thumb|right|Japanese Braille on a can of Asahi Super Dry beer, written "[[sake"]]
Japanese Braille is the braille script of the Japanese language. It is based on the original braille script, though the connection is tenuous. In Japanese it is known as , literally "dot characters". It transcribes Japanese more or less as it would be written in the hiragana or katakana syllabaries, without any provision for writing kanji.
Japanese Braille is a vowel-based abugida. That is, the glyphs are syllabic, but unlike kana they contain separate symbols for consonant and vowel, and the vowel takes primacy. The vowels are written in the upper left corner (dots 1, 2, 4) and may be used alone. The consonants are written in the lower right corner (dots 3, 5, 6) and cannot occur alone. However, the semivowel y is indicated by dot 4, one of the vowel dots, and the vowel combination is dropped to the bottom of the cell. When this dot is written in isolation, it indicates that the following syllable has a medial y, as in mya. Syllables beginning with w are indicated by dropping the vowel dots to the bottom of the cell without additional consonant dots.
Braille for kana
In Japanese Braille, bare vowels are assigned to braille patterns that occupy the upper-left half of the cell (dots 1–2–4): . While the first three vowels are the same as the numerals 1, 2, and 3, this pattern does not continue, and the cells representing other kana have no apparent connection to international values or numerical order. Common punctuation marks tend to follow standard international values, with several doing double-duty with the w- series of kana braille. Beyond the bare vowels, all other kana use the vowel series, called dan, with each gyō (consonant series) represented either by adding specific dots, lowering the dot positions of the dan vowel patterns within the cell, or both.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
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| あ段<br/>a dan
| い段<br/>i dan
| う段<br/>u dan
| え段<br/>e dan
| お段<br/>o dan
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| rowspan="3" | あ行<br/> a gyō <br/> bare vowels
| a
| i
| u
| e
| o
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| rowspan="3" | か行<br/> ka gyō: k- <br/> dan + dot 6
| ka
| ki
| ku
| ke
| ko
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| rowspan="3" | さ行<br/> sa gyō: s- <br/> dan + dots 5&6
| sa
| shi
| su
| se
| so
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| rowspan="3" | た行<br/> ta gyō: t- <br/> dan + dots 3&5
| ta
| chi
| tsu
| te
| to
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| rowspan="3" | な行<br/> na gyō: n- <br/> dan + dot 3
| na
| ni
| nu
| ne
| no
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| rowspan="3" | は行<br/> ha gyō: h- <br/> dan + dots 3&6
| ha
| hi
| fu
| he
| ho
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| rowspan="3" | ま行<br/> ma gyō: m- <br/> dan + dots 3,5&6
| ma
| mi
| mu
| me
| mo
| n
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| rowspan="3" | や行<br/> ya gyō: y- <br/> dan lowered<br/>+ dot 4
| ya
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| yu
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| yo
| -y-
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| rowspan="3" | ら行<br/> ra gyō: r- <br/> dan + dot 5
| ra
| ri
| ru
| re
| ro
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| rowspan="3" | わ行<br/> wa gyō: w- <br/> dan lowered
| wa
| wi
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| we
| wo
| -w-
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The patterns for adding yōon to a mora can be added to the modifiers for dakuten and handakuten as a compound kana modifier, and the ya gyō braille series is based on the yōon dot pattern. The symbol for syllabic "n" is based on its historical derivation from mu.
Other symbols
In kana, a small tsu (), called sokuon, is used to indicate that the following consonant is geminate, and in interjections as a glottal stop. In katakana only, a long vowel is indicated with a horizontal stroke () called a chōon. This also looks like a half dash in braille:
- The long ō sound is written with (chōon), as it would be romanized, regardless of whether it is oo or ou in print Japanese. Long ū is also written with a chōon rather than a u. (This is a common convention in katakana, but does not occur in hiragana.) Thus Tōkyō, sorted as Toukyou in dictionaries, is nonetheless written , and sansū is written .
- Spaces are used to separate words (though not clauses or sentences, where punctuation performs that function). Thus is spaced as in its romanization, though without separating particles from their nouns: Kyōwa asakara yoku harete iru. Spaces are also placed between family and personal names, as in Ishikawa Kuraji. When writing in katakana, an interpunct is used for this function in print, as in Rui Buraiyu (Louis Braille).
Punctuation
Besides the punctuation of Japanese, braille also has symbols to indicate that the following characters are digits or the Latin alphabet. Tenkanji is also more similar to how Chinese Brailles are transcribed.
Notes and references
External links
- The Braille Authority of Japan – the standard-setting body for braille notation in Japan
- World Blind Union