Esperanto Braille

The Esperanto language has a dedicated braille alphabet. One Esperanto braille magazine, Esperanta Ligilo, has been published since 1904, and another, Aŭroro, since 1920.

Esperanto Braille
Script type	alphabet
Print basis	Esperanto alphabet
Languages	Esperanto
Related scripts
Parent systems	Braille Esperanto Braille

Alphabet

The basic braille alphabet is extended for the print letters with diacritics. The circumflex is marked by adding dot 6 (lower right) to the base letter: ⠩ ĉ, ⠻ ĝ, ⠳ ĥ, ⠺ ĵ, ⠮ ŝ. Therefore, the letter ĵ has the same form as the unused French/English Braille letter ⠺ w; to write a w in a foreign name, dot 3 is added: ⠾ w^[1] (see next section). Esperanto ŭ is made by reflecting u, so that dot 1 becomes dot 4: ⠬ ŭ. The alphabet is thus as follows.^[2]

a	b	c	ĉ	d	e	f
g	ĝ	h	ĥ	i	j	ĵ
k	l	m	n	o	p	r
s	ŝ	t	u	ŭ	v	z

Contracted braille is in limited use.^[3]

Transcribing foreign letters

Beside the basic-Latin foreign letters q, w, x, y, there are dedicated letters for the umlauted vowels that occur in print German, ä, ö, ü:

q

w

x

y

ä

ö

ü

Additional accented letters in other languages are handled by separate braille cells for the diacritics. These do not have a one-to-one correspondence with print:

◌́ (and ő, ű from ö, ü)

◌̀, ◌̄

◌̃

◌̂, ◌̌

◌̈, ◌̇

◌̊, ◌̆

◌̧, ◌̨, ◌̣, ◌̩

◌̸, ◌̵, etc.

These conventions are used for foreign names adapted to Esperanto Braille. Unassimilated text in another braille alphabet is indicated by the code ⠐⠂.

Punctuation

Single punctuation

(space)	,	' (abbr.)	.	?	!	;	:
*	/	...			-	—

The apostrophe and abbreviation point are both transcribed ⠄, which is distinct from the period/stop, ⠲. A series of colons, ⠒⠒⠒, is a common dinkus for dividing sections of texts.

Paired punctuation

... (outer quotes)	... (inner quotes)
... ( ... )	... [ ... ]

Quotation marks in print Esperanto are highly variable, and tend to follow the conventions of the country a text is published in. This is irrelevant for printing in braille.

Numbers

The apostrophe/abbreviation point ⠄ is used to group digits within numbers, like the comma in English. In both print and braille Esperanto, the comma is used as the decimal mark, so:

print English 100,000.00

= print Esperanto 100 000,00

= braille ⠼⠁⠚⠚⠄⠚⠚⠚⠂⠚⠚.

Formatting

Capitals are only marked for proper names. They are not used at the beginning of a sentence.

(digit)	(caps)	(emph.)	..... (span emphasis)
... (alternative span emphasis)			... (foreign braille text)

For emphasis (bold or italics in print), a simple ⠸ is used to mark each of one to three words. For longer emphatic text, there are two formats: Either a colon precedes the simple emphatic sign, ⠒⠸, and an additional sign ⠸ is placed before the last emphasized word, or the sign ⠠⠄ is placed before and after the emphasized text.

In contracted (grade 2) braille, a different sign is used for capital letters, ⠠ (dot 6). As in most braille orthographies, proper names are not contracted, and words preceded by this sign are not contracted in Esperanto Braille.