# Asian Braille Systems ## Major Asian Braille Codes ### [Arabic Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Arabic, Persian (Farsi), Urdu (Pakistan) - **Key Characteristics:** Modern Arabic Braille uses the French sorting order and is adapted for right-to-left reading conventions. This unification avoids the chaos of each nation reordering the braille code to match the sorting order of its print alphabet, as happened in Algerian Braille, where braille codes were numerically reassigned to match the order of the Arabic alphabet and bear little relation to the values used in other countries. Used across Middle East and North Africa. Right-to-left orientation, contextual shaping - **Status:** Active ### [Pakistani Urdu Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urdu_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Urdu (Pakistan) - **Key Characteristics:** Pakistan has not adopted Bharati braille, so the Urdu Braille of Pakistan is an entirely different alphabet than the Urdu Braille of India, with their commonalities largely due to their common inheritance from English or International Braille - **Status:** Active ### [Japanese Tenji (Braille) (点字)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Braille) - **Inventor/Developer:** Kuraji Ishikawa (developed in 1890) - **Languages Supported:** Japanese kana (hiragana/katakana) and kanji (via "kanji Braille") - **Key Characteristics:** Based on the original braille script with a tenuous connection. In Japanese, it's known as tenji (点字), meaning "dot characters." It transcribes Japanese as it would be written in hiragana or katakana syllabaries, without any provision for writing kanji. Ishikawa and his committee developed a functional Japanese-based Braille template for use at the Tokyo School and nationwide as the new standard script for Blind education - **Status:** Active ### [Korean Hangul Braille (한글 점자)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Braille) - **Inventor/Developer:** Rosetta Sherwood Hall (1894), Park Du-seong (1926 - 6-dot adaptation) - **Languages Supported:** Korean Hangul - **Key Characteristics:** The first tactile encoding of hangul was developed by Rosetta Sherwood Hall in 1894, using a cell 4 dots wide by 2 dots high, similar to New York Point. A 6-dot braille system was adapted to Korean by Park Du-seong in 1926. There have been several revisions, with the current form announced in 1994. Korean Braille is not graphically-related to other braille scripts globally; instead, it reflects the patterns found in Hangul and differentiates initial consonants, vowels, and final consonants. 24-cell base, combines jamo - **Status:** Active ### [Mainland Chinese Braille (现行盲文)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Standard Chinese (Mandarin) used in China - **Key Characteristics:** Each syllable is written with up to three Braille cells, representing the initial, final, and tone, respectively. In practice, the tone is generally omitted, similar to its treatment in pinyin - **Status:** Active ### [Two-Cell Chinese Braille (汉语双拼盲文)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-cell_Chinese_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Chinese (Mandarin) - **Key Characteristics:** This system was designed and developed in the 1970s and approved by the State Language Committee of the People's Republic of China in 1988 for promotion. It is used in parallel with the braille system. It encodes all syllable information (onset, rime, tone) in exactly two cells - **Status:** Active ### [Cantonese Braille (粵語點字)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Cantonese (Hong Kong and Macau) - **Key Characteristics:** Although Cantonese is written in Chinese characters, Cantonese Braille is purely phonetic. Each syllable is divided into three parts: the initial consonant, the rime (vowel and any final consonant), and the tone - **Status:** Active ### [Taiwanese Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Taiwanese Mandarin - **Key Characteristics:** Based on the Zhuyin (Bopomofo) phonetic system rather than Pinyin. It differs significantly from mainland systems - **Status:** Active ### [Indian Braille (Bharati Braille) (भारती ब्रेल)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharati_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese, Oriya, Kannada, Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali, Urdu (India), Sinhala, and others - **Key Characteristics:** Bharati braille, or Bharatiya Braille, is a largely unified braille script for writing the languages of India. Historically, when India gained independence, eleven braille scripts were in use across different parts of the country and for different languages. By 1951, a single national standard, Bharati braille, was settled on. It has since been adopted by Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Recommendations from a conference led to the development of "Bharati Braille" for the official Indian languages: Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Punjabi, Assamese, Malayalam, Nepali, Odia, Telugu, & Urdu. Although basically alphabetic, Bharati braille retains one aspect of Indian abugidas: the default vowel 'a' is not written unless it occurs at the beginning of a syllable or before another vowel. This characteristic has been called a "linearized