What ⣊ means
There are two columns, with four possible dots in each. Viewed from the reading side, the left column is numbered 1, 2, 3, 7 from top to bottom; the right is 4, 5, 6, 8. In ⣊, the second dot on the left, the top dot on the right and both bottom dots are filled. “Eight-dot” describes the available positions, not how many dots are filled.
Braille is a system for reading and writing by touch, used by blind people. Traditional six-dot cells have three rows; eight-dot Braille adds a bottom row and is used in computing, among other settings. Braille codes represent languages, music and mathematics. Unicode preserves this cell’s dot pattern without assigning it a single reading across those codes.
Part of the collection
Worth knowing
- In 1821, Louis Braille encountered Charles Barbier’s raised-dot writing method. He later developed his own six-dot system; the eight-position cell shown here is an extension of that layout.
Questions people ask
1Can you feel this character on a phone screen?
No. An ordinary screen shows flat dots. Reading Braille by touch requires raised dots, such as embossed paper or a refreshable Braille display—a device with pins that rise and fall.
More like this
8
How to type or find ⣊
- Search it as
- braille dots 2478 · braille cell 2478 · dots 2478 · 8-dot braille
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
⣊\28CACodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.