Braille dots 1-3-6

In contracted English Braille, standalone ⠥ can mean “us”. Contractions save space by representing letters or words with fewer cells. Inside an ordinary English word, this cell represents “u”; its whole-word reading requires the appropriate word boundaries.

Braille is a way of writing different languages, not a language itself. The reading “u” is shared by several Braille alphabets, but is not universal. Unicode identifies this character by its dots rather than assigning it one letter or word across all languages. Braille also has conventions for mathematics and music.

Where are dots 1, 3 and 6?

They are at top left, bottom left and bottom right. A traditional six-dot Braille cell has two columns of three positions. Read from the front, the left column is numbered 1, 2, 3 from top to bottom; the right is 4, 5, 6. In ⠥, positions 2, 4 and 5 are empty.

Braille readers feel raised dots on paper or moving pins on a Braille display. The character shown on an ordinary screen is a visual representation of that arrangement. In a picture made from Braille characters, its dots can be part of the drawing rather than a letter to read.