Like countless other advancements over time, the invention of Braille involved a good pinch of luck and trial and error.
Braille as we know it today, a combination of raised bumps in cells consisting of two vertical rows of three, was invented in the early part of the 19th century by Frenchman Louis Braille.
Louis Braille took inspiration from Charles Barbier, an artillery captain who had attempted to produce a tactile communication system that could be used covertly by the French military.
Barbier’s system consisted of cells containing 12 dots in two rows of six and allowed for the encoding of 36 different sounds but was deemed too difficult to use.
After it was rejected by the military, Barbier presented his idea to the Royal Institute for the Blind in Paris where Louis Braille was studying. One of the reasons Barbier’s system failed was that each cell was too large to be easily deciphered via touch.
Louis Braille reduced the individual cells from 12 dots to six , with the dots in each cell numbered 1 – 6, starting from the top of the left hand column and moving down and then across to the right hand column.
He then allocated each letter of the alphabet a different combination of raised dots, effectively inventing what is now known as Grade One Braille.
Grade One Braille also uses the dot combinations for the letters A – J to represent 0 – 9 when they are preceded by a cell where dots 3, 4, 5 and 6 are raised.
Grade One Braille is now mainly used by people who are blind or have low vision for spot reading purposes such as short messages and notes or labelling.
Following Louis Braille’s death in 1852, Grade One Braille began to spread across the globe, reaching the United Kingdom and the United States.
After that there was a competing run of evolution, as the United Kingdom developed English Braille, while the United States saw a range of Braille forms originate and fight for supremacy.
Included in that evolution was the development of dot patterns that represent “contractions” in an attempt to shorten words and help condense Braille text. Those “contractions” were widely adopted and became known as Grade Two Braille.
In the 1930’s the UK and US signed an agreement, sometimes referred to as the Treaty of London, which saw some small changes made to English Braille, allowing a common form of Grade Two Braille to be adopted in both nations.
While the Treaty of London seemingly paved the way for a common form of Braille to be used across the world, different sets of Braille rules began to appear across the globe in the years that followed to represent things such as mathematics, scientific material, computer software or symbols such as the @ sign.
The concern, which first emanated from America, was that the number of conflicting codes would marginalise Braille as those using it would be faced with the challenge of learning and switching between numerous different sets of codes.
In 1991 the idea of Uniform English Braille (UEB) was put forward, which would permit representing the wide variety of literary and technical material in use in the English-speaking world in a uniform fashion.
In 2004 the International Council on English Braille (ICEB) approved UEB for use and it has since been adopted by the ICEB member nations of Canada, South Africa, Australia, the United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand and Nigeria.
Outside of the UEB, the 1990s was a significant period for Braille as advancements in technology increased the ability of people to access Braille material.
“It wasn’t really until we hit the mid-‘90s that we saw the technology change to where we could really produce Braille material en masse,” Jordie Howell, Chair of the Australian Braille Authority and Vision Australia Braille instructor and transcriber, said.
Throughout the 1990s, advancements were made around translating and printing technology, which greatly improved the availability of Braille material. In the past a significant amount of Braille production had been carried out by volunteers, while in the United States prison inmates have also played an important role in Braille production.
While those advancements made Braille material more available, Braille users still face some challenges due to the nature of printed Braille material.
“If you look at something like a Harry Potter book, when it’s produced in Braille it might be something like five volumes rather than just one book,” Ms Howell said.
“At school I can remember the times I’d have to carry a bag of books or if I forgot one volume that meant I was without half a book.”
For many Braille users those challenges still remain, however the rise of refreshable Braille displays will hopefully one day make them a thing of the past.
“The refreshable displays have really been a huge step forward, it means people can carry around the small machine and use it to read, rather than having to carry a number of books or rely on audio,” Ms Howell said.
“Once they become cheaper and we get to where they have a whole page rather than something like the 40 or 60 characters they have at the moment then I think we’ll really start to see the benefits they have.”
Refreshable Braille displays use screen reading technology to convert digital files into Braille one line at a time onto a small device similar to a keyboard. Each Braille cell on the display consists of nylon pins which are electronically controlled to move up and down to display a Braille version of the characters that appear on screen.
For Ms Howell, even without those advancements, Braille would have remained a key literacy tool, though not all were as confident that it still had a place in the modern world.
“I’m a hard-core Braille user, I carry around a small hand-frame and stylus in case I need to make notes, and so for me it was always going to be something I use.
“Around the 1970s, as audio started to take off, I think there were some people who might have thought Braille would become extinct but I think now we’re at a point where people realise its importance.”
Much of that importance revolves around the impact Braille has on the literacy levels of people from the blind and low vision community.
“What Braille does is really give people from the blind and low vision community the power of literacy. If you’re listening to an audio version of Lord of the Rings being able to hear an unusual word like a character’s name, but you’ll have no idea how it’s put together.
“It’s the same with phonetics, if all you use is audio then you’re not going to understand how letters can be put together and used to make different sounds.”
Those benefits are why people like Ms Howell advocate for people from the blind and low vision community to be exposed to Braille, especially if it can be done from a young age.
“It takes about the same time for a vision impaired child to learn Braille as it does for a sighted child to read and write and from there their literacy levels will continue to develop as well.
“The important thing is to make sure people are in Braille rich environments. For example in the class room it should be more than just their books that are in Braille, you want them to be constantly using and experiencing it.”
That thought is why Ms Howell is a strong advocate for Braille to become more prevalent in the wider community.
“It would be great if we get to the point where restaurants have Braille menus or if you go to a play and there’s a Braille guide to go with it.
“I remember going to a play in England years ago and being provided with a Braille synopsis and I thought that was amazing. The more Braille we have out there, the more people will want to use it.”