging with public displays.
    [Show full text]