Japanese Braille
I read an article on The Guardian's website about Lego making a new version of its toy bricks featuring braille. The braille bricks are the same shape as regular bricks but the studs on top have been rearranged to be individual letters and numbers in the braille alphabet. Lego said it wants to encourage blind and visually imparired children to explore new ways of learning to read and write. Apparently fewer young people are learning braille because of audio books and computer programs. The new bricks will first be sold in the US, Brazil, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway, then 13 additional countries in 2021. The article didn't say what the additional countries will be.
That got me thinking about Japanese Braille, which has to be different because Japanese uses three different kinds of characters, not letters - Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana.
I don't know braille in English, so I don't know how this compares. This is a beer can (photo from Wikipedia).
There is a long explanation on Wikipedia - Here. Kind of interesting, I think.
4 comments:
I can't think of any other country where you find braille on so many everyday objects as you find in Japan. Shampoo and conditioner, beer and all other canned drinks, bank notes, elevator buttons, hand rails. I am sure you have seen that inside Shinkansen train toilets there is a map of the outlay of the toilet indicating where the hot tap, washbasins, flush button, lavatory paper etc is located.
This is not braille but other aid for visually impaired people - the yellow blocks on pavements and inside buildings to leade the way and make you stop at the stairs or pedestrian crossing.
If I were blind I'd rather live in Japan than in Sweden or the UK!
Wow -- now that's some kind of puzzle. I can't imagine what it would be like with the three alphabets. I'll have to share that with Rick.
I have never seen braille on ANYTHING here is the USA. What a great idea.
xx, Carol
I don't really know Braille, of course, but the Japanese ones look similar! I guess they could just write everying in Romanji but that would be very bothersome and long. Now I wonder what Chinese braille looks like, not having a syllable alphabet and all?
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