Polish Braille

Polish Braille (alfabet Braille'a) is a braille alphabet for writing the Polish language. It is based on international braille conventions, with the following extensions:^[1]

Base letter	a	c	e	l	n	s	u	y	z
Derived letter	ą	ć	ę	ł	ń	ś	ó	ż	ź

That is, for letters of the first and second decade of the braille script (a, c, e, l, n, s), a diacritic is written as dot 6, and any dot 3 is removed (or, equivalently, is moved to position 6)—that is, the base letter is moved to the fourth decade. For letters of the third decade (u, y, z), which already have a dot 6, the derivation is a mirror image. Ó is derived from u, which is how it is pronounced (also, the mirror image of o is already taken). Several of these conventions are used in Lithuanian Braille.

History

Some form of a Braille alphabet had been adapted to the Polish language by 1957.^[2]

Alphabet

The full alphabet is this:

a	ą	b	c	ć	d	e	ę
f	g	h	i	j	k	l	ł
m	n	ń	o	ó	p	r	s
ś	t	u	w	y	z	ż	ź

Print digraphs in z are written as two letters in braille as well: ⠉⠵ cz, ⠗⠵ rz, ⠎⠵ sz.

Punctuation

,	.   '[3]	;	:	?	!	-   —	@	*	/	\
#		•		%			‰
°	′	″		$	¢		₤		€
©		™

Paired punctuation

... “ ... ”

... ‘ ... ’

... ( ... )

... { ... } (?)[4]

... [ ... ]

... ⟨ ... ⟩

Formatting

(cap)

(l.c.)

(emph.)

External links

• [1] Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine (a detailed account of typesetting Polish Braille)
• Braille Translator online (Conversion of typed text on the Braille characters, full of Polish notation.)

References