English Braille

English Braille, also known as Grade 2 Braille,[1] is the braille alphabet used for English. It consists of around 250 letters (phonograms), numerals, punctuation, formatting marks, contractions, and abbreviations (logograms). Some English Braille letters, such as ⠡ ⟨ch⟩,[2] correspond to more than one letter in print.

Quick facts: English Braille Grade-2 Braille British Revis... ▼

English Braille Grade-2 Braille British Revised Braille
Script type	Alphabet (non-linear)
Time period	1902
Print basis	English alphabet
Languages	English
Related scripts
Parent systems	night writing early braille French Braille English Braille
Child systems	unified international braille Unified English Braille Irish Braille
Unicode
Unicode range	U+2800 to U+283F

This article contains Unicode Braille characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Braille characters.

There are three levels of complexity in English Braille. Grade 1 is a nearly one-to-one transcription of printed English and is restricted to basic literacy. Grade 2, which is nearly universal beyond basic literacy materials, abandons one-to-one transcription in many places (such as the letter ⠡ ⟨ch⟩) and adds hundreds of abbreviations and contractions. Both Grade 1 and Grade 2 have been standardized. "Grade 3" is any of various personal shorthands that are almost never found in publications. Most of this article describes the 1994 American edition of Grade 2 Braille, which is largely equivalent to British Grade 2 Braille.[3] Some of the differences with Unified English Braille, which was officially adopted by various countries between 2005 and 2012, are discussed at the end.

Braille is frequently portrayed^{[by whom?]} as a re-encoding of the English orthography used by sighted people. However, braille is a separate writing system, not a variant of the printed English alphabet.[4]