World Braille Day

World Braille Day is an International day celebrated every year on 4th of January with the aim of enhancing the public awareness of importance of Braille system as a means of communication for partially sighted and blind people and it’s significance.

Why ```4th of January ```? 

United Nations General Assembly had chosen the date for the event by a proclamation in November 2018. January 4th, the birthday of Braille system founder-Louis Braille, was the date confirmed as a tribute for his contribution in helping visually impaired and blind people to read and write. 

The first Word Braille Day was celebrated on 4th of January 2019. For the 3rd consecutive time, international community comes forward to celebrate it today. International event of World Braille Day is celebrated on a particular theme.

_What is Braille?_ 

It’s a system of reading and writing by tactile senses used by blind and visually impaired people. The basic Braille symbol is Braille cell consisting of six dots arranged in a rectangular form. The six dots are commonly reference to by number according to their position in the cell. It’s representation of alphabetical letters, numbers and punctuation marks using different arrangement of dots and even the musical, mathematical and scientific symbols. 

Capitalization of letters is done by placing a dot 6 in the cell just before the letter to be capitalized since there is no different symbols for capital letters. First ten letters of the alphabet are used in making numbers. In order to minimize the load , some abbreviations are also used in Standard American Braille. 

Have you seen a ```Braille Writing Machine ?```

There is drastic difference in normal type writing machine and Braille writing machine. Keyboard of Braille writing machine has only 6 keys and a space bar while type writing machine has one key for each letter of alphabet. So this is very easier for users due to having less number of keys and simplicity. In Braille writing machine, these keys can be pushed either separately or together. If in case of pushing all keys at the same time , a Braille cell will be formed by appearance of six dots on the paper. Various combinations of keys will lead to make different letters and various symbols. 

Do you know why Braille books are quite bulky? It’s because Braille papers are heavy and pages can’t be kept smoothly together due to raised dots.

When we turn to the history of invention, Louis Braille-Frenchman who lost his eye sight due to a childhood accident invented Braille system in 1824. First development of Braille system was started in the late 1820’s by modifying a system of night writing used in military purposes. Finding the fact that reading and writing dots is much faster than reading of raised printed letters and Louis’s immense work gave him hand to complete it by the time he was 18 years old. In 1829, Braille first published his system and second improved edition was published eight years later. It took more than one century to produce the modern Braille system which have given a nice path for blind people to get a  better education and be with world.

The Day emphasizes the difficulties faced by visually impaired people and brings about a global level focus on Braille language while encouraging government and private organizations/ global organizations to give support and raise the standard of living of blind and visually impaired (differently abled) people to a higher level.

Article by Pubudu Varuna | 16 Batch