Japanese Braille is thebraille script of theJapanese language. It is based on the original braille script, though the connection is tenuous. In Japanese it is known astenji (点字), literally "dot characters". It transcribes Japanese more or less as it would be written in thehiragana orkatakana syllabaries, without any provision for writingkanji.

Japanese Braille is a vowel-basedabugida. That is, the glyphs are syllabic, but unlikekana they contain separate symbols for consonant and vowel, and the vowel takes primacy. The vowels are written in the upper left corner (dots 1, 2, 4) and may be used alone. The consonants are written in the lower right corner (dots 3, 5, 6) and cannot occur alone.^[1] However, thesemivowely is indicated by dot 4, one of the vowel dots, and the vowel combination is dropped to the bottom of the cell. When this dot is written in isolation, it indicates that the following syllable has amedialy, as inmya. Syllables beginning withw are indicated by dropping the vowel dots to the bottom of the cell without additional consonant dots.^[2]

In Japanese Braille, bare vowels are assigned to braille patterns that occupy the upper-left half of the cell (dots 1–2–4):⠁⠃⠉⠋⠊. While the first three vowels are the same as the numerals 1, 2, and 3, this pattern does not continue, and the cells representing other kana have no apparent connection to international values or numerical order. Common punctuation marks tend to follow standard international values, with several doing double-duty with the w- series of kana braille. Beyond the bare vowels, all other kana use the vowel series, calleddan, with eachgyō (consonant series) represented either by adding specific dots, lowering the dot positions of thedan vowel patterns within the cell, or both.^[3]

	あ段 a dan	い段 i dan	う段 u dan	え段 e dan	お段 o dan
あ行 a gyō bare vowels	あ a	い i	う u	え e	お o
	⠁	⠃	⠉	⠋	⠊
か行 ka gyō: k- dan + dot 6	か ka	き ki	く ku	け ke	こ ko
	⠡	⠣	⠩	⠫	⠪
さ行 sa gyō: s- dan + dots 5&6	さ sa	し shi	す su	せ se	そ so
	⠱	⠳	⠹	⠻	⠺
た行 ta gyō: t- dan + dots 3&5	た ta	ち chi	つ tsu	て te	と to
	⠕	⠗	⠝	⠟	⠞
な行 na gyō: n- dan + dot 3	な na	に ni	ぬ nu	ね ne	の no
	⠅	⠇	⠍	⠏	⠎
は行 ha gyō: h- dan + dots 3&6	は ha	ひ hi	ふ fu	へ he	ほ ho
	⠥	⠧	⠭	⠯	⠮
ま行 ma gyō: m- dan + dots 3,5&6	ま ma	み mi	む mu	め me	も mo	ん n
	⠵	⠷	⠽	⠿	⠾	⠴
や行 ya gyō: y- dan lowered + dot 4	や ya		ゆ yu		よ yo	-y-
	⠌		⠬		⠜	⠈
ら行 ra gyō: r- dan + dot 5	ら ra	り ri	る ru	れ re	ろ ro
	⠑	⠓	⠙	⠛	⠚
わ行 wa gyō: w- dan lowered	わ wa	ゐ wi		ゑ we	を wo	-w-
	⠄	⠆		⠖	⠔	⠢

The patterns for addingyōon to a mora can be added to the modifiers fordakuten and handakuten as a compound kana modifier, and theya gyō braille series is based on the yōon dot pattern. The symbol forんsyllabic "n" is based on its historical derivation fromむmu.

In kana, a smalltsu (っ), calledsokuon, is used to indicate that the following consonant isgeminate, and ininterjections as aglottal stop. In katakana only, a long vowel is indicated with a horizontal stroke (ー) called achōon. This also looks like a half dash in braille:^[3]

sokuon	chōon
⠂	⠒

The placement of these blocks mirrors the equivalent kana: thesokuon indicates that the following consonant is geminate, whereas thechōon indicates that the preceding vowel is long.

In kana, thevoiced consonantsg, z, d, b are derived from the voiceless consonantsk, s, t, h by adding adiacritic calleddakuten to the kana, as inぎgi; in foreign words,vu is written by adding this to the vowelu. Similarly,p is derived fromh by adding a small circle,handakuten. Two kana are fused into a single syllable by writing the second small, as inきゃkya fromki + ya; this is calledyōon.^[3]

In Japanese Braille, the signs for these are prefixes. That is, the order isdakuten +ki forぎgi. When more than one occurs in a single syllable, they are combined in a single prefix block, as theyōon-dakuten used forぎゃgya.^[3]

dakuten (g-)	handakuten (p-)	yōon (-y-)	yōon + dakuten	yōon + handakuten
⠐	⠠	⠈	⠘	⠨

Theyōon prefix uses the dot that representsy in the blocksya,yu,yo. When placed beforeka,ku,ko, it produceskya,kyu,kyo. Likewise, theyōon-dakuten prefix beforeka, ku, ko createsgya, gyu, gyo. And so on for the other consonants.

