German Braille

German Braille is one of the older ways of writing that people who are blind or have low vision can read by touch. It started to take shape in 1878 when a big meeting decided on a common way to write letters for everyone to understand. This meeting was mostly about making a standard for what is called international braille.

In German Braille, the first 26 letters are written in a way that comes from French. But after those, the way German letters are written doesn't follow the French rules anymore. This makes German Braille a bit special and different from some other braille systems.

Letters

In order by decade, the letters are shown here:

The symbol ⠈ is used as a special mark for foreign names like ⠍⠕⠇⠊⠈⠑⠗⠑ Molière when they have letters with marks that German does not use. There are also many short ways to write words and phrases.

a	b	c en	d	e	f	g	h	i	j
k	l	m	n	o	p	q ll	r	s	t
u	v	x mm	y el	z	& ge	% es	em	ß ss	st
au	eu	ei	ch	sch	ein	er	ü	ö	w
	be	al	un	or	an	eh	tt	in	ar
-ig	äu	ä	ie	# ich	$ ck	-lich	-ach

Punctuation

Punctuation in German Braille has special rules. Only the first asterisk uses a special mark, so printed *** looks like braille ⠠⠔⠔⠔.

The symbol ⠴ is used to show when a document has an article. For showing sounds in words, German Braille uses a special pair of symbols: ⠰⠶...⠰⠶.

More details about extra signs, like those used in math, can be found in a reference outside this text.

.

,

’

;

:

?

!

-

—

/

|

\

*

_

§

Art.

&

@

°

′

″

... „ ... “

... ‘ ... ’

... ( ... )

... [ ... ]

Numbers

Numbers in German Braille start with the sign ⠼. This sign helps show that the following symbols are numbers.

For example, ⠼⠙ means the number 4, while ⠼⠲ means the 4th place. And ⠼⠉⠲ means three-fourths, or 3⁄4.

The sign for percent also needs the number sign, like ⠼⠃⠼⠴ for 2%. Without it, it might look like an unclear fraction. In mixed numbers, the number sign repeats to separate the whole number from the fraction, such as ⠼⠁⠼⠁⠆ for 1 and 1⁄2.

(num.)

%

‰

Formatting

In German Braille, an extra sign is used to show when words are made bold, italic, or underlined. This sign is placed in the middle of a single word. If many words in a row are being made bold, italic, or underlined, a different sign is used at the start and end.

There are also signs to show when words are all in capital letters, like in titles or abbreviations. Special signs are used for mixing upper and lower case letters, such as in names with initials like J.S. Bach. Lower-case metric units, like kilowatts (kW), also have their own special signs. This helps keep numbers and units clear.

(num.)

(Caps)

(CAPS)

(ALL CAPS)

(l.c.)

(emphasis)

(end)