Braille: The Language Of The Blind

Braille has fascinated me since I was young. Created by Louis Braille in the 1800’s, it was an incredible discovery and helped millions around the world who previously were unable to read or write to communicate.

My aunt was a volunteer, transcribing print books into braille. I’d watch her punching holes with small tools. These tools were a ‘scale’ and a ‘stylus’. The scale was a hinged piece of metal about 18” long and 2” wide. She would slide a heavy piece of paper between the two long sides and “snap” it into place. The bottom side of the scale consisted of rows and rows of holes, set in groups of six – two dots by three dots. The top side had small “windows” over each group of holes. She would then take a stylus – which looked like an awl – and punch the holes through the metal scale, into the paper, one letter at a time. When she filled the entire scale with holes, she would slide it down and start new lines. The tricky part in transcribing braille was that had to be done right to left, so when the paper was turned over, the punched holes became raised dots. The writing then was read left to right.

The man credited with this amazing discovery, Louis Braille, was born in 1809 near Paris, France. His father was a cobbler, and Louise enjoyed watching his father work in his shop. One day, however, he picked up an awl and accidentally punctured his eye. Medical care being what it was, his wound got infected. The infection spread to his other eye and left him completely blind. Learning at regular school was difficult at best and at age ten he received a scholarship to attend the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris.

Although Louis Braille is recognized as the creator of this method of writing, the idea actually came to him from another Frenchman, Charles Barbier. In the War of 1812, Barbier was concerned about soldiers in the field reading their orders at night. If soldiers lit a lantern to read, the enemy would discover their location and attack. Barbier created a method of writing with groups of 12 dots to represent sounds. He called it sonography or ‘night writing’. Difficult to learn, the army had no interest in his proposal.

After returning from the war, Charles Barbier brought his night writing to the Institute. Louis saw the potential of Barbier’s design and knew that he could improve and simplify it. By the time he was 15 years old, he did just that. He reduced the number of dots to six and created an alphabet using different combinations of dots. It took some convincing, but the Institute began using and teaching this new alphabet to its students. In 1829 the Institute published Louis' book, Method of Writing Words, Music and Plain Songs by Means of Dots for Use by the Blind and Arranged for Them. In it, Louis described how his code worked to make letters, words, and punctuation. The book was printed in embossed print, but with examples printed in Louis' six-dot system. Louis continued to improve his alphabet and in 1837 he added symbols for math and music.

After Louis’ death in 1852, his method of writing slowly spread throughout the world. In 1878, a congress in France named his method “The Braille System” and declared it the international system used for writing by the blind. By 1932, Braille was recognized and used English-speaking countries around the world.