alphasyllabary abugida". Unified code across 22+ Indian languages - **Status:** Active - **Regional Variants:** Hindi/Devanagari Braille, Tamil Braille, Bengali Braille (differs between India and Bangladesh), Kannada Braille, Telugu Braille, Malayalam Braille, Gujarati Braille, Punjabi/Gurmukhi Braille, Odia Braille, Sinhala Braille (Sri Lanka), Nepali Braille ### [Thai Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Thai - **Key Characteristics:** Adapted for Thai abugida. Adapted from English Braille with tone markers - **Status:** Active ### [Vietnamese Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Vietnamese - **Key Characteristics:** Phonetically based on Quốc ngữ romanization. Uses diacritic cells for tonal marks - **Status:** Active ### [Malay/Indonesian Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Malay, Indonesian (Southeast Asia) - **Key Characteristics:** Based on Latin alphabet. Derived from English Braille with local letters - **Status:** Active ### [Mongolian Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Mongolian (Cyrillic script) - **Key Characteristics:** Based on Russian Braille - **Status:** Active ### [Turkish Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Turkish - **Key Characteristics:** Adapted for Turkish alphabet - **Status:** Active ### [Azerbaijani Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijani_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Azerbaijani - **Key Characteristics:** Based on French-ordered Braille - **Status:** Active ### [Kazakh Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Kazakh - **Key Characteristics:** Russian lineage family (Cyrillic-mediated) - **Status:** Active ### [Kyrgyz Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrgyz_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Kyrgyz - **Key Characteristics:** Russian lineage family (Cyrillic-mediated) - **Status:** Active ### [Georgian Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Georgian - **Key Characteristics:** Unique mapping - **Status:** Active ### [Armenian Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Armenian - **Key Characteristics:** Distinct cell assignments - **Status:** Active ### [Tibetan Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Tibetan - **Key Characteristics:** Represents Tibetan syllabic structure; developed mid-20th century for use in Tibet and India. Small community usage - **Status:** Active ### [Burmese Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Burmese (Myanmar) - **Key Characteristics:** For Burmese script - **Status:** Active ### [Dhivehi Braille](https://www.perkins.org/resource/world-braille-usage/) - **Languages Supported:** Dhivehi (Maldivian) - **Key Characteristics:** Adapted for the Thaana script of the Maldives; Thaana is written right-to-left and derives from Arabic numerals. Dhivehi Braille maps Braille cells to Thaana consonants and vowel diacritics - **Status:** Active ### [Dzongkha Braille (Bhutanese)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzongkha_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Dzongkha (Bhutanese) - **Key Characteristics:** Adapted for Dzongkha script - **Status:** Active ### [Khmer Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Khmer (Cambodia) - **Key Characteristics:** For Cambodian script - **Status:** Active ### [Lao Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Lao - **Key Characteristics:** Uses Japanese vowels; adapted for Lao script - **Status:** Active ### [Sinhala Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhala_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Sinhala - **Key Characteristics:** Indian lineage family (Bharati Braille) - **Status:** Active ### [Odia Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odia_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Odia (Oriya) - **Key Characteristics:** Indian lineage family (Bharati Braille) - **Status:** Active ### [Marathi Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Marathi - **Key Characteristics:** Indian lineage family (Bharati Braille - Devanagari script) - **Status:** Active ### [Nepali Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Nepali - **Key Characteristics:** Indian lineage family (Bharati Braille - Devanagari script) - **Status:** Active ### [Bangla Braille (Bengali variant)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Bangla (Bengali variant) - **Key Characteristics:** Indian lineage family (Bharati Braille) - **Status:** Active ### [Devanagari Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Hindi, Marathi, Nepali (Devanagari script) - **Key Characteristics:** Indian lineage family (Bharati Braille) - **Status:** Active ### [Mainland Chinese Mandarin Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Mainland Chinese Mandarin - **Key Characteristics:** Chinese semi-syllabary; largely reassigned from French-ordered - **Status:** Active ### [Taiwanese Mandarin Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Taiwanese Mandarin - **Key Characteristics:** Chinese semi-syllabary; largely reassigned from French-ordered - **Status:** Active ### [Two-cell Chinese Braille (Shuangpin)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-cell_Chinese_Braille) - **Languages Supported:** Chinese (Mandarin) - **Key Characteristics:** Independent Chinese semi-syllabary system - **Status:** Active