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Writing Slovianski in Braille; Because also blind people should be able to read and write Slovianski!
Topic Started: Jan 3 2011, 04:46 PM (651 Views)
pne
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I thought about a Braille orthography for Slovianski.

One idea I had was to represent the caron/háček diacritic by flipping the Braille cell horizontally if possible, or adding dot-6 if not (if the flipped cell was already used by an existing letter).

After thinking about it, I had a look at a Czech and Slovak Braille (since all letters of the prototypical alphabet are found in either Czech or Slovak or both) and found that that matched my ideas for accented letters of traditional Slovianski! I also got a little inspiration for the additional letters needed for Slovianski Plus. (But NMS is probably not going to get written in Braille -- too many letters are needed to make this practical.)

So, here is the alphabet of traditional Slovianski:
Latin: a b c č d ď e f g h i j k l ľ m n ň o p r ř s š t ť u v y z ž (q w x)
Braille: ⠁ ⠃ ⠉ ⠩ ⠙ ⠹ ⠑ ⠋ ⠛ ⠓ ⠊ ⠚ ⠅ ⠇ ⠸ ⠍ ⠝ ⠫ ⠕ ⠏ ⠗ ⠺ ⠎ ⠱ ⠞ ⠳ ⠥ ⠧ ⠽ ⠵ ⠮ (⠟ ⠷ ⠭)

And here are the additional letters for Slovianski Plus:
Latin: č ň ę ų ě ô ĺ ś ź
Braille: ⠜ ⠪ ⠻ ⠬ ⠣ ⠾ ⠡ ⠯ ⠿

Of these letters, a b c č d ď e ě f g h i j k l m n ň o p q r ř s š t ť u v w x y z ž are the same as in Czech; ľ and ô are the same as in Slovak; ĺ č ň ų are the same as Czech á é ó ú. (í ý would be ⠌ ⠯.) ⠻ for ę is more or less at random. (ę in Polish is ⠱, i.e. ⠑ "e" plus dot-6, but I—and Czech Braille—already use that shape for š since it's the mirror image of ⠎ for s.)

At first I was unsure about using ⠸, since cells using only dots 4, 5, and/or 6 are usually meta-characters (e.g. "italicise next character" or "uppercase"), but since Slovak uses it for ľ, that seemed good enough for me to use this mirror image of ⠇ "l".

Note that ⠺ is "w" in most Latin Brailles, but I use it for ř since it's the mirror image of ⠗ "r"—as does Czech. I imagine this will work well, since "w" isn't part of the basic Slovianski alphabet, either. And for spelling foreign words, I use the same Braille cell that Czech does, ⠷. (⠟ and ⠭ are standard Latin Braille for the non-Slovianski letters "q" and "x"—no surprises here.)

For punctuation, I propose to use the same as Czech, too:
Latin: . , ! ? : ; (...) - “...” ' [number sign] [capitalise next letter]
Braille: ⠄ ⠂ ⠖ ⠢ ⠒ ⠆ ⠦...⠴ ⠤ ⠶...⠶ ⠈ ⠼ ⠠

Alternatively, parentheses and quotation marks could be switched; English Braille has them the other way around, for example.

It would also be possible to create a Braille based on Cyrillic Slovianski. If I take Russian Braille as a base, this would look something like this:

Cyrillic: а б в г д е ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш ы ь
Braille: ⠁ ⠃ ⠺ ⠛ ⠙ ⠑ ⠚ ⠵ ⠊ ⠯ ⠅ ⠇ ⠍ ⠝ ⠕ ⠏ ⠗ ⠎ ⠞ ⠥ ⠋ ⠓ ⠉ ⠟ ⠱ ⠮ ⠾

Punctuation in Russian Braille, like in English Braille, uses different characters for full stop, quotation marks, and parentheses:
Cyrillic: . «...» (...)
Braille: ⠲ ⠦...⠴ ⠶...⠶

I'm not sure what a good Braille cell for Cyrillic ј would be; I'd tend to use ⠯ (Russian Braille "й"). ⠽ (Latin "y"; this Braille cell seems not to be used in Russian Braille) would also be a possibility.

Alternatively, it might be a good idea to simply use Latin-based Braille always. (As far as I can tell, this is the route that Serbian and Croatian have gone: Serbian Braille uses the same associations as Croatian Braille, so that, for example, "в" is ⠧ = Latin "v" as in Croatian rather than ⠺ = Latin "w" as in Russian. So I believe that Serbian "ј" is ⠚ just like Croatian "j", while "ж"—which is ⠚ = Latin "j" in Russian, perhaps under French transcription influence— uses "⠮" like Croatian "ž".)

This would also avoid having lots of dot-heavy ⠾'s in the text (for ь). On the other hand, quoting Russian Cyrillic would be difficult—but then, so would quoting Serbian Cyrillic. And I have no idea what Macedonian or Bulgarian do. So quoting Cyrillic might be a problem anyway, which needn't influence the design of Slovianski Braille.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

(Finally, from my notes: Czech ů = ⠾; Slovak ä "ô/ű" ĺ ŕ w = ⠈ ⠾ ⠨ ⠷ ⠺; Slovene č š ž = ⠡ ⠱ ⠮ [as in Croatian]; Croatian č ć dž đ lj nj š ž = ⠡ ⠩ ⠻ ⠹ ⠣ ⠫ ⠱ ⠮; Polish ą ę ł ć ń ó ś ź ż = ⠡ ⠱ ⠣ ⠩ ⠹ ⠬ ⠪ ⠮ ⠯; Russian щ ъ э ю я = ⠭ ⠷ ⠪ ⠳ ⠫.)

(Edit: Forgot ś and ź - assigned them to ⠯ and ⠿, respectively, which I *think* are still free. Not particularly iconic or memorable, but space was getting low, and SP probably isn't used that much anyway - and I think ś and ź are fairly rare sounds, at that.)

[čćч]
Edited by pne, Jan 20 2011, 08:45 AM.
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IJzeren Jan
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Jan van Steenbergen
I've somehow overlooked this subject. To be honest, I haven't the faintest idea about braille (and that probably goes for most of the others here, too), so I can't really comment. But I have to say, it's a great and laudable suggestion!

Any idea how we can put this into practice?
Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno tož bude trudno s vsim inim.

Slovianski - Словянски - Словјански
[čćч]
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pne
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IJzeren Jan
Jan 19 2011, 11:35 PM
Any idea how we can put this into practice?
Well, it was mostly a fun little exercise; I don't know whether it will really get used (how many blind people are interested in Slovianski?).

If you want to add a note about it, though, then perhaps you could add an additional row to the prototype alphabet at http://steen.free.fr/slovianski/phono_ortho.html#alphabet giving the Braille equivalents of the Latin prototype alphabet.

Whether to mention the Slovianski Plus additional letters or the punctuation ones is up to you.

Punctuation can, perhaps, be left away, with every user using the punctuation of their native Braille - the systems are usually similar ("! , ; : -" have been the same in the systems I've seen, and I think you would get used to someone using different shapes for quotation marks, parentheses, question mark, or full stop, just as you would get used to someone using "y" where you use "i", or "ż" or "zs" where you use "ž".

That leaves just Slovianski Plus; perhaps you could mention them in a footnote to the table - "(The extra letters in Slovianski Plus are represented like this in Braille: [table])" or the like.

[čćч]
Edited by pne, Jan 20 2011, 08:55 AM.
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