Category: Let's talk
Many on this site have written on the topic of Braille and it's cited under-use.
I don't know where the statistics come from, whether it is or really isn't used, but I do know that long before we had computer access like we do now, there was a definite effort to have things done on tape rather than Braille. The following is not a continuation of an argument 'for' or 'against' the writing system we refer to as Braille. After all, how can one be 'for' or 'against' something so positively inanimate as a writing system?
Here is my beef, personally, with what we have in English contracted Braille:
We have what is possibly the least exact, most error-prone and inefficient writing system ever developed by humankind.The base synbolic notation we call Grade I is certainly logical: the top four dots of the matrix equal the first ten letters, and add dot 3 for the next ten, dot 6 for the final save the w, which was not a letter in common usage in French.
Putting aside the ridiculous notation used to describe the matrix: dots 1 through 6 - where all other matrices worldwide use relative coordinates. I knew all my letters and some of the contracted symbols prior to learning this haphazard non-matrix-oriented demonstration of a matrix, and I will say, it's far easier to remember things as they are in the matrix, as opposed to a pseudo, artificially-constrained, linear representation of the matrix as it is. I'll get to this in a bit, because honestly I think it's a major part of our problem.
Anyway, were anyone with a logical disposition to design a writing system full of contractions as we have, the most obvious assignments for contractions would be the words in common literary usage which act as either parts of compounds or roots / suffixes / prefixes.
Two examples of Braille gone wrong where we can see this:
spirit, and lord.
if the right side of the matrix followed by the letter s were not spirit but special, you now have especially, specialist, specialty / speciality if you are British, etc.
Convert lord Position b2 in the matrix followed by the letter l, to like: Now you have unlike, likely, likelihood, all conjugations of the verb like, likeness as a noun and all its derivatives, which you cannot do using it as just the letter l.
Braille is replete with these things, which we all just use because they're there, but are notoriously obvious to anybody with any sort of math or science background trying to learn the contractions.
It seems rather than create a logical system that is built of parts fitted together, one is left with just rote memorization of all these contractions.
Yes, I use them: yes, it would take time to convert to an improved system. All evolution takes its losses.
But, it is obvious this was not devised by logical thinkers: it was devised by people who read 16th and 17th-century literature and the King James Bible: people who apparently didn't even read their local paper.
Nemeth for symbolic notation of any sort is amazing in its logical construction and representation. I did not know the name for it was Nemeth: only that math books became far simpler to read, and only wished I had had it the year I failed Algebra the first time. Ironically, some taxpayer-sponsored gadfly buzzed around my parent's place telling them Nemeth would be *so* difficult, would require 'training', etc. So, a barbarically-constructed, inefficient symbolic notation system that leaves more questions than answers when writing any sort of math or science is the icon, and those who can't scale it are lazy; but a system where all notation builds upon itself, and a cheat sheet in the front of the book for all new symbols used in that book, is difficult? Bass-ackwards, I know somebody's reader just said 'base' and not 'b a s s ' so now you know what I mean.
The other innovation that's been brillian, but IMHO didn't go far enough, is UEB. Again, writing systems are not intended to leave guesswork as to the symbol's meaning. Even Chinese with 5000+ symbols have unique meanings for every single symbol.
Unified English Braille does that, so that I need not turn off my Braille translator if I'm reading a technical article on the net that contains code snippets: for the technically disinclined, that's like you reading your psychology, medical, or other publication where you have nonstandard text as parts of it, to illustrate what was said.
Because of UEB, I can look at a snippet or fragment in a paragraph of text and know what bracket or brace matches what, which for us is invaluable.
Where UEB didn't go far enough IMHO is it did not change the contractions to a set that was more logically constructed and meaningful.
Now to what I alluded to earlier when it comes to positional info and the arcane methods for representing even a simple 2-by-3 matrix:
Why in hell are we as blind people supposedly eclipsed from being able to look at nonlinear data? I'm convinced this is cultural: Animals that have no access to light are no less directionally oriented: a prairie dog or gopher village is replete with a visually-oriented set of pathways and roads.
