Braille pattern dots 1-2-4-5-6

⠻ has no universal reading across Braille codes; its role depends on the code and its neighbors. In contracted English Braille, it can stand for “er”; technical UEB also uses it as a layout marker. Braille grew from Louis Braille’s adaptation of Charles Barbier’s 1821 sonography, a raised-dot code for sounds.

Text symbol

What ⠻ means

One Braille cell can have different roles in different codes.

The 2024 Unified English Braille (UEB) code for English assigns ⠻ two roles: in contracted text, one cell stands for the letters “er” inside a word; it also marks the relation between two technical items.

The second role is vertical juxtaposition: the two items are arranged one above the other. Here the cell marks their layout relationship, not another letter pair.

Part of the collection

⠃

Braille Symbols

Questions people ask

Why does ⠻ show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.