| Effects of UEB on UK Braille | | Print | |
ContentsThis document is a brief outline of the differences between UEB (Unified English Braille) and current UK braille. Its aim is to convey sense of what a change to UEB would mean in practical braille terms, but should not be regarded as comprehensive. Further information on UEB can be found in the reference material on the ICEB website: www.iceb.org. 1. Ordinary Text:Contractions:
Italics, etc.: There are separate indicators for italics, bold and underline:
bold similar, but with dots 45 instead of dots 46 underlined similar, but with dots 456 instead of dots 46. Quotes: Outer quotes are: opening dots 236, closing dots 356, as in SEB. Inner quotes are: opening dot 6-236, closing dot 6-356, for single quotes; and opening dots 45-236, closing dots 45-356, for double quotes (used according to the type of inner quote sign in the print). Other Common Signs:
Fractions: Simple numeric fractions use upper numbers for both numerator and denominator, separated by a "fraction line sign", dots 34. Thus a half is dots 3456-1-34-12. Phone Numbers: In phone numbers spaced groups of digits are separated by a dot 5, rather than by repetition of the numeral sign. Other punctuation signs used as separators, such as hyphens, are retained in UEB. Accented Letters: UEB has specific signs for the different accent marks, rather than a generic accent indicator as in SEB (dot 4). E.g. the acute accent is dots 45-34, so e acute as in "café" is dots 45-34-15. Some common accents:
Capitals: Transcription showing capitals is the expected norm in UEB – no provision is made in the rules for non-capitalised transcription (e.g. for handling abbreviations). The capital indicators are the same as in SEB, though the rules for when to use the word or passage indicators is slightly different in UEB. Use of Letter Signs: There is no such thing as the "letter sign" in UEB: dots 56 is instead designated as the grade 1 indicator, and is only used when needed to stop a letter being read as a wordsign. Abbreviations like "pm" or "am" would not have a grade 1 indicator (letter sign), as no disambiguation is needed. The dots 56 grade 1 indicator only applies to the following character; UEB also has a grade 1 word indicator (dots 56-56), and a grade 1 passage indicator (dots 56-56-56), and passage terminator (dots 56-3), used similarly to the set of capital indicators. In general, abbreviations are not specially distinguished from ordinary words in UEB, any distinction is only that given by the print, i.e. by the abbreviation's capitalisation. Email and Web Addresses: Email and web addresses are treated as normal text (there is no such thing as computer code in UEB). No special indicators are used. (By contrast SEB uses dot 6-346 indicators around email and web addresses to indicate a code switch.) 2. Maths Text(For maths, computing and chemistry the differences between UEB and current UK braille are more extensive than for ordinary text, and the effects of these are only described in general terms here.) In keeping with its design philosophy, UEB doesn't have a separate maths code – maths expressions are treated as part of the general UEB scheme. So signs which might be used in ordinary text as mentioned above, such as numbers, brackets, fractions and arithmetical signs, are the same when used in maths text. On the whole, signs used in maths are different from the signs used in the UK (and Nemeth) maths codes – so for the reader, maths in UEB will be less familiar than normal text would be. The following useful similarities with UK maths braille should, however, be noted, and these similarities are most frequent for elementary maths, making the transition for elementary maths reasonably painless:
Apart from differences in signs, UEB uses different constructions for some maths expressions, e.g.:
In general, maths expressions in UK braille are more compact than in UEB – more significantly so for more advanced maths. (For advanced maths an estimate gives UEB taking as as much as 21% more space for the maths notation characters, compared to UK maths code.) You could say that UK maths code is more slick, compared to UEB which is more pedestrian. An example is the UK's use of lower numbers for simple numeric indicies, whereas UEB does not use such shortcuts, but requires the full expression: superscript sign, numeral sign, number. However, UEB is perhaps slightly more compact for simple maths expressions, such as for arithmetic or simple algebra (an estimate gives UEB as up to 6% more compact). This is partly due to the UK code requiring spaces before arithmetic signs, whereas UEB does not rely on any such spacing rules. UEB often requires grade 1 symbol or passage indicators on maths expressions to make them unambiguous within normal text. UK maths code almost never requires this – maths expressions can generally be freely embedded within normal text without such indicators, without being ambiguous for the reader. UEB has powerful symbol construction rules, allowing you to construct a vast range of arrows, as well as compositions of other signs (e.g. a cross on a circle). Such rules are absent in the UK code. 3. Computer TextAs for maths text, UEB again doesn't have a separate computer code but uses the signs from the whole pool of UEB signs. UEB is more robust than SEB in that any sequence of characters is unambiguous (by contrast, in SEB an unspaced sequence of asterisks or hyphens, for example, is problematic to read). Thus computer text can be freely written in UEB in a relaxed way without going into a special mode, or even necessarily requiring grade 1 mode. However, the UEB recommendations are that email and web addresses within normal (grade 2) text should be written in grade 2, but extracts from computer programs are better transcribed in grade 1 mode. As for maths, the special signs will be different from those used in UK computer code, although the benefit is that in UEB they will be the same as those used in normal or maths text. A significant difference from UK computer code will be that numbers are written as normal (with a numeral sign prefix), rather than as single cell signs. The same applies to some other common signs, where the UK code makes an effort at giving a 1 cell per print character rendition, so that print alignments are retained. 4. Chemistry TextChemistry notation is treated in UEB in its normal way, using its standard method for subscript numbers and capital letters (which occur frequently in chemical formulae). The UK has a special chemistry code geared to chemical formulae, making the resulting braille compact. By contrast, the UEB rendition is long-winded, although straightforward. (An estimate is that UEB takes up 46% more cells than UK code on the actual chemical formulae. Chemistry is the area that UEB performs least well compared to UK code as regards space.) 5. Foreign Language TextAs mentioned above, UEB has specific signs for the different accent marks, and so can accurately represent foreign text such as French, German or Spanish with accented letters, without having to go into a special foreign language code. (By contrast, in SEB there is only a generic accent sign, so special foreign language code is normally used where specific accent signs need to be shown, e.g. for foreign language grammar or phrase books). If you want to use a special foreign language code with UEB, code switch indicators are available to allow you to escape from UEB (into a foreign or other code), and then to re-enter it. [SJP 24/10/2011] |