Hebrew Braille ( he, ברייל עברי) is the

braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displ ...

alphabet for

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

. The International Hebrew Braille Code is widely used. It was devised in the 1930s and completed in 1944. It is based on international norms, with additional letters devised to accommodate differences between

English Braille English Braille, also known as ''Grade 2 Braille'', is the braille alphabet used for English. It consists of around 250 letters ( phonograms), numerals, punctuation, formatting marks, contractions, and abbreviations (logograms). Some English Br ...

and the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...

. Unlike Hebrew, but in keeping with other braille alphabets, Hebrew Braille is read from left to right instead of right to left, and unlike English Braille, it is an

abjad An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vow ...

, with all letters representing consonants.

History

Prior to the 1930s, there were several regional variations of Hebrew Braille, but no universal system. In 1930, the Jewish Braille Institute of America, under the direction of the

Synagogue Council of America The Synagogue Council of America was an American Jewish organization of synagogue and rabbinical associations, founded in 1926. The Council was the umbrella body bridging the three primary religious movements within Judaism in the United States. I ...

, assembled an international committee for the purpose of producing a unified embossed code to be used by sightless people throughout the world. The committee membership consisted of Isaac Maletz, representing the Jewish Institute for the Blind, Jerusalem; Dr. Max Geffner, of the Blindeninstitut of Vienna; Canon C. F. Waudby, of the National Institute for the Blind, Great Britain; Leopold Dubov, of the Jewish Braille Institute of America; and Rabbi Harry J. Brevis, representing the New York Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Brevis, who had lost his eyesight in his mid 20s, and who had developed a system of Hebrew braille for his personal use as a rabbinical student while attending the Jewish Institute of Religion from 1926 and 1929, was named chairman of the committee, and Leupold Dubov, the executive director of the Jewish Braille Institute of America, was appointed secretary. In 1933, the committee voted unanimously to approve and sponsor Brevis' system for adoption as the International Hebrew Braille Code. Brevis published a selection of readings from the Bible, Mishnah, and contemporary literature using this system in 1935 under the title ''A Hebrew Braille Chrestomathy''. Among the greater challenges faced by the committee was the accommodation of the Hebrew vowel points. In 1936, the first Hebrew Braille book was published with sponsorship from the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

: a volume of excerpts from the ''

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

'' and other sources. The code underwent further refinements for the better part of a decade until its completion in 1944.

Basic alphabet

Because Hebrew Braille derives from English Braille, there is not a one-to-one match between Hebrew letters in print and in braille. Most obviously, four consonants with the '' dagesh'' point in print have distinct letters in braille, but three others require a ''dagesh'' prefix in braille. The different placements of the dot on the print letter ''shin'' also correspond to two different letters in braille. On the other hand, the distinct final forms of some letters in print are not reflected in braille. In the table below, the braille letters corresponding to basic letters in print are in the top row, while those derived by pointing in print, and which have a distinct pronunciation in Modern Hebrew, are in the second row. For other pointed print consonants, such as ''gimel'' with ''dagesh'' , the braille prefix is used: . Historically, this sequence has two values: a 'hard' gee (cf. plain ''gimel'' ), and a double/long gee . However, it is not distinct in Modern Hebrew. It is not clear if the prefix can be added to letters that have partners in the bottom row of the table above to distinguish, say, dagesh hazak ''kk'' from dagesh kal ''k'', or ''ww'' from ''û''. When transcribing completely unpointed print texts, only the top row of braille letters is used.

Vowel pointing

Apart from those written with and and thus obligatory in print, vowels are optional in braille just as they are in print. When they are written, braille vowels are full letters rather than diacritics. Print digraphs with schwa ( ''ĕ'', ''ă'', ''ŏ'', bottom row), and the '' matres lectionis'' ( ''û'', ''ô'', ''î'') are derived in braille by modifying (lowering or reflecting) the base vowel. ''ê'' does not have a dedicated braille letter, and is written as the vowel ''e'' plus yod.

Numbers

Punctuation

The punctuation used with Hebrew Braille, according to UNESCO(2013), is as follows:

Jewish Heritage for the Blind

Jewish Heritage for the Blind, although organizationally unrelated to ''Jewish Braille Institute'', has a related mission: to provide Braille and Large Print texts, in particular for religious services.

References

* UNESCO (2013
World Braille Usage
3rd edition.

External links

Braille script (כתב ברייל)
{{Hebrew language, state=collapsed French-ordered braille alphabets Hebrew alphabet Assistive technology Character encoding Braille Writing systems introduced in the 1940s