Thanks, domique,
I did not know that detail about how Louis braille got started.
Well done!
All the best,
Cearbhall
m +353 (0)833323487 Ph: _353 (0)1-2864623 e: cearbhall.omeadhra@xxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: fb-exchange-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <fb-exchange-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Dominique Farrell
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2021 4:25 PM
To: irelandvipnews@xxxxxxxx
Cc: fb-exchange@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [fb-exchange] NCBI Labs Braille Support Group & The Story of Louis
Braille
The NCBI Labs Braille Support Group was formed last year in order to increase
the level of support for Braille devices and help keep everyone up to date
with the latest news and developments in the world of Braille.
If you would like to get involved in the Braille Support Group, or if you
have any Braille-related queries you would like to bring to the group, please
email
braille@xxxxxxx <mailto:braille@xxxxxxx> .
World Braille Day - January 4th 2021
In recognition of World Braille Day, which took place on 4th January, our
Braille Support Group has put together this interesting article all about the
inventor of Braille, Louis Braille.
Did you know that the inventor of Braille was a 15 year old boy? Not many
people know much about how Braille was created, or Louis Braille's story.
On 4 January 1809, Louis Braille was born to a middle-class family in a small
town near Paris. His father was a leatherer, and Louis spent his days playing
in the workshop, copying his Dad.
One day when he was three, Louis was squinting closely at a piece of leather
he was trying to pierce with a sharp tool. Pressing hard into this leather,
the tool slipped and went straight into one of his eyes. Now, this is only
the nineteenth century and medicine (as we know it) wasn't invented yet, so
Louis was rushed to the local healer who bandaged it up. But an infection set
in, which soon spread to his other eye and by the age of five, he was blind.
In the 1800s, sadly if you were blind you were seen as helpless, and many
people would actually end up begging to make ends meet. Often, only those
people who were born into very wealthy families were able to afford an
education.
While Louis' Dad had a successful leather business, with three other children
to feed, they were far from rich. However, when Louis was nine, a noblewoman
heard of his story and was so moved she pleaded with the Royal Institute for
the Blind school in Paris, the world's first school for blind and visually
impaired, to take him as a student.
Soon after, Louis travelled to Paris to start his first day at school. While
the Royal Institute for the Blind may have been a world first, the building
was in fact a damp, dark, dilapidated old jail. Students weren't given much
food, they could only shower once a month, and there were lots of rules and
harsh punishments.
School wasn't all bad for Louie - he was able to learn lots of new subjects
(like grammar, music and science), and also was able to get hold of what he
had wanted for so long - books. He even learned to read by using his fingers
to trace raised letters in specially made books. The books were a bit of a
let-down, though - the text was very big and each sentence took up a whole
page, which meant some seriously short stories.
It also wasn't enough for Louis to read though, he also wanted to write! So,
he got his hands on an alphabet made from bits of thick leather. It was a
slow and fiddly process, but he began to write by tracing around these
leather letters in ink.
While paying a visit to Louis' school, a retired army captain, Charles
Barbier, told the students about a method the soldiers used to use to
communicate with each other. The method involved writing a message in code by
punching dots and dashes into heavy paper with a sharp tool. It could be done
in silence and without light so they wouldn't give themselves away to the
enemy. While the method had never taken off in the army (soldiers found it
too complicated), it gave Louis the inspiration he needed. Seeing a code like
this as his ticket to finally being able to read and write, Louis set to work
creating a better system.
Over a two year period, Louis worked hard on his new system, after many late
nights, and at the age of just 15, he finally cracked the code!
To put his new system to the test, he asked the School's Headmaster to read
out an article from a newspaper. As the words were read out, Louis recorded
each word using his Braille system and then repeated it, word-for-word back
to the headmaster - proving he'd been successful in creating a new reading
and writing system for the blind.
By the time Louis was 19 years old, he was teaching full time at the Royal
Institute for the Blind. While the school's director admired and respected
Louis, he was worried that the braille system would allow blind students to
become 'too independent', and no longer need their teachers. So for many
years the language system still wasn't introduced.
Sadly, Louis died at just forty-three, after a long battle with a respiratory
condition (believed to be tuberculosis). Just two years later in 1854, his
language system was finally adopted by the Royal Institute for the Blind,
thanks to overwhelming demand from students.
From there, Braille spread through the rest of the world - and in 1878, the
World Congress for the Blind voted to make it the international system for
the blind. Now, Braille has now been taken up by almost every language
worldwide.
Taken from NCBI LABS TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER.
===========================================================
The fb-exchange mailing list
Manage account,
List Page: https://www.freelists.org/list/fb-exchange
Subscribe: mailto:fb-exchange-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=subscribe
Unsubscribe: mailto:fb-exchange-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=unsubscribe
Archive: https://www.freelists.org/archive/fb-exchange
Administrative contact: insight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
===========================================================
===========================================================
The fb-exchange mailing list
Manage account,
List Page: https://www.freelists.org/list/fb-exchange
Subscribe: mailto:fb-exchange-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=subscribe
Unsubscribe: mailto:fb-exchange-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=unsubscribe
Archive: https://www.freelists.org/archive/fb-exchange
Administrative contact: insight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
===========================================================
