Mainland Chinese Braille is abraille script forStandard Chinese used in China.^[1] Consonants and basic finals conform tointernational braille, but additional finals form asemi-syllabary, as inbopomofo. Each syllable is written with up to three Braille cells, representing theinitial,final, andtone, respectively. In practice tone is generally omitted as it is inpinyin.

Traditional Chinese Braille is as follows:^[2][3]

Chinese Braille initials generally follow thepinyin assignments of international braille. However,j, q, x are replaced withg, k, h, as the difference is predictable from the final. (This reflects the historical change ofg, k, h (and alsoz, c, s) toj, q, x beforei andü.) The digraphsch, sh, zh are assigned to⠟ (its pronunciation inRussian Braille),⠱ (a common pronunciation ininternational braille), and⠌.R is assigned to⠚, reflecting the oldWade-Giles transcription of⟨j⟩. (⠗ is used for the finaler, the pronunciation of the name of that letter inEnglish Braille.)

Pinyin	b	p	m	f	d	t	n	l	g/j	k/q	h/x	zh	ch	sh	r	z	c	s
Bopomofo	ㄅ	ㄆ	ㄇ	ㄈ	ㄉ	ㄊ	ㄋ	ㄌ	ㄍ ㄐ	ㄎ ㄑ	ㄏ ㄒ	ㄓ	ㄔ	ㄕ	ㄖ	ㄗ	ㄘ	ㄙ
Braille

The finals approximate international braille values for several of the basic vowels (⠢e (o),⠊yi,⠕wo,⠥wu,⠬yü,⠳you,⠮ei), but then necessarily diverge. However, there are a few parallels with other braille alphabets:⠗er and⠽wai are pronounced like the names of those letters inEnglish braille;⠑ye,⠫ya, and⠳you are pronounced like those letters inRussian Braille.⠯yuan,⠾yue,⠣yin, are similar to theold French pronunciationsoin, ieu, in. For the most part, however, Chinese Braille finals do not obviously derive from previous conventions.

The pinyin final-i is only written where it corresponds toyi. Otherwise* (inci zi si ri chi zhi shi) no final is written, a convention also found in bopomofo. The final-e is not written in⠙de, a common grammatical particle written with several different characters in print.^[4]

Pinyin Bopomofo Braille a ㄚ e/o ㄛ ㄜ ㄝ ai ㄞ ei ㄟ ao ㄠ ou ㄡ an ㄢ en ㄣ ang ㄤ eng ㄥ

Pinyin Bopomofo Braille yi, -i* ㄧ ya, -ia ㄧㄚ ye, -ie ㄧㄝ yao, -iao ㄧㄠ you, -iu ㄧㄡ yan, -ian ㄧㄢ yang, -iang ㄧㄤ yin, -in ㄧㄣ ying, -ing ㄧㄥ

Pinyin Bopomofo Braille wu, -u ㄨ wa, -ua ㄨㄚ wo, -uo ㄨㄛ wai, -uai ㄨㄞ wei, -ui ㄨㄟ wan, -uan ㄨㄢ wen, -un ㄨㄣ wang, -uang ㄨㄤ weng, -ong ㄨㄥ

Pinyin Bopomofo Braille yu, -ü ㄩ yue, -üe ㄩㄝ yuan, -üan ㄩㄢ yun, -ün ㄩㄣ yong, -iong ㄩㄥ er ㄦ

Tone is marked sparingly.

Tone	1	2	3	4	neutral
Pinyin	¯	´	ˇ	`	(none)
Zhuyin	(none)	ˊ	ˇ	ˋ	˙
Braille					(none)

Chinese Braille punctuation approximates the form of international braille punctuation, but several spread the corresponding dots across two cells rather than one. For example, the period is⠐⠆, which is the same pattern as the international single-cell norm of⠲.

Print	。	，	、	？	！	：	；	-	—	…	·	（	）	［ and］	《	》	“	”	‘	’
Chinese Braille
French equivalent	⠲	⠂		⠢	⠖	⠒	⠆	⠤		⠄⠄⠄	⠀	⠦	⠴	⠶

A braille cell ⠼ callednumber sign (simplified Chinese:数号;traditional Chinese:數號;pinyin:shùhào) is needed when representing numbers.

Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0
Braille

Examples:

⠼⠚ 0,⠼⠁ 1,⠼⠃ 2, …⠼⠊ 9,

⠼⠁⠚ 10,⠼⠁⠁ 11,⠼⠁⠃ 12, …⠼⠁⠊ 19, …⠼⠃⠊ 29, …⠼⠊⠊ 99,

⠼⠁⠚⠚ 100,⠼⠃⠑⠋ 256,⠼⠁⠚⠃⠙ 1024,⠼⠁⠚⠙⠓⠑⠛⠋ 1048576.

• Spaces are added between words, rather than between syllables.
• Tone is marked when needed. It comes after the final.
• As in bopomofo, the finals of the syllableszi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, ri are not marked.

Two examples, the first with full tone marking, the second with tone for disambiguation only:

Chinese Braille has the same low level of ambiguity that pinyin does. In practice, tone is omitted 95% of the time, which leads to a space saving of a third. Tone is also omitted inpinyin military telegraphy, and causes little confusion in context.

The initial pairsg/j,k/q,h/x are distinguished by the final: initialsj, q, x are followed by the vowelsi orü, while the initialsg, k, h are followed by other vowels. This reflects the historical derivation ofj, q, x fromg, k, h beforei andü,^[5] and parallels the dual pronunciations ofc andg inSpanish andItalian. In pinyin, the redundancy is resolved in the other direction, with the diaeresis omitted fromü afterj, q, x. Thus braille⟨gü⟩ is equivalent to pinyinju:

⠛⠥gu,

⠛⠬ju.

The China Library for the Blind (Chinese:中国盲文图书馆) in Beijing has several thousand volumes, mostly published by the China Braille Press (Chinese:中国盲文出版社).^[6] TheNational Taiwan Library has a Braille room with a postal mail service and some electronic documents.^{[7][irrelevant citation]}

• Two-cell Chinese Braille
• Taiwanese Braille
• Cantonese Braille
• Moon type is a simplification of the Latin alphabet for embossing. An adaptation forNingbo-reading blind people has been proposed.

• Grotz, J. (Aug 1991). "The necessary reform of Chinese Braille writing".Rehabilitation (Stuttgart).30 (3):153–5.PMID 1947424.

• Constance Frederica Gordon Cumming (1892).Work for the blind in China. Printed by Gilbert & Rivington, Limited, St. John's House, Clerkenwell, London E.C.: Gilbert & Rivington, Ld. p. 79. RetrievedApril 23, 2012. [Original from Columbia University; digitized August 18, 2009]

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