| Two-cell Chinese Braille | |
| Type: | Semisyllabary |
| Typedesc: | with characteristics of an abugida |
| Languages: | Standard Mandarin |
| Fam1: | Braille |
| Fam2: | Japanese Braille[1] |
| Note: | none |
Two-cell Chinese Braille was designed in the 1970s and is used in parallel with traditional Chinese Braille in China.
Each syllable is rendered with two braille characters. The first combines the initial and medial; the second the rime and tone. The base letters represent the initial and rime; these are modified with diacritics for the medial and tone. Thus each of the braille cells has aspects of an abugida.[2] [3]
The first cell indicates the initial, generally in dots 1 to 4, and the medial in dots 5 and 6. This design exploits restrictions on co-occurrence of initials and medials to fit all the allowable combinations in a single cell.
The medial -i- is represented by dot 5, the medial -u- by dot 6, and the medial -ü- by both dots 5 and 6 . The z c s series is derived from zh ch sh as if they contained a -i- medial; these two series are not distinguished in many Mandarin dialects. As in traditional Chinese Braille, k g h and q j x are unified, as they never contrast.
A null/zero initial (a vowel-initial syllable) is indicated with the null consonant .
| – | b- | p- | m- | f- | d- | t- | n- | l- | g- | k- | h- | zh- | ch- | sh- | r- | |
| y- | bi- | pi- | mi- | di- | ti- | ni- | li- | ji- | qi- | xi- | z- | c- | s- | |||
| w- | du- | tu- | nu- | lu- | gu- | ku- | hu- | zhu- | chu- | shu- | ru- | |||||
| yu- | nü- | lü- | ju- | qu- | xu- | zu- | cu- | su- | ||||||||
The second cell represents the rime, generally in the top half of the cell, and the tone, generally in dots 3 and 6.
Tone 1 (mā) is indicated by dot 3, tone 2 (má) by dot 6, and tone 3 (mǎ) by dots 3 and 6 . (In rime -ei, which already contains a dot 3, the dot 3 for tones 1 and 3 is replaced by dot 5 (or).) Tone 4 (mà) and neutral/toneless syllables use the basic rime.
A null/zero rime (a syllable ending with medial i u ü) is written with .
| -ì, -ù, -ǜ | -à | -è, -ò | -ài | -èi | -ào | -òu | -àn | -èn | -àng | -èng | èr | |
| -ī, -ū, -ǖ | -ā | -ē, -ō | -āi | -ēi | -āo | -ōu | -ān | -ēn | -āng | -ēng | ēr | |
| -í, -ú, -ǘ | -á | -é, -ó | -ái | -éi | -áo | -óu | -án | -én | -áng | -éng | ér | |
| -ǐ, -ǔ, -ǚ | -ǎ | -ě, -ǒ | -ǎi | -ěi | -ǎo | -ǒu | -ǎn | -ěn | -ǎng | -ěng | ěr |
The rime er is written as if it were *ra; this is possible because *ra is not a possible syllable in Mandarin. At the end of a word, -r is erhua, as in huār (花儿). Within a word, hyphenate erhua to avoid confusion with an initial r- in the following syllable.
The exclamation ê is, yo is, and o is, with appropriate modification for tone.
Combinations of onset and rime follow the conventions of zhuyin, and are therefore not obvious from pinyin transcription.
Several syllables are palindromes, with the onset and rime written the same:
ǎ, bò, mó, tuǒ, nuǎn, liāo, lǔ, jìng, qīng, kǔn, xiào, hú, zhòu, zàng, chōu, cāng, shàn, sài
A toneless or 4th-tone zero rime is omitted at the end of a polysyllabic word. (Words ending in rì 'day' are an exception, to prevent confusion with the erhua suffix.) When context makes it unambiguous, the zero rime in other tones may also be omitted.
Sandhi is not rendered; rather, the inherent tone of a morpheme is written.
The following are rendered as toneless syllables:
Some common homophones are distinguished by prefixing with a dot 4 or 5, or by dropping the rime:
as a suffix is, like an initial f-
The three grammatical uses of non-tonic de are irregular:
Often printed Chinese can be contracted, compared to speech, as unambiguous where a phonetic rendition such as braille would be ambiguous; in such cases, the sign may be used to indicate the omitted syllables. For example, in the clause Lù cóng jīnyè bái, lù means 'dew' (colloquial lùshuǐ). However, there are several other words transcribed lù in braille. To clarify, the element of the colloquial word can be added with the prefix:
Lù(shuǐ) cóng jīnyè bái
In other cases a synonym may be provided; here the prefix is . For example, in print the meaning of
Liǎng'àn yuán shēng tí
(from both sides, the voices of monkeys cried out)
is clear, but in a phonetic script yuán 'monkey' and tí 'cry' can be obscure. The first can be clarified as yuánhóu 'primate' and the second with the parenthetical jiào 'call':
Liǎng'àn yuán(hóu) shēng tí (jiào)
When longer parenthetical explanations are provided, the sign is repeated before each word (not each syllable).
Numbers are the same as in other braille alphabets. Use the number sign followed by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0.
Notes are indicated as,, etc., sections as etc.
| emphasis | ||
| proper name | ||
| foreign script | ||
| number |
is also used for reduplication rather than repeating a syllable or word. When attached to a word, it repeats a syllable; standing alone, it repeats a word:
xǔxǔ-duōduō
Xiàngqián, xiàngqián, xiàngqián!
Chinese braille punctuation is based on that of French Braille, but they are generally split between two cells. This gives them the 'full-width' feel of print Chinese, as well as avoiding confusion with letters.
| clausal comma | ||
| phrasal comma | ||
| full stop / period | ||
| question mark | ||
| exclamation mark | ||
| wave dash | ||
| interpunct | ||
| colon | ||
| semicolon | ||
| ellipsis |
| Outer | Inner | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| quotation marks | ... | ... | |
| title quotes | ... | ... | |
| parentheses | ... | ... |
| square brackets | ... | |
| dashes | ... |