Everything about Louis Braille and the Braille System

RTIwala Explains: Who was Louis Braille? What is meant by the Braille System? Top 7 Interesting Facts about Louis Braille in this thoroughly researched report under RTIwala Explains. Braille was impaired with eyes invented a scripting language as an educational reason for the blind people. Let’s figure out all about Louis in the below article.

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Who was Louis Braille?

Louis Braille was a French educator born on 4^th January 1809 and brought up in a small town Coupvray in France, about twenty miles east of Paris. He was along with his three elder siblings who lived with their parents in a small house near the countryside. Braille became blind at the age of 3, accidentally got stuck with stitching awl in his father’s leather workshop.

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Being the youngest of all, he was a very sharp student, whose interest lies in science and music. Louis served as church organist for few years of his childhood. At the age of 10, he received a scholarship to attend the National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris. Later on, he went to the Royal Institute of Blind Youth and became a teacher and worked as a part-time musician.

What is Braille System?

Being an excellent student at the school, Louis learned both academic and vocational skills. There he met Charles Barbier, a French army server, who actually invented a code using different combinations of 12 raised dots to represent different sounds. Barbier called this system sonography for the blind ones who would decode the dots by touching them. Barbier ’s purpose was to serve for soldiers to communicate silently at night, but it did not succeed as a military tool.

Rw Explains World Braille Day — (Image Courtesy: Myinterestingfacts.com)

Since then Braille was so much impressed with this invention that he spent quality time and discovered it’s shortcomings. The sound system was being complexed Louis worked for it over years and formed a simpler system w.r.t. letters. Braille System had only six dots — three dots lined up in each of two columns. He assigned different combinations of dots to different letters and punctuation marks, with a total of 64 symbols.

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His Braille System of six-dot-method was initially not accepted at the school rather became controversial. But later on with the support of the director of the institute, it got a widespread acceptance in the society. At the age of 43, contributing for the blind ones, Braille passes away in 1852 on January 6, due to tuberculosis.

Top 7 Interesting Facts about Louis Braille

Louis Braille wasn’t born blind. He met with an accident with an awl at his father’s workshop. The infection was so intensive that it got spread in both the eyes, enforcing him to blindness.
Louis schooling was like living through a prison. The school has its big name Royal Institute for The Blind but lack with the basic needs. Food was scarce, showers were only available once a month and there were lots of rules, enforced with harsh punishments.
World Braille Day is celebrated in France on January 4, 1809, in order to commemorate Louis Braille. For his excellent contribution to the creation of Braille, a means of communication for blind people. [amazon_link asins=’B00R63A1KI,0448479036,1450508537,B0716PKTPB,059044350X’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’wwwrtiwalain-21′ marketplace=’IN’ link_id=’3917eecd-f0c6-11e7-8be7-ffdaf2cb40d8′]
Louis Braille developed the 6-dots reading system known as Braille after Charles Barbier. Louis was ten years old when he met Charles, and by 15 he had changed the lives of people who are blind forever, with his 6-dot communication system.
Braille is not its own language but rather a code that can be translated into many languages.
Braille’s system was so much promising that it got extended to math and music as well. Louis created symbols for both math and music, he created code for blind musicians to read and write music. In 1829, he published the Method of Writing Words, Music and Plain Song By Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged by them.
The Braille System got its approval only after his death. Although Braille put on so much effort for the improvisation of his system, to help blind students, he was never appreciated. After his death, his 6 dot system eventually got approval by the French government officially, as the standard for reading and writing for the blind. In 1878 it got recognition worldwide and since then, has been adapted to almost every existing language.

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