Burmese Braille is the braille alphabet of languages of Burma written in the Burmese script, including Burmese and Karen. Letters that may not seem at first glance to correspond to international norms are more recognizable when traditional romanization is considered. For example, s is rendered th, which is how it was romanized when Burmese Braille was developed (and is how it often still is romanized); similarly c and j as s and z.
History
The first braille alphabet for Burmese was developed by Father William Henry Jackson ca. 1918. [Note: source says "circa 1914", but Jackson did not arrive in Burma until November 1917] There was no provision for the voiced aspirate series of consonants (gh, jh, dh, bh), nor for the retroflex (tt etc.), and Jackson provided distinct letters for complex onsets such as ky, hm and for various syllable rimes (ok, ein, aung, etc.), with no regard to how they are written in the print Burmese alphabet. These aspects have all been changed, as have several of the letters for the values which were retained. However, some of the old letters, unusual by international standards, remain, such as for ng and for i.
Charts
Print letters The letters in print Burmese transcribe consonants and, in syllable-initial position, vowels. The consonants each have a corresponding letter in braille, but the initial (stand-alone) vowels in print are in braille all written plus the letter for the appropriate diacritic (see next section). The consonant ny has two forms in print which are distinct in braille as well.World Braille Usage , UNESCO, 2013
Braille Print Roman k kh g gh ng c ch j jh ny Braille Print Roman tt tth dd ddh nn t th d dh n Braille Print Roman p ph b bh m y r l1 w s Braille Print (initialvowel) Roman h l ' -ny-
Stacked consonants The stacking of consonants (conjuncts) in print is indicated with in braille. That is, Burmese Braille has two viramas, one corresponding to print virama (see next section), and one corresponding to stacking. For example, kambha "world" is written .The sources used for this article are not explicit on the order of the braille letters.
Print diacritics The diacritics in print, which transcribe both vowels and consonants, are rendered as follows in Karen Braille.Karen Braille chart at the LoC
Braille Print ? Roman -aLow tone-i.-i-u.-u-e-ai: Labeled as a visarga, like . However, it looks like the virama . -m -ing
Braille Print (initialvowel) Roman -y--r-(virama)-w-h- -.Creaky tone-:High tone
is used to mark syllable- or word-initial vowels, which have distinct letters in the Burmese print alphabet. For example,
braille is print u., = u:, = e, = i., and = i.
Numbers Burmese numerals are represented as follows:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Braille Print ၁ ၂ ၃ ၄ ၅ ၆ ၇ ၈ ၉ ၀
Punctuation The following punctuation is specific to Burmese. (See Burmese alphabet#Punctuation for an explanation.) Western punctuation presumably uses Western braille conventions.
Braille ? ? Print Roman (..and..) . @ (ditto) , .
References