Louis Braille
Louis Braille was a French educator who developed a tactile system of raised dots for reading and writing, now known as Braille.
Braille: A tactile writing system that represents letters, numbers, and symbols with patterns of raised dots. Braille’s six-dot cell system grew from Louis Braille’s work and bears his name.
Royal Institute for Blind Youth: A Paris school for blind students, founded by Valentin Haüy in 1785. Braille studied and later taught at this institution, where he developed his system.
Pierre Foucault: A blind French inventor and former student of Braille who built a machine for producing raised-print text. His 1841 machine helped reproduce Braille’s system more efficiently.
Braille literacy: The ability to read and write using tactile Braille characters. Braille’s system made independent reading and writing possible through touch.
Night writing: A tactile military code developed by Charles Barbier using raised dots to represent sounds. Braille studied this system and redesigned its dots for faster reading.
Embossed literature: Printed material made legible by touch through raised letters or other tactile marks. Braille sought a simpler alternative to the embossed-letter books used in his school.
Valentin Haüy: A French educator who founded an early school for blind students and promoted embossed-print reading. Haüy’s educational work preceded Braille’s and established the school where Braille studied.
Unified English Braille: A standardized English-language Braille code adopted by several countries to unify literary and technical notation. Later standardization built on the writing system Braille created.
Tactile perception: The perception of information through touch, including pressure, texture, and vibration. Braille’s system depends on fingertips distinguishing small patterns of raised dots.
Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plainsong in Dots: Louis Braille’s 1829 publication describing a raised-dot system for text, music, and plainsong. This book presented an early published account of the system he had devised.