Grade 2
Braille contractions
Grade 2 replaces common words and letter groups with single cells. These are the wordsigns and groupsigns, with the position rules that decide when each one may actually be used.
Alphabetic wordsigns
A single letter standing alone means a whole word. Inside a longer word it is just that letter — b alone is “but”, but the b in “table” is only a b.
| Letter | Cell | Means | Dots |
|---|---|---|---|
b | but | dots 1 and 2 | |
c | can | dots 1 and 4 | |
d | do | dots 1, 4 and 5 | |
e | every | dots 1 and 5 | |
f | from | dots 1, 2 and 4 | |
g | go | dots 1, 2, 4 and 5 | |
h | have | dots 1, 2 and 5 | |
j | just | dots 2, 4 and 5 | |
k | knowledge | dots 1 and 3 | |
l | like | dots 1, 2 and 3 | |
m | more | dots 1, 3 and 4 | |
n | not | dots 1, 3, 4 and 5 | |
p | people | dots 1, 2, 3 and 4 | |
q | quite | dots 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 | |
r | rather | dots 1, 2, 3 and 5 | |
s | so | dots 2, 3 and 4 | |
t | that | dots 2, 3, 4 and 5 | |
u | us | dots 1, 3 and 6 | |
v | very | dots 1, 2, 3 and 6 | |
w | will | dots 2, 4, 5 and 6 | |
x | it | dots 1, 3, 4 and 6 | |
y | you | dots 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 | |
z | as | dots 1, 3, 5 and 6 |
Groupsigns
One cell standing for a letter group, usable inside a word. Some also mean a whole word when they stand alone — those are listed in the last column.
| Group | Cell | Dots | May start a word | Alone it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
and | dots 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 | Yes | and | |
for | dots 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 | Yes | for | |
of | dots 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 | Yes | of | |
the | dots 2, 3, 4 and 6 | Yes | the | |
with | dots 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 | Yes | with | |
ch | dots 1 and 6 | Yes | child | |
gh | dots 1, 2 and 6 | Yes | — | |
sh | dots 1, 4 and 6 | Yes | shall | |
th | dots 1, 4, 5 and 6 | Yes | this | |
wh | dots 1, 5 and 6 | Yes | which | |
ed | dots 1, 2, 4 and 6 | Yes | — | |
er | dots 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 | Yes | — | |
ou | dots 1, 2, 5 and 6 | Yes | out | |
ow | dots 2, 4 and 6 | Yes | — | |
st | dots 3 and 4 | Yes | still | |
ing | dots 3, 4 and 6 | No | — | |
ar | dots 3, 4 and 5 | Yes | — | |
in | dots 3 and 5 | No | — | |
en | dots 2 and 6 | No | — |
Why position matters
Three groupsigns — ing, in and en — may not begin a word. Their cells sit in the lower part of the cell, where they would be ambiguous with punctuation in the opening position.
So "running" ends with the ing cell, but "ingot" is spelled out from the start. This is the kind of rule that makes contracted braille hard to automate, and why contracted output from any tool should be checked before it is embossed.
- All 23 alphabetic wordsigns (but, can, do, every, from, ...)
- All 19 strong groupsigns (and, for, of, the, with, ch, sh, th, ...)
- Strong wordsigns standing alone (child, shall, this, which, out, still)
- Position rules for lower groupsigns that may not open a word
Not covered:
- Shortforms (abv for above, tm for tomorrow, and the rest of the list)
- Initial-letter and final-letter contractions (day, mother, -ness, -ment)
- Context rules that depend on syllable boundaries or pronunciation
- Typeform indicators for bold, italic and underline
Good enough to read, learn from, and check your work against. Not a substitute for a certified transcription — if the output is going to be embossed for someone to rely on, have a qualified transcriber check it.