Braille Day

What Is Braille Day?

November 1st is "Braille Day" (Tenji Kinenbi) in Japan. On this day in 1890, at a selection meeting held at the Tokyo School for the Blind and Deaf, the Japanese braille system designed by Kuraji Ishikawa was chosen. At the request of the Japan Braille Promotion Association, the day is registered with the Japan Anniversary Association as "Japanese Braille Adoption Day" (reportedly in 2013). Braille is a writing system of raised dots read by touch, so people with visual impairments can read and write. Ishikawa was born in 1859 as the son of a Hamamatsu samurai, worked as a primary school teacher in Chiba, and moved to Tokyo in 1887 to teach at a school for the blind. He is still remembered as the "father of Japanese braille."

Kuraji Ishikawa and the Birth of Japanese Braille

Japanese braille grew out of the six-dot system completed in 1825 by Louis Braille of France. At the Tokyo school, teachers and students were working on fitting it to the Japanese kana syllabary. In 1889 a colleague, Kunitaro Toyama, presented a six-dot proposal, and Ishikawa, inspired by it, devised his own arrangement of three dots by two columns. In 1890 a committee compared three proposals -- Ishikawa's, Toyama's, and one by two students, Bunkichi Ito and Magoshiro Muroi -- and after dozens of trials it chose Ishikawa's at the fourth meeting, on November 1st. Ishikawa then distributed the chart to schools for the blind and traveled around the country to spread its use.

• 1894:Using an imported braille plate press, Japan's first braille publication was issued: a collection of celebratory poems for the Emperor Meiji's silver wedding anniversary
• 1898:Ishikawa published braille for the contracted sounds such as "kya" and "shu," which had not yet been settled, completing Japanese braille
• 1901:It was published in the government gazette on April 22nd as "Nihon Kunmo Tenji" and became the official script
• 1922:The Osaka Mainichi Shimbun began publishing a braille newspaper (now Tenji Mainichi), still the only commercial braille newspaper in Japan

How Braille Works

Each character is a combination of six dots, three high and two across. Leaving out the blank cell, that gives 63 patterns, and voiced and contracted sounds are written by placing a special sign before the letter. Because braille does not distinguish kanji from kana, a space is left between phrases (called "wakachigaki") to make reading easier. When writing by hand, dots are punched from the back of the paper, so the pattern is the mirror image of what is read. Braille is also found on ticket machines and ATMs, and on My Number cards for those who request it.

Tips for Marking This Day

• Run a finger over the top of a beer or chuhai can and look for braille such as "Osake" (alcohol) or "Beer." Braille labels on canned alcohol are included in a Japanese Industrial Standard set in 2000
• Check whether the elevator buttons and station signs on your commute have braille
• Not braille, but yellow tactile paving was devised by Seiichi Miyake in 1965 and first installed in Okayama in 1967. The notches on shampoo bottles and the raised marks on banknotes are also made to be identified by touch
• Use a braille chart of the Japanese syllabary to write your own name in braille. Only six dots are needed, which makes it good small talk. You could also look up what braille libraries do

What Braille Connects Us To

Braille is an important script that connects people with visual impairments to information. Japanese braille is still in use more than 130 years after its selection. At the same time, only some of them use braille fluently, so voice guidance and other means matter too. Braille Day is a chance to notice the braille around us and the many ways of communicating.