Korean Braille

Korean braille, or "hangeul jeomja", is a braille code used for writing the Korean language. It is not graphically related to other braille systems found around the world, instead, it reflects the patterns found in "hangul", the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a combination of initial consonants, vowels, and final consonants.

Braille notations for initial and final variant consonantsConsonants

Consonants have different initial and final variants, capturing some of the feel of hangul.

The initial and final variants have the same shapes, but are shifted across the braille cell. There are two rules for this: the consonants that span the width of the cell are shifted one space downward when final. Those that don't span the width of the cell are on the right side of the cell when initial, but on the left side when final.

No consonant occupies more than two rows.

Vowels

All vowels span the width and height of the cell.

The simpler vowels reflect the symmetries of hangul based on the structure and phonetics of the Korean language. This symmetry is described in terms of yin and yang.

If a root word had yang ('bright') vowels, then most suffixes attached to it also had to have yang vowels; conversely, if the root had yin ('dark') vowels, the suffixes needed to be yin as well.

Consequently there is a third harmonic group called "mediating" or, 'neutral' in Western terminology, that could coexist with either yin or yang vowels.

The Korean neutral vowel is "i". The yin vowels are eu, u and eo; the yang vowels are o and a. Therefore, the yin-yang pairs "a and eo" and "o and u" are related through inversion of the braille cell notation. The graphically similar hangul letters "i" and "eu" are also related by reflection.

Diagram showing braille cell notation for Korean vowels

Punctuation

Diagram showing braille notations for graphics and punctuation marks in Korean brailleOnly three graphics/punctuation marks are encoded in the Korean Braille code. Of these the exclamation mark is sometimes used as a default for other graphics or punctuation marks.

Further information

Acknowledgements