Korean Braille is the braille alphabet of the

Korean language Korean ( South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographic ...

. It is not graphically-related to other braille scripts found around the world. Instead, it reflects the patterns found in

hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The le ...

, and differentiates

initial In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that ...

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

vowels A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

, and final consonants.

Charts

It features characters for grammatical devices and

punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...

. Numerals are similar to those of other braille systems.

Consonants

Consonants have different syllable-initial and -final variants, capturing some of the feel of hangul. The initial and final variants have the same shapes, but are shifted across the braille block. There are two patterns: The consonants that span the width of the block are shifted one space downward when final. Those that do not span the width of the block are on the right side of the block when initial, but on the left side when final. No consonant occupies more than two rows. *There is no initial version of ''ng''. Initial ''ieung'' in hangul is not written in Korean Braille. However, the expected form is reserved and may not serve other uses, such as punctuation. The heavy (double) consonants are written by prefixing an ''s'', an old hangul convention. In initial position, they are:UNESCO (2013
World Braille Usage
3rd edition. : ㅆ ''ss'' : ㄲ ''kk'' : ㄸ ''tt'' : ㅃ ''pp'' : ㅉ ''jj''

Vowels

All vowels span the width and height of the block. Because the consonants are specifically syllable-initial or syllable-final, a syllable that begins with a vowel causes no confusion when written without ''ieung''. The simpler vowels reflect the

symmetries Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definiti ...

of hangul: the ''yin–yang'' pairs ''a, eo'' and ''o, u'' are related through inversion, and yotization of ''a, eo, o, u'' is indicated by reflecting the vowel. This creates a different pattern of symmetry than in hangul. The graphically-similar hangul letters ''i'' and ''eu'' are also related by reflection. The ''w'' in ''wa, wo'' is indicated by making the left side of the block solid, while the ''i'' in ''ui, oe'' is shown by making the right side solid. However, the

diphthongs A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

''e, ae'' and their yotized variants show no such patterns. Four diphthongs are represented with two braille blocks, by adding to the appropriate vowel for the final element ''-i''.

Abbreviations

Korean Braille contains several single cell syllable defined. Many are the braille cell for an initial consonant, with an assumed vowel "a" added. Some make use of unused cell definitions, while others utilize multi-cell abbreviations, often using malformed consonant clusters or consonant/vowel combinations otherwise abbreviated.

Punctuation

Formatting

As in most braille scripts, is prefixed to digits, which are the same as in English Braille. is prefixed to the 26 basic roman letters in the same way.

History

The first tactile encoding of hangul was developed by Rosetta Sherwood Hall in 1894. It used a cell 4 dots wide by 2 dots high, like

New York Point New York Point (New York Point: ) is a braille-like system of tactile writing for the blind invented by William Bell Wait (1839–1916), a teacher in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. The system used one to four pairs of poi ...

. 6-dot braille was adapted to Korean by

Park Du-seong A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

in 1926. There have since been a number of revisions. The current form was announced in 1994.

References

Sources

Korean Braille library
(in Korean); chart is her

{{list of writing systems Korean language, Braille Innovative braille scripts