- Braille contraction
Almost all literary
Braille codes use contractions to decrease space and increase reading speed. The contractions presented here are used in the US literary Braille code.=Whole words contracted into a single letter=Almost all letters of the alphabet, when written separately, stand for whole words. Most of the words assigned to each letter are chosen acrophonically, that is, a letter will stand for a word that begins with that letter; the only two exceptions are "X" and "Z".<1=Contractions using an escape character and a letter=Many contractions use an indicator symbol, most commonly a dot or combination of dots located on the right side of the cell, plus a letter to indicate common suffixes such as "-less", "-ness", and "-tion"; as well as whole words.
=Whole words contracted into two or more letters=Many common words are contracted to two or three letters. Unlike print abbreviations, however, they are not accompanied by any punctuation indicating that they are abbreviations, indeed, that would defeat the purpose of such contractions, merely taking up more space. Some of these contractions contain other contractions.
{| class="wikitable"
-
Word
Print
Braille
-
about
ab
⠁⠃
-
above
abv
⠁⠃⠧
-
according
ac
⠁⠉
-
across
acr
⠁⠉⠗
-
afternoon
afn
⠁⠋⠝
-
after
af
⠁⠋
-
afterword
afw
⠁⠋⠺
-
again
ag
⠁⠛
-
against
ag(st)
⠁⠛⠌
-
almost
alm
⠁⠇⠍
-
already
alr
⠁⠇⠗
-
also
al
⠁⠇
-
although
al(th)
⠁⠇⠹
-
altogether
alt
⠁⠇⠞
-
always
alw
⠁⠇⠺
-
because
(be)c
⠆⠉
-
before
(be)f
⠆⠋
-
behind
(be)h
⠆⠓
-
below
(be)l
⠆⠇
-
beneath
(be)n
⠆⠝
-
beside
(be)s
⠆⠎
-
between
(be)t
⠆⠞
-
beyond
(be)y
⠆⠽
-
blind
bl
⠃⠇
-
braille
brl
⠃⠗⠇
-
children
(ch)n
⠡⠝
-
conceive
(con)cv
⠒⠉⠧
-
conceiving
(con)cvg
⠒⠉⠧⠛
-
could
cd
⠉⠙
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---> =Bibliography=
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/braille.htm] (7:36 PM 8/14/2007)* [http://www.99main.com/~charlief/brl/brl2.htm] (7:38 PM 8/14/2007)-->
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