New Delhi: Every year, World Braille Day is observed on January 4 to raise awareness about the Braille’s importance as a means of communication in the full realization of the human rights for blind and visually impaired people. In November 2018, the United Nations General Assembly chose this date to mark Louis Braille’s birthday, the man who invented braille, a system to read and write for the blind and visually impaired people which is now used all over the world. In this article, we will take a look at the life and the famous invention of Louis Braille.
Louis Braille: An accident and blindness at an young age
Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809, in Coupvray, a small town about twenty miles east of Paris. Since his infancy, Braille used to spent his time playing in the workshop of his father, which was a harness making shop. One day, when he was just three years old, Louis was playing with tools in the workshop. Suddenly, a tool slipped and plunged into his right eye.
A local physician treated the eye and arranged for Braille to be meet the surgeon on the next day in Paris. But the damaged eye could not be saved. He was tormented by agony of the injury and its effect and eventually, in all probability, sympathetic ophthalmia took place. By the age of five, he had lost sight in both his eyes. He did not realise it at first, and asked everyone why it was always dark. But with time, he came to terms with his disability and learned to be at peace. His parents helped him in his quest to see the world through the darkness, and his creative and intelligent mind impressed the locals.
The invention of the Braille system
Louis Braille was a talented person who became a notable musician and an excellent organist. In 1819, after receiving a scholarship, he went to Paris to attend the National Institute for Blind Children where he taught from 1826. It was at the Royal Institute that Braille got the inspiration to invent his system.
In the Royal Institute, Braille constantly tried to invent a more efficient way for blind people to read. He and his fellow blind students used to read by tracing raised print letters with their fingers and it was an extremely slow process with few people able to master it. To write, one had to remember the shapes of letters and then reproduce them on paper, a difficult process indeed.
The influence of Charles Barbier on Louis Braille
But then, things changed completely after Charles Barbier, a retired artillery officer in Napoleon’s army visited the Royal Institute. There, he demonstrated “night writing” which he created to allow soldiers to communicate silently on the battlefield using a raised-dot alphabet. since most of the soldiers did not know how to read and write. The system would enable soldiers to pass notes without striking a light and alerting the enemy of their position. It did not impress the army, but it influenced Braille who realised the efficiency of the system.
However, Braille also considered the system complicated. For the next three years, between the ages 13 and 16, he worked on the system to modify it. He changed the twelve-dot system to the six-dot cell that is still in use today. By 1824, Louis had in place the code that bears his name and is in almost every country today in almost every language. He is hailed as a national hero in France and the braille system has become his enduring legacy, a boon for millions of blind and visually impaired people all over the world. Almost two centuries after Louis invented it, braille remains a system of powerful and enduring utility.
World Braille Day, observed annually on January 4, celebrates Louis Braille’s invention. Born in 1809, Braille lost his sight at age 3. Inspired by Charles Barbier’s night-writing system, he developed the six-dot Braille code, revolutionizing literacy for the blind and visually impaired. knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
