2. UEB Grade 1 implementation in SpeakOn
3. UEB Grade 2 implementation in SpeakOn
4. Major differences between Standard English (and North American) Braille and UEB
'Alphanumeric input' in SpeakOn supports entering text using a practical implementation of Universal English Braille (UEB). The use of Braille is only to make typing more efficient by making use of the rich SpeakOn user interface. There is no support for Braille displays.
This reference section details the differences between standard UEB and the SpeakOn implementation and includes all characters and lists of contractions supported.
If a character or contraction important to you is missing, please contact the author who would be pleased to support it.
The last section in this page lists the major differences between Standard English (and North American) Braille and UEB in the context of the SpeakOn implementation.
The Letters, Numbers, Punctuation and Symbols supported are listed together with their Braille signs and relevant comments in the following pages of this Braille reference section.
The main differences from full standard UEB are as follows:
a. Upper case letters are supported using modifiers instead of UEB indicator signs thus avoiding complicated rules.
More specifically, cell 6 is used only as a first cell indicator not as a Shift indicator.
Shift termination sign 6>3 is not used either.
b. Numbers can be typed using segment Braille with or without the Numbers lock. These differ from UEB number indicator signs thus avoiding complicated rules.
More specifically, sign 3-4-5-6 is not used as a numeric indicator.
Sign 4-5 is not used to terminate numeric mode or indicate grade 1.
c. Question mark and double quotes
In SpeakOn, opening and closing double quotes are translated to simple double quotes.
'?' (Question mark)
2-3-6 (lower h)
In UEB, it is also open quotes depending on context. In SpeakOn, as there is no sentence context, to avoid ambiguity, it is implemented as a question mark only.
" (double quotes)
3-5-6 (lower j)
In UEB, close double quotes. In SpeakOn, it is implemented as simple double quotes.
The contractions supported are listed together with their Braille signs and relevant comments in the 'UEB Grade 2 Contractions' page of this reference section.
To the author's knowledge, all UEB contractions are supported.
Generally speaking if you know Standard English (or North American) Braille, you know most of what there is to know about Universal English Braille (UEB). There are, of course, some differences.
In the SpeakOn context, differences are reduced further as Modifiers and Numbers lock are used in SpeakOn instead of indicators, thus dispensing with their associated somewhat complicated rules.
The following differences in the SpeakOn context are worth noting:
a. The following contractions were eliminated in UEB:
ation, ally, ble, by, com, dd, to, into, o'clock
b. Spacing:
A, and, for, of, the, and with are no longer joined together in UEB; they are spaced apart from each other as they are in print.
c. Characters sign differences:
The following characters have not changed:
period, question mark, exclamation mark, comma, semicolon, colon, hyphen, and forward slash [solidus].
Some Punctuation and Symbol signs have changed and others have been introduced; see the 'UEB Punctuation and Symbols' page in this section for details.
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