Braille pattern dots 1-2-5

English Braille maps ⠓ to h. Dots 1, 2, and 5 are raised.

Unicode preserves dots; Braille tables assign readings by language and code. A screen reader may translate text through a selected table.

How did Braille develop?

Louis Braille adapted Charles Barbier’s earlier raised-dot system.

In 1821, Charles Barbier showed his twelve-dot “night writing” at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris. The code let soldiers read messages silently in darkness and encoded sounds, not letters. Braille’s six-position cell represented letters and punctuation; he presented his system in 1824 and published an explanation in 1829.