Dhivehi Braille System (Thaana Braille) for the modern keyboards.

Dhivehi (Thaana) Braille Sytem for the modern keyboard- By Azam Farish

Few days ago I saw an interview by the president of the Blind Association of the Maldives. He talked about the challenges they face on a daily basis and lack of resources and academic material available for the visually impaired living in the Maldives. At the moment there are no schools for the 2000 or more visually impaired kids and adults in the country.

Two years ago I met a childhood friend who has been blind since birth. To my surprise, he was using facebook on his mobile phone, listening to the texts using a special software that translated text to speech.

As a developer I hope to introduce an app for the visually impaired so that they can read and type Thaana online with the help of a Dhivehi Braille System.

To start with the project I was unable to find any online resources on Dhivehi /Thaana Braille although there was a book launched in December 2015. Therefore I decided to do a bit of research on the topic and created my own version of Dhivehi Braille system which I was able to incorporate into an app.

The Aim of this project

1 - To create a Dhivehi Braille system which can be in easily used on the modern computer keyboards.

2 - To create a Thaana to Dhivehi Braille Transliteration keyboard and vice versa.

Dhivehi Braille Letters

The Dhivehi alphabet consists of 24 Thaana letters, 13 Arabic-to-Maldivian transliterated letters , 1 English to-Maldivian transliteration letter , 11 diacritical (vowel) marks of the Arabic language.

To make it easier for modern usage I believe that the Dhivehi Braille system should follow the same system which we are currently using on the QWERTY keyboards. Rather than assigning Braille characters in English alphabetical order, I have assigned the English Braille characters to the respective Thaana characters and diacritics found on the keyboards. Which I believe would be easier for those who type Latin Thaana on computer keyboards.

I would suggest that we study a little bit of the basics of Braille to understand how to earn and write in Braille.

The braille number sign

has no equivalent in print. It is sometimes transcribed as ⟨#⟩. However, this is misleading: an actual printed # is rendered in braille as ⟨No.⟩, without an intervening space before the number sign ⠼. For example, ¹⁄₂₀ (one twentieth) is ⟨⠼⠁⠌⠃⠚⟩

The capital(ization) sign

marks the first letter of a word as capitalised in English Braille. In Dhivehi Braille we will use the (Shift button) on the keyboard to access the rest of the characters.

Example:

(Braille patterns are read from left to right)

1. When we type Maldives in English Braille (Unicode Braille characters <⠠⠍⠁⠇⠙⠊⠧⠑⠎>)

(caps) M. a l d i v e s

2 - When we transliterate މޯލްޑިވްސް from Thaana to Dhivehi Braille with diacritics.

(Left to right Braille)

ް ސ ް ވ ި ޑ ް ލ ޯ މ

(Right to left Braille )

3 - If we want to type Latin Dhivehi in Braille (Laobivaa)

l o a b i v a a

a ــަ	b ބ	c ޗ	d ދ	e ــެ	f ފ	g ގ	h ހ	i ــި	j ޖ
k ކ	l ލ	m މ	n ނ	o ــޮ	p ޕ	q ــް	r ރ	s ސ	t ތ
u ــު	v ވ	x	y ޔ	z ޒ	w އ	(caps)	(stop)	(space)

(shift)	A ـާ	B ޞ	c ޝ	D ޑ	E ــޭ	F ﷲ	G ޣ	H ޙ	I ــީ	J ޛ
	K ޚ	L ޅ	M ޟ	N ޏ	O ــޯ	P	Q ޤ	R ޜ	S ށ	T ޓ
	U ــޫ	V ޥ	X ޘ	Y ޠ	Z ޡ	W ޢ