What ⡛ means
It marks dots 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7.
Dots 1–3 are numbered down the left, 4–6 down the right. In eight-dot Braille, dot 7 extends the six-dot layout; the code assigns this pattern its reading.
Did Barbier bring “night writing” to Braille?
The familiar direct-influence story is disputed.
By 1824, Louis Braille had a six-dot system for reading by touch; he published it in 1829. A 2022 review challenged the story that Charles Barbier invented his 12-dot system as secret military “night writing” and showed it to Braille as a student. Barbier’s 1815 proposal described raised writing for people unable to read print, including blind readers.
Part of the collection
Related characters
1
Questions people ask
1Why 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.
More like this
8
How to type or find ⡛
- Search it as
- Braille dots 12457 · 8-dot Braille · computer Braille
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
⡛\285BCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.