And yet, to represent a table in a Braille book, you are given what order the columns are represented, and then a flat, block-style, line-by-line representation. Very cumbersome when doing anything of real value. And, of course, one would be called 'lazy'
Now there are constraints on paper which do not exist with paperless Braille and the use of a reader. Tables are represented row by row, or at minimum cell by cell. Even without Braille, on my iPod Touch, I could look at the relationships of data on a chart in ways I have never done before. The problem is not that blind people don't understand the context, it is that there has, until recently, never been any meaningful way to represent data's context. And, for some types of data, context is at least as important as the data snippets.
So, if you're struggling with Braille, rather than crawling lethargically along from dot 1 to dot 6 or 8, look at the unit and the positions within it: top left, bottom right, middle left, both center, etc. a1 through b8 if you will. And look at any data you possibly can in a refreshable Braille environment rather than attempting to encapsulate a linear textual description of a graph or table, recreate an image in your mind as to what it is, and perhaps get the relationships wrong.
I have probably sinned against the priests of the Braille-opinion movement, or revolution, or whatever it is: worse, I am totally remorselessly impenitent on that account. <grin>
As it seems no discussion of Braille can go without platitude, I'll comment on one:
The Paula Bunyan of the Blind, aka Helen Keller, once wrote: 'Bliness separates us from things, while deafness separates us from people'.
Now this was written from a social commentator of some degree or another, not an innovator. So I will close that loop completely: separation from things = separation from people, if said people need things from you. The blueprints or descriptions of how said things get built or produced on any scale are represented with symbols that cannot afford to be solely subjective and context-driven.
Hmmm, I haven't actually read braille in so long that most of this is over my head. I've never done anything at all with computer Braille. i've seen eight dot displays, but have no real experience with them, so this is going to be an interesting few weeks for me. I never did much with tables, charts and graphs because it was too much effort and I just wasn't interested. That's been many years ago though, so I'm looking forward to exploring all I can, once I get my display. The only Braille display I've ever actually used was on the old cassette based VirsaBraille. I think the cassette based one was much better than the disc based, but maybe that's just because I was more used to it. LOL, I'm getting way off topic though. I'll find this board again when I actually have something of value to contribute. As far as stuff being put on tape, sure, it was a lot less expensive and bulky, so it was a cheaper alternative, and hopefully, it would provide just as much access. Not sure it has, though. We can get plenty of information from audio, but it's pretty difficult to learn sentence structure, and you might as well forget math.
If you're going to do audio, the voice reader like JAWS or VoiceOver is far better than a tape because they provide a means by which you may explorre the data.
Your initial challenge with computer Braille will be that all of what they call contractions are the character for character symbols representation. I will private message you a list of said symbols.
It is mostly useful when you require a character-for-character representation: programming comes to mind as I are one, but I'm sure there are other uses.
It is not, as they would say, difficult: it does require some memorization, but not much.
I never used a VersaBraille.
Most modern readers in Windows can generate Contracted Braille either Grade II or UEB: Certainly JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver can do it.
Now you've completely confused me. I've been a braille reader all of my life and have never had a problem learning, reading or writing in braille. How can there be guesswork involved? This contraction means this and that means that. The only possible problem that I could see, either for newbies or foreigners, is when to use which contractions. But you eventually get used to it. While there may be some issues for certain people, remember that most people either aren't mathematically inclined or have no need for special symbols etc. The average person out there won't ever think of such things as matrix and logical reasoning in the braille code and the position of the dots when opening their books to get a recipe or read for pleasure etc. Perhaps, students might when reading graphs, charts or other such things, but for most, when they get out of school, they leave that behind them and good riddence in most cases! It's true that braille maths, particularly in the American version, can be a pain, but that's why the abacus and calculator exist.
