Braille Pattern Dots 5–6

In UEB, the next cell is read without contraction. This grade 1 symbol indicator spells letters out instead of using contractions, Braille shorthand for letters or groups. One sign marks a character, two a word, three a passage.

Barbier’s larger night-writing code let soldiers read silently in darkness. He demonstrated it at a Paris school for blind youth in 1821; by 1824 Louis Braille had reduced it to six dots and published his system in 1829.