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Braille

Braille is one of the most important codes in the world - it is used by blind people to read and write.

It is easy: there are six dot positions, and the dots are raised up (so you can feel them) in special patterns.

Each pattern of dots is a "character" (a letter or number, etc)

The Braille Alphabet

These are the dot patterns for the 26 letters of the alphabet:
 

 

Notice that k to t are like a to j, just with an extra dot in the lower left corner.

Also, if you took out w, then u to z would be like a to e but with two extra dots ... the original code didn't include w!

Numbers


The patterns for the numbers are exactly the same as for the letters a to j. So there is this special character to put in front of numbers:

Example: 3.1416

Without the "num" character, it would look like "c.adaf"
(Also note the special character for the decimal point)

Punctuation


Capital Letters

Capital Letters are shown by putting this special character in front of them

Example: Hi Dad!

 

Practice

Our examples have all shown the braille character with its matching letter or number, but that is not normally done.

Can you tell what this says?

And how about this one?

 

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