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Translingual
A character of the braille script, originally used as an exclamation mark. Some alphabets use it for a variant of f or ph because it is a lowered version of the braille letter ⠋ f.
Etymology
Invented by Louis Braille, braille cells were arranged in numerical order and assigned to the letters of the French alphabet. Most braille alphabets follow this assignment for the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet or, in non-Latin scripts, for the transliterations of those letters. In such alphabets, the first ten braille letters (the first decade: ⠁⠃⠉⠙⠑⠋⠛⠓⠊⠚) are assigned to the Latin letters A to J and to the digits 1 to 9 and 0. (Apart from '2', the even digits all have three dots: ⠃⠙⠋⠓⠚.)
The letters of the first decade are those cells with at least one dot in the top row and at least one in the left column, but none in the bottom row. The next decade repeat the pattern with the addition of a dot at the lower left, the third decade with two dots in the bottom row, and the fourth with a dot on the bottom right. The fifth decade is like the first, but shifted downward one row. The first decade is supplemented by the two characters with dots in the right column and none in the bottom row, and that supplement is propagated to the other decades using the generation rules above. Finally, there are four characters with no dots in the top two rows. Many languages that use braille letters beyond the 26 of the basic Latin alphabet follow an approximation of the English or French values for additional letters.
Punctuation mark
⠖
Letter
⠖
- Non-Latin transliteration
- (Ethiopic Braille) ጵ (p̣ᵊ)
- (Bharati Braille) फ (pha)
- (Tibetan Braille) subscript ར (ra) (see ⠗)
- (Burmese Braille) ဆ (cha)
- (Thai Braille) The vowel เ◌า (ao)
- (Cantonese Braille) The rime im
See also
English
Punctuation mark
⠖ (!)
- ! (exclamation mark)
Letter
⠖ (ff)
- Renders the print sequence -ff-.
Usage notes
- Can only appear within a word where it does not contact an apostrophe or hyphen; at the end of a word it would be confused with an exclamation mark. Cannot span a compound word or an obvious affix, but acceptable in words like suffix where the affix is obscure.
Prefix
⠖
Usage notes
- This is used for the independent English word to (prepositional or infinitival), but in braille it joins with the following word as an orthographic prefix. It is not used otherwise for the letter sequence t-o.
- Because this cell does not have dots in the top row, it is not used where it would contact a punctuation mark. (This is not ordinarily an issue because it's only written prefixed to another word.)
- Abolished in Unified English Braille.
Derived terms
- ⠔⠖ into (also a prefix)
French
Punctuation mark
⠖ (!)
- The exclamation mark, ⟨!⟩.
Symbol
⠖ (+)
Contraction
⠖
- The independent word puis.
- The letter sequences pr and pro .
Usage notes
- The sequences pr and pro may appear anywhere in their word, with the proviso that they be followed by a vowel or consonant letter, respectively.
Japanese
Syllable
⠖ (romaji we)
Korean
Letter
⠖ • (-k)
- Syllable-final ㅋ (k).
Coordinate terms
- Syllable-initial ⠋.
Punctuation mark
⠖ • (!)
- the exclamation mark, ⟨!⟩
Mandarin
Letter
⠖
- (Mainland Braille) The rime ao
- (Taiwan Braille) The rime yong/-iong
- (Two-Cell Braille) The onset f-
Contraction
⠖