Unlike kana, which uses a subscripte, in braille the-ye in foreign borrowings is written withyōon and the kana from thee row: that is,kye,she,che,nye,hye,mye,rye, voicedgye,je,bye, and plosivepye are written with theyōon prefixes pluske,se,te,ne,he,me,re. The syllableye is writtenyōon pluse.

There is also a prefix for medial-w- calledgōyōon. When combined withka, it produces the obsolete syllablekwa. It may also be fused with the voicing prefix forgwa. For foreign borrowings, this extends tokwi,kwe,kwo andgwa,gwi,gwe,gwo.Gōyōon may also be combined with the vowelsi,e,o for foreignwi,we,wo (now that thew in the original Japanese kana forwi,we,wo is silent); withha,hi,he,ho forfa,fi,fe,fo and (when voiced) forva,vi,ve,vo; and withta,chi,te,to fortsa,tsi,tse,tso. These two prefixes are identical to the question mark and full stop.

gōyōon (-w-)	gōyōon + dakuten
⠢	⠲

These all parallel usage in kana. However, there are additional conventions which are unique to braille.Yōon andyōon-dakuten are also added tochi andshi to writeti,di andsi,zi found in foreign borrowings; similarlygōyōon andgōyōon-dakuten are added totsu to writetu,du. This differs from the system used in kana, where the base syllables arete andto respectively, and a subscript voweli oru is added.

In an assignment that is counter-intuitive in kana,yōon + handakuten is prefixed totsu,yu,yo to producetyu,fyu,fyo in foreign words, and voiced fordyu,vyu,vyo. The latter—yōon + dakuten + handakuten, is impossible in kana:

yōon + dakuten + handakuten

⠸

Japanese Braille is written as print Japanese would be written in kana. However, there are three discrepancies:

• In print, the ubiquitous grammatical particleswa ande have the historical spellingsはha andへhe. In braille, they are written as they are pronounced,⠄wa and⠋e.^[4]
• The longō sound is written with⠒ (chōon), as it would be romanized, regardless of whether it isoo orou in print Japanese. Longū is also written with achōon rather than au. (This is a common convention inkatakana, but does not occur inhiragana.) ThusTōkyō, sorted asToukyou in dictionaries, is nonetheless written⠞⠒⠈⠪⠒, andsansū is written⠱⠴⠹⠒.
• Spaces are used to separate words (though not clauses or sentences, where punctuation performs that function). Thus今日は朝からよく晴れている。 is spaced as in its romanization, though without separatingparticles from their nouns:Kyōwa asakara yoku harete iru.⠈⠪⠒⠄⠀⠁⠱⠡⠑⠀⠜⠩⠀⠥⠛⠟⠀⠃⠙⠲ Spaces are also placed between family and personal names, as in石川倉次Ishikawa Kuraji. When writing inkatakana, an interpunct⟨・⟩ is used for this function in print, as inルイ・ブライユRui Buraiyu (Louis Braille).

Besides the punctuation of Japanese, braille also has symbols to indicate that the following characters aredigits or theLatin alphabet.^[3]

。	、	？	！	「 ... 」	（ ... ）	hyphen	—	・・・	space
				...	...
⠲	⠰	⠢	⠖	⠤⠀⠤	⠶⠀⠶	⠤	⠒⠒	⠂⠂⠂	⠀

As noted above, the space is used between words and also where an interpunct would be used when names are written in katakana. There are several additional punctuation marks.

Western letters and digits are indicated as follows:

Digit(s)	Latin letter(s)	capital letter
⠼	⠰	⠠

An additional sign^{[clarification needed]} indicates that the following characters are specifically English words and not just in the Latin alphabet.

Words immediately follow numbers, unless they begin with a vowel or withr-. Because the syllablesa i u e o andra ri ru re ro are homographic with the digits 0–9, a hyphen is inserted to separate them. Thus6人 "six people" (6 nin) is written without a hyphen,⠼⠋⠇⠴⟨6nin⟩, but6円 "six yen" (6 en) is written with a hyphen,⠼⠋⠤⠋⠴⟨6-en⟩, because⠼⠋⠋⠴ would be read as⟨66n⟩.

There are both a six dot system,tenkanji and an eight-dot extension of Japanese Braillekantenji, that have been devised to transcribekanji.^[5]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toJapanese braille.

• The Braille Authority of Japan – the standard-setting body for braille notation in Japan
• World Blind Union

• Encodings of Japanese
• Innovative braille scripts
• Abugida writing systems

• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2013
• Commons category link is on Wikidata