UK Sarah Bryan

Sarah Bryan – Female – 29

UK – RNIB

1004 words

The Braille Representation of Human Speech

I have been blind from birth and learned braille at a specialist school from the age of four. Over the 14 years which followed, various braille codes served me throughout my education and enabled me to acquire competence in science, mathematics and languages. However, when I went to Sheffield University in 2002 to study speech and language therapy, I came across a stumbling block. We learned phonetics as part of the curriculum, which involved reading and speech transcription, using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This is a specialist code of symbols used by linguists and speech scientists, for the representation of all of the speech sounds in the world’s languages, regardless of spelling in an individual language’s writing system. Thus, every possible sound produced in speech has its own symbol. I was really looking forward to learning phonetics, so was then horrified to discover that the braille IPA was in rather a mess, making it extremely difficult for me to access the course texts and complete the assignments and exams. In order for you to understand my difficulties and my journey here, I must firstly fill you in on a brief braille IPA history.

There has been a braille IPA code since 1934, which was based on the 1932 version of the print IPA. This was developed by two educators of the blind, W. Percy Merrick and W. Potthoff in Marburg, in conjunction with leading speech scientist, Daniel Jones. This code took the form of a small braille volume, containing braille symbols, raised print symbols, technical explanations and specimen texts, transcribed into the IPA from various languages. I cannot imagine how painstaking it was to produce this book, considering that the raised print symbols were formed from series of dots, each of which was individually punched into the paper to form the print letters. Minolta diagrams had clearly not yet been invented.

Although linguists continued to update the print IPA at regular intervals, in line with developments in linguistic research, the braille IPA remained unchanged for over 50 years. The Brail Authority of the United Kingdom (BAUK) attempted to update the braille IPA in 1990, but this revision remained incomplete. Some of the new print symbols were not assigned braille equivalents and were simply left blank on the braille symbol chart – not very helpful. The Braille Authority of North America (BANA) further revised the Braille IPA in 1997, but this was radically different from previous versions and never gained popularity outside of the USA.

The consequence of all this for me was that when I started to learn phonetics at university, the braille equivalent which greeted me was, frankly, outdated, disorganised chaos. My colleagues were working with the 1996 IPA revision and I was pretty much still stuck in the dark ages with the 1934 version. Some of the symbols which I needed simply did not exist in braille. My tutor, braille transcriber and I therefore joined forces, in order to come up with suitable new symbols. Another thing which struck me at the time was that the braille symbols deviated unnecessarily from the print equivalents. For instance, some of the print symbols are written as small capital letters, so why were capital letters not assigned to these in braille?

I developed a real passion and talent for phonetics, even though the process of producing my assignments and having these marked was a frustrating nightmare. My love of phonetics and my wish to work with it further, possibly in a career as a speech scientist, led to my growing dissatisfaction with the braille IPA. I strongly felt that a major revision was necessary, to provide braille users with equal opportunities to work in the field of phonetics. It seemed ironic that here was a print code, which sighted people could universally apply across all languages, yet the available braille versions were out-dated and divided. I felt that I was in an almost unique position to address these issues, having some knowledge of both braille and phonetics. I therefore made a further attempt to revise the braille IPA in my undergraduate research project. I worked with the current version of the IPA and made sure that every print symbol was assigned an equivalent braille symbol. I even tracked down three braille-literate linguists from Spain, Canada and the USA, to pilot test the new code. The results were a steep learning curve for me, as errors and omissions in my new code came to light. There was clearly more work to be done. However, unbeknown to me until this study was well underway, a blind professor of linguistics in America, Dr. Robert Englebretson, had made substantial inroads into the exact same project. However, he had much more experience of international braille codes than I did, enabling him to produce a more universally accessible code, known as IPA Braille. This was produced in 2008 by the International Council on English Braille, as part of the Unified English Braille project and is based on the most recent (2005) print IPA.

At last, we now have a unified, current braille IPA, which enables braille users to learn speech sciences and linguistics and to pursue careers in these fields, hopefully without all the confusion and difficulty which I experienced. There also exist broader possibilities, such as teaching IPA Braille to braille users with dyslexia, many of whom find spelling systems confusing and impenetrable. My hearty thanks go to Dr. Englebretson and his collaborates for making this possible. I feel very privileged to have been involved in the process. However, the project is not over yet. There still remain two phonetic codes, used specifically by speech and language therapists to transcribe impaired speech: the Extensions to the IPA and Voice Quality Symbols. Neither of these is yet accessible through braille, meaning that it is still difficult for braille users to work in speech pathology. I would therefore like to see these systems made available in braille and would be glad of the chance to collaborate with other linguists in this process.