Russian Braille

Russian Braille is the braille alphabet of the Russian language. With suitable extensions, it is used for languages of neighboring countries that are written in Cyrillic in print, such as Ukrainian and Mongolian. It is based on the Latin transliteration of Cyrillic, with additional letters assigned idiosyncratically. In Russian, it is known as the Braille Script.

Alphabet

The Russian Braille alphabet is as follows:

The adaptation of ⠟ q to ч [tɕ] and ⠭ x to щ [ɕː] is reminiscent of the adaptation in Chinese pinyin of q to [tɕ] and x to [ɕ].

Contractions are not used.

Obsolete letters

The pre-Revolutionary alphabet, reproduced at right from an old encyclopedia, includes several letters which have since been dropped. In addition, the letter э is shown with a slightly different form.

Although obsolete in Russian Braille, these letters continue in several derivative alphabets.

Punctuation

Single punctuation:

Paired punctuation:

Formatting

Columns marked with ⠿ are shown in the braille-chart image in the box, above right.

Numbers and arithmetic

Numbers are the letters a–j introduced with ⠼, as in other alphabets. Arithmetical symbols are as follows. The lowered g used for parentheses in prose becomes an equal sign in arithmetic, where a symmetrical pair of parentheses is used instead:

Arithmetical symbols are preceded but not followed by a space, with the exception of the multiplication dot. For example:

⠼⠋⠀⠦⠼⠛⠀⠲⠼⠁⠙⠀⠶⠼⠉

6 × 7 : 14 = 3

⠼⠉⠄⠣⠼⠊⠀⠤⠼⠛⠜⠀⠶⠼⠋

3 · (9 − 7) = 6

⠩⠱⠼⠁⠚⠚⠚⠚⠀⠪⠀⠼⠁⠚⠁

${\displaystyle {\sqrt {10000}}<101}$

Extensions for other languages

In print, many languages of the ex–Soviet Union are written in Cyrillic alphabets derived from the Russian alphabet by adding new letters. Their braille alphabets are similarly derived from Russian Braille. The braille assignments for the letters found in Russian print are the same as in Russian Braille. However, there is no international consistency among the additional letters, apart from ⠽ і, which is used in Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Kazakh – and even then, Kyrgyz uses ⠽ for ң (ŋ), and it might be that Tajik uses it for қ (q). Generally not all of the Russian letters are used, except perhaps in Russian loans. Punctuation and formatting, as far as they are attested, agree with Russian Braille, though Kazakh Braille is reported to use the Russian arithmetical parentheses ⠣⠀⠜.

Ukrainian Braille

Ukrainian has the additional letters і, ї, є, ґ. The є is the mirror image of old Russian э, while і is the old Russian і (that is, it is the mirror image of й, making it the same as French/English y), and ї is old Russian ѣ.

Unesco (2013) was unable to verify these values.

Belarusian Braille

Belarusian has the additional letters і and ў. They are the mirror images of й and у.

Unesco (2013) was unable to verify these values.

Kazakh Braille

Kazakh has the additional letters ә, ғ, қ, ң, һ, ө, ү, ұ, і.

See Kazakh alphabets#Correspondence chart for the whole braille alphabet aligned with the Cyrillic.

Kyrgyz Braille

Kyrgyz has a subset of the Kazakh letters, ң, ө, ү, but with completely different braille values from the languages above:

See Kyrgyz alphabets#Correspondence chart for the whole braille alphabet aligned with the Cyrillic.

Mongolian Braille

Mongolian has ө, ү, but with different braille assignments again:

These are two of the obsolete Russian Braille letters. The Mongolian vowel ө (ö) is coincidentally similar in print to the old Russian consonant ѳ (th), and takes the latter's braille assignment; the Mongolian vowel ү (ü) takes the assignment of the old Russian vowel yat.

See Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet for the whole alphabet aligned with Cyrillic.

Tatar Braille

Additional alphabets

Unesco reported additional braille adaptations of Cyrillic in 1990, for Tajik, Turkmen and Uzbek, but was not able to confirm them by 2013. The additional letters in the report are shown here, but like those of Ukrainian and Belarusian, they are unverified and should be treated with caution.

Tajik Braille

Turkmen Braille

Uzbek Braille

See also

• Moon type is a simplification of the Latin alphabet for embossing. An adaptation for Russian-reading blind people has been proposed.

Notes

References

1. Russian alphabet
2. Ukrainian Braille
3. Braille
4. Kazakh Braille
5. Mongolian Braille
6. English Braille
7. Belarusian Braille
8. Tatar Braille
9. Bulgarian Braille
10. Mainland Chinese Braille
11. Russian language
12. Kyrgyz Braille
13. Georgian Braille
14. Arabic Braille
15. Perkins Brailler
16. International uniformity of braille alphabets
17. Braille pattern dots-1
18. Braille pattern dots-46
19. Braille pattern dots-246
20. Braille pattern dots-135