Part 1:
Introduction to Writing for the Blind: A Brief History
Before beginning your journey into braille and braille
transcribing, it is helpful and useful to learn a little about the
historical attempts to develop a system of writing for visually-impaired persons. There is documentation to prove that inventors
and educators as early as 1640 made attempts to create materials
that would allow blind people to engage in reading and writing.
Even a basic understanding of this history is important, for this
reason: there are fairly substantial innovations being developed
today, mostly involving the use of technology enhancements, that
could have a profound impact on how blind people read and write.
Might this even include the end of braille as one of the primary
modes of preparing "print" materials? The argument is that an
understanding of the development of print media, leading to the
current use of braille, is key to following and understanding the
discussions currently prevalent on how materials will be prepared
in the 21st century.
Early Methods
A wide variety of methods and materials for enabling blind persons
to read and communicate with each other have been tried and
evaluated. Examples include the use of wax tablets, the
manipulation of wooden letters, letters made out of wire, the use
of pin-pricked letters in heavy paper, and the use of knots in a
rope tied at various intervals. In 1640, Pierre Moreau, a printer,
attempted to provide a method of creating written documents by casting moveable leaden
type. The common denominator of all of these methods was (and
continues to be a "benchmark" for the suitability of a method) that
each required materials that were difficult to make or manipulate.
It is unfeasible, for example, for someone to be able to carry
enough wooden blocks with them to communicate effectively with
another individual! The criteria of ease of production,
permanence, ease of understanding, and portability of production
materials are all important standards for any form of
communications technology.
One of the first concentrated efforts to create a system of
writing occurred in Paris in the 1780s. Valentin Hauy, founder
and director of the first school for the blind, produced raised
letters on heavy paper using a metal pen with a rounded tip. He
also made the observation that printed letters could be seen in
reverse through regular paper, and was able to produce reverse
metal-cast letters that were able to produce raised letters using
wet paper. The first book using the technique of raised or
embossed letters was published in 1787 and was, appropriately, an
essay on the education of blind children. One of Hauy's
objectives was to maintain a close similarity between the way
sighted and blind children were educated. His theory was that
education of the blind should not deviate significantly from
educational tools and technologies used by sighted students.
Hauy's system of producing raised letters on paper underwent a
number of modifications, some by Hauy himself, some by others. A
blind man in England, Dr. William Moon, created a system of
embossed letters that used the regular alphabet, with some of the
letters modified or simplified. In the Moon alphabet, eight of
the letters remain the same, fourteen have parts left out, and
five are completely of new design. Moon's code was, for the
time, simple and elegant, and it was used by a relatively wide
audience for a substantial period of time.
The precursor to the modern-day standard -- braille -- was the
raised dot system created by Charles Barbier, another French
citizen. In 1815, Barbier created a system of raised dots, which
he theorized (probably correctly!), that raised dots provided a
medium that was more easily interpreted tactually (that is, by
touch.) Barbier's system consisted of two rows of six vertical
dots. Based on a phonetic, or sonographic, methodology,
Barbier's system replaced the letters of the alphabet with a
complicated set of symbols representing different sounds in the
language. The complexity of Barbier's system was its ultimate
downfall, as was the size of the individual units. Twelve dots,
it was determined, were too large for an average individual to
completely cover the cell with his or her fingertip. One of the
innovations that did endure was his development of the slate and
stylus, tools that are still in use today. A slate consists of
two metal pieces, connected together by a hinge. The bottom
metal plate contains indentations in the shape of the dots. The
upper plate has guided holes or openings that allow the user to
form the dots. The stylus -- a wooden holder with a sharp metal
pointer -- is used to push dots into the paper, using the upper
metal plate as a guide. The paper, which is inserted between the
two metal plates, is removed and flipped over, and the dots are
then ready to be read.
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