Yes, but the point is that where sighted people can just look at a word and read it, if we read grade II Braille, it's a bit more involved. We have to remember each contraction. And then there are the cases where people get so used to the contractions that they can't actually spell, but can still write in contracted form. Sure, print readers can have a form of shorthand, but how much of it is standardized and taught as a rule? I do see the point. exactly who decided that dot 5 r should be right?
the only trouble I had with braille was with the contractions that represent whole words, such as spirit, according, or character. Once I was aware how to spell the words out when I needed to, it was fine. I see where the original poster is coming from, but I appreciate braille just as much as I appreciate audio/computer related reading.
exactly. When we only see the contracted form of a whole word, as indicated by two cells or less, we don't see the whole word, so we have to remember how to spell those words. Not that big of a chore, I guess, but it's still extra work. Maybe it's the blind equivalent of Xmas, (x-mas?)
This wasn't about appreciation or lack thereof, more how things could have been, and still could be perhaps, improved.
Eleni, charts and diagrams are not for the mathematically inclined alone.
Everything from the write-on-wipe-off board at your local deli to lists and tables of any sort are done using relationship-driven models.
Look at, for instance, your Braille calendar.
This is a beautiful example because it is actually correct: lines represent weeks while vertical rows represent days of week. We cannot write on our Braille calendar, but a sighted person may circle several days, more of an oval actually, but you could circle three consecutive Wednesdays or Monday through Thursday, put an arrow by it pointing to some comment in the margins.
But when you look at your Braille calendar, you are looking precisely at Braille done right: a direct representation of a two-dimensional table.
People hitting the beach may consult a tide table, something you can not do very well in a Braille book or a tape, precisely because the relationships of the data is as communicative as the data itself.
Now, I can look at a Tide Table using an iOS device because I can look at the entire screen.
My point is: tabular and graph-based representation is all over the world and the ability to interpret relational data is most invaluable. It is an education I by necessity gave to myself, as the amazingly one-dimensional systems in the 70s and 80s were inadequate to do so.
Most graphical data is not visual, or sighted, it is relational. I realize that's considered a technical term, but all it means is that where the data is in relation to everything else is in and of itself data.
So, looking at your Braille calendar relationally - as you do without thinking, you will see numbers in context. Of course, you know the number 1 means the first.
But where it's located means what day the first lands on for that month.
How many lines will tell you whether it's a four or five-week month.
The world is absolutely full of this type of data: nearly everything in print now is relational anymore.
Your write-on-wipe-off board at your deli has the word pastrami any number of times on it. By looking at the relationships, one can without thinking see that for Wednesday, pastrami sandwiches are half off, and on the lunch menu you can get a pastrami penini with chips and a pickle for free if your punch card has ten entries.
That is not all written out in paragraph form: it is relationally represented. It is not visual. Computers, for instance, cannot see. Not unless we're talking robotics, of course. Websites can't see, and yet, I can communicate relationships back and forth between any number of interfaces, where the relationships are a large part of the data users will ultimately look at.
Visualization, be it with eyes or otherwise, is processed in one place in the brain, irrespective of input. The specifics of the biology come hazy to me but it is nonetheless the case.
It is this relational content, the content that often makes up all the difference in the world, that we are so often excised from.
Use of one form of writing or another needs no grattitude or appreciation; my argument that the current system is replete with inefficiency could be better off said by a sighted person looking at a tide table written in paragraphs.
I did use scientific data in general, computational data in particular, as an example. But most fields have charts, graphs, or other means of conveying relationships, timelines.
The basic outline is relational and you've certainly seen that.
Relational views and data are not solely co-opted by the technical types.
I have posed challenges, yes. Probably offended the Braille gods of some mythology someplace. It is a system, for use and modifications as humankind sees fit. I reserve grattitude and appreciation to members of humankind itself.
Very good point about contractions causing bad spelling! I had completely forgotten about that but it's definitely true. So to that end, braille can cause a major problem.
