BRAILLE IT
COMPLETE BRAILLE TRANSCRIPTION
ABOUT BRAILLE
ABOUT MAUREEN & BRAILLE IT
whether it is digitally delivered or read on paper Braille is the key to literacy for the world's 45 million blind citizens.
Braille It transcription service is a self-run home-based business run by Maureen Pranghofer. Maureen has the technology and skill to produce high-quality Braille documents in an affordable, timely, and professional manner. This includes the new UEB Braille code which took effect in January 2016.
Braille materials can be produced from print, CD, or email files sent in a doc or pdf format.
Louis Braille was the son of a French harness maker who was blinded at age three after he accidentally poked his eye with an awl. At the time, blind people the world over were basically illiterate. There had been no serious attempts at finding ways in which blind people could read or write. The only reading material available had been made by fashioning small twigs in the shape of print letters and affixing them to paper. The few books available were large, expensive, and very impractical. Louis Braille invented a reading and writing code that has been in existence since 1825 and is now the worldwide standard for books, magazines, and other materials read by blind persons.
The Braille cell, which is the foundation of the Braille code, is based on six dots in the shape of the number 6 on a dice. There are two vertical columns of three dots. The left-hand column has dots numbered from top to bottom as dots 1, 2, and 3. The dots of the right-hand column are based on numbers 4, 5, and 6, respectively.
Unlike print letters, there are grades or levels of Braille. Grade one consists of the alphabet and a few simple contractions. Every Braille letter or symbol has corresponding shapes of dots taken from the basic six-dot Braille cell. For example, dot one is the letter "a". Dots 1, 2, 3 compose the letter "l". Dots 1, 3, and 6 make up the letter "u". If dots 2,3,4 and 6 are used, it is a contracted word and stands for the entire word "the".
Grade 2 Braille is composed of many contractions and is the standard form of Braille used in materials read by blind people. Examples of a few grade two contractions are: The letter "p" (dots 1, 2, 3, 4) by itself with a space on either side of it is the word "people." Dot 5 placed to the left of the contracted word for "the" (dots 2, 3, 4, and 6) means the word "there".
Besides having contracted words, Braille differs from print in other ways. Unlike print letters, which are shaped differently depending on whether they are in upper or lower case, Braille does not have this distinction. To indicate that a letter in Braille is capitalized, it is preceded by dot 6. To distinguish numbers from letters in Braille, numbers are preceded by the number sign (dots 3, 4, 5, and 6. Thus, the number one in Braille would be written as "number sign dot 1" because "a" is the first letter of the alphabet. To write 5 you would write "number sign e" since "e" is the 5th letter of the alphabet. "j" stands for zero and using this method all numbers can be made from the first ten letters of the alphabet.
In addition to these forms of Braille, there is also a completely different code of symbols made from the basic Braille cell for Braille, mathematics, music, and computer notation. There is also a grade three form of Braille, which is strictly used for note-taking and is similar to print shorthand.
Traditionally, Braille has been produced in 2 ways. It has either been written by hand using a slate and stylus to punch out each dot physically or by the use of a Braille writer. A Braille writer has six keys corresponding to the six dots of the Braille cell. These keys can be pressed down simultaneously to punch out the Braille letters mechanically.
Today, even though most blind people still use these methods of writing to meet their individual needs, technology has greatly changed the way Braille is written. Small note-taking devices and sophisticated computer software are used to format and emboss Braille. Whether it is digitally delivered or read on paper, Braille is still the key to literacy for the world's 45 million blind citizens.