I suppose I could see what you mean about charts but I fail to see how simple tables, bar graphs and charts can't be written in braille. After all, you could certainly make collums and whatnot and line them up so that you could go to one line and read straight across. For example, I could write the days of the week and then what I would eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner on each day. I could then go to Monday and read straight across what I would have for that day. But, say, if I was reading the dinner collum and wanted to know what I would have for lunch on Thursday, I could just as easily go to the second collum and three lines down and see what it says, knowing that I would be on Thursday and lunch. What did you mean by "The world is absolutely full of this type of data: nearly everything in print now is relational anymore." If the world is now saturated with this sort of information, when was this not the case?
I appreciate both things and people. I appreciate the invention of braille because, although I do most things with my computer, braille still makes my life easier.
Agree with Grade 2 braille not helping the cause to spell out words. Case and point, I had no idea how to spell "immediately" until a few months ago, as I'm so used to the I M M ly contraction. But I've been a braille reader since I entered pre-school, or rather it was at that time when I was introduced to it. i never questioned the logic behind contractions, they were simply drilled into my head by a very good VI teacher and an emphatic mother.
In regards to braille and audio, I prefer braille and I always have. That's not to say that this will change in the future, but as an avid reader I much prefer to read the words rather than have the words read to me. That being said, I've never bothered to experiment with screenreaders and charts, graphs, tables, etc. Not really sure how to get started on that one.
First Eleni, it is precisely because I use Braille that I wrote this. It is sad that this community is so dogmatic and we can't engage in discussion. I mean, it almost became a for-and-against sort of religion-based topic like a bunch of young political protesters on a college campus. If I were 'against' Braille, if being against a writing system is even technically possible or logical, I would not have wasted my time writing this topic. That is primarily because suffer fools I do not do gladly; a weakness perhaps, but there nonetheless.
On your other point about you putting together your own chart, you are of course correct. However, how many times have you seen this representation done in Braille? I did not, until I saw Braille with the computer, at which point using Excel or web sites with tables, I was able to see it as does a sighted person.
Perhaps I overstated things when I implied data is more relational now than it was. All I do know is that devices that create printed material or web sites, be they virtual or real machines, operate relationally and so output or present the data relationally. It is a simple matter, for example, to extract all the products listed in a database, pull each record individually, and spit out a table where each row contains the product name, price, description and so on. For someone to sit and type it with a typewriter would be a terrible drudgery, I should think. Of course, tides tables and similar tabular publications have been around for 100 years or more, and certainly restaurant menus / the write-on-wipe-off board, or the bulletin board at the library, etc., have all been relationally driven, even before people understood mechanically how this is accomplished. I would argue that just as a computer associates locations and data in memory, possibly in some biological context, we do the same: where the data is is as important as what it is.We can't do it as fast, of course, carbon-based medium plus sodium and water just aren't that efficient when it comes to transporting data, not like cilicon, but I doubt anyone thinks from end to end in one dimension.
Since a written medium of any sort is just a way to express the abstract in a meaningful way, my contention is that Braille could be more meaningful, and that two recent innovations - Nemeth and UEB - have brought us closer to that.
To the last poster I would say if you have a Braille display, use your reader with it to go on a website that has tables, any shopping site, and you will see how the reader represents the table for you in Braille. Try and learn its table commands, or see if the reader has a setting to display the table row by row rather than just line by line format like a Braille book.
Again, it's too bad, and maybe a statement on this community, that there is such dogmatism on the topic of Braille to the point a discussion of its improvements cannot be fully entertained. I find the notion of being for or against a writing system as entirely ridiculous: Can I be 'against' cursive writing? How about block letters, as opposed to print of a different type? Or Chinese characters? That doesn't make any sense: Said systems are simply there, they get used by different groups. Had the Japanese been as silly as some on here, they would never have developed a set of phonetic characters to support foreign words, because they would have been seen as 'against' Kanji. I cannot imagine attempting an explanation of 'for' or 'against' a writing system to anyone.
Personally, I am glad that Nemeth did not bother with said dogmatism, if he was even familiar with its existence. The same goes for the creators of Unified English Braille.