# liblouis: Uncontracted braille table for Yiddish. # # # This file is part of liblouis. # # liblouis is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it # under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as # published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2.1 of the # License, or (at your option) any later version. # # liblouis is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but # WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU # Lesser General Public License for more details. # # You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public # License along with liblouis. If not, see # <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. #-license: LGPLv2.1 # Copyright (C) 2024 by Abby Howell <abby.g.howell@gmail.com> #-copyright: 2024, Abby Howell <abby.g.howell@gmail.com> #-index-name: Yiddish #-display-name: Yiddish braille #+language: yi #+type: literary #+dots: 6 #+contraction: no #+grade: 1 #+direction:forward # This table was created by Abby Howell, Matthew Shifrin, and Harris Mowbray #-author: Abby Howell <abby.g.howell@gmail.com> #-author: Matthew Shifrin <matshifrin@aol.com> # Yiddish is a Jewish language written in the Hebrew alphabet, which has # been spoken by Ashkenazic Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and their # descendants for over 1000 years. Although Yiddish is written using the # same alphabet as Hebrew, not all of Unicode characters used in Yiddish # are represented in the Hebrew Braille tables. Additionally, in Hebrew, # the letters are only used to represent consonants, and the vowels are # written with diacritic accent characters and often omitted entirely. In # Yiddish, by contrast, all vowel sounds are represented by letters or # combinations of letters. Because of this, even though the two languages # share an alphabet, they need to use separate Braille tables. # Background: # # This braille table is being proposed by a sighted teacher and a blind student # of Yiddish at the Boston Worker's Circle, who have been working together, along # with a consortium of advisors, to make the language accessible through braille. # # Yiddish was incorporated into unicode two decades ago with a few special characters # and combinations of letters which have unique unicode characters, which are not # represented by the Hebrew Braille table. The result is that, when a blind reader # tries to read a Yiddish text file, many of the characters are not represented, filling # the output with "mystery characters". # This table is needed so that braille reader software will be able to recognize # the unicode characters that represent Yiddish and display them in readable Braille. # This table is informed by and inspired by the Hebrew Braille table, but with Braille # characters assigned to the letters based on the way they are pronounced in Yiddish. # Notable differences with the Hebrew Braille table are as follows: # The letter ayin is used in Yiddish as a vowel "e". We have assigned it dots 15, # overriding the Hebrew's 1246. # The letter vov is used in Yiddish as the vowel "u", and two vovs are the consonant "v". # We assigned the single vov dots 346, overriding Hebrew's 2456, and we assigned # the double-vov dots 1236. # The second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, beys, can be pronounced like a "b" or like a "v". # In Hebrew Braille, the letter is assigned dots 1236, and when it has a dagesh (a dot # in the middle of the letter representing that it's pronounced as a stop), it gets dots 12. # In Yiddish, this letter is used to represent the sound "b" in most cases, and when it # is used to represent the sound "v" it is written with a "rafe" which is a line # above the letter (the rafe is not generally used in Hebrew). So we have assigned the # unmarked beys the dots 12, and the beys with rafe (called "veys" in Yiddish) the dots 2456. # There are a handful of special letter combinations that are used in Yiddish to represent # dipthongs (combination vowels). The letters vov-yud are used to represent the sound "oy" and # we've assigned that combo dots 246. The letters yud-yud are used to represent the sound "ey" # and we've assigned them dots 26. The letters yud-yud-pasekh represent the sound "ay" and # we've assigned them dots 356. # For the letter alef with pasekh, used in Yiddish to represent the vowel "a", we've assigned # dots 12346. For the letter alef with komets, used in Yiddish to represent the sound "o", we've # selected dots 12356. # In the process, we've relied on a consortium of experts for advice, including: # - Mark David, a board member of the League for Yiddish, who was involved in the # effort to incorporate Yiddish into Unicode over 20 years ago. He is the force behind # UYIP.org, a website and listserve for Understanding Yiddish Information Processing. # - Harry Bochner, a linguist and software engineer who co-authored the # Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary # - Caryn Navy, a braille expert who works at Duxbury Systems # - Harris Mowbray, a software engineer with experience creating Braille tables # for other languages # - Daniel Carkner, a (sighted) Yiddish speaker who also reads UEB Braille # The final mapping of Yiddish letters to Braille characters was decided by # Matthew Shifrin after a semester of learning to read Yiddish with various # draft Braille tables. The final map is as follows: # # shtumer alef א 1 ⠁ # pasekh alef אַ 12346 ⠯ # komets alef אָ 12356 ⠷ # beys ב 12 ⠃ # veys בֿ 2456 ⠺ # giml ג 1245 ⠛ # daled ד 145 ⠙ # hey ה 125 ⠓ # vov ו 346 ⠬ # tsvey vovn װ 1236 ⠧ # vov yud ױ 246 ⠪ # zayin ז 1356⠵ # khes ח 1346 ⠭ # tes ט 2345 ⠞ # yud י 245 ⠚ # tsvey yudn ײ 26 ⠢ # pasekh tsvey yudn ײַ 356 ⠴ # kof כּ 13 ⠅ # khof כ 16 ⠡ # lamed ל 123 ⠇ # mem מ 134 ⠍ # nun נ 1345 ⠝ # samekh ס 234 ⠎ # ayin ע 15 ⠑ # pey פּ 1234 ⠏ # fey פֿ 124 ⠋ # tsadik צ 2346 ⠮ # kuf ק 12345 ⠟ # reysh ר 1235 ⠗ # shin ש 146 ⠩ # sin שׂ 156 ⠱ # tof תּ 1256 ⠳ # sof ת 1456 ⠹ # Braille indicators numsign 3456 number sign, just a dots operand capsletter 6 begcapsword 6-6 endcapsword 6-3 # literary forms of the decimal digits include litdigits6Dots.uti # display/passthrough for unicode braille include braille-patterns.cti # include the hebrew braille table include he-IL.utb include en-chardefs.cti All character definition opcodes # YIDDISH punctuation \x05BF 36 # HEBREW POINT RAFE letter \x05D0 1 # YIDDISH LETTER SHTUMER ALEF (silent letter) letter \xFB2E 12346 # YIDDISH LETTER PASEKH ALEF (a) letter \xFB2F 12356 # YIDDISH LETTER KOMETS ALEF (o) letter \xfb31 12 # YIDDISH LETTER BEYS WITH DAGESH (b) letter \xFB4C 2456 # YIDDISH LETTER VEYS WITH RAFE (v) letter \x05d1 12 # YIDDISH LETTER BEYS (b) letter \x05D2 1245 # YIDDISH LETTER GIML (g) letter \x05D3 145 # YIDDISH LETTER DALED (d) letter \x05D4 125 # YIDDISH LETTER HEY (h) letter \x05D5 346 # YIDDISH LETTER VOV (u) letter \xfb35 346 # YIDDISH LETTER MELUPM VOV (u) letter \x05F0 1236 # YIDDISH LIGATURE TSVEY VOVN (v) letter \x05F1 246 # YIDDISH LIGATURE VOV YUD (oy) letter \x05D6 1356 # YIDDISH LETTER ZAYIN (z) letter \x05D7 1346 # YIDDISH LETTER KHES (kh) letter \x05D8 2345 # YIDDISH LETTER TES (t) letter \x05D9 245 # YIDDISH LETTER YUD (i) letter \xfb1d 245 # YIDDISH LETTER KHIRIK YUD (i) letter \x05F2 26 # YIDDISH LIGATURE TSVEY YUDN (ey) letter \xFB1F 356 # YIDDISH LIGATURE PASEKH TSVEY YUDN (ay) letter \xFB3B 13 # YIDDISH LETTER KOF (k) letter \x05DB 16 # YIDDISH LETTER KHOF (kh) letter \x05DA 16 # YIDDISH LETTER LANGER KHOF (kh) letter \x05DC 123 # YIDDISH LETTER LAMED (l) letter \x05DE 134 # YIDDISH LETTER MEM (m) letter \x05DD 134 # YIDDISH LETTER SHLOS MEM (m) letter \x05E0 1345 # YIDDISH LETTER NUN (n) letter \x05DF 1345 # YIDDISH LETTER LANGER NUN (n) letter \x05E2 15 # YIDDISH LETTER AYIN (e) letter \xFB44 1234 # YIDDISH LETTER PEY WITH DAGESH (p) letter \xFB4E 124 # YIDDISH LETTER FEY WITH RAFE (f) letter \x05E4 124 # YIDDISH LETTER FEY (f) letter \x05E3 124 # YIDDISH LETTER LANGER FEY (f) letter \x05E6 2346 # YIDDISH LETTER TSADIK (ts) letter \x05E5 2346 # YIDDISH LETTER LANGER TSADIK (ts) letter \x05E7 12345 # YIDDISH LETTER KUF (k) letter \x05E8 1235 # YIDDISH LETTER REYSH (r) letter \x05E9 146 # YIDDISH LETTER SHIN (sh) letter \xFB2B 156 # YIDDISH LETTER SIN (s) letter \xFB4A 1256 # YIDDISH LETTER TOF (t) letter \x05EA 1456 # YIDDISH LETTER SOF (s) always \x05D5\x05D9 246 # YIDDISH LETTER VOV YUD (oy) always \x05D5\x05D5 1236 # YIDDISH LETTER VOV VOV (v) always \x05D9\x05D9 26 # YIDDISH LETTER YUD YUD always \x05F2\x05B7 356 # YIDDISH LETTER PASEKH TSVEY YUDN WITH SEPARATE PASEKH always \xFB1F 356 # YIDDISH LETTER PASEKH TSVEY YUDN always \x05D1\x05BF 2456 # YIDDISH LETTER VEYS WITH SEPARATE RAFE always \xFB4C 2456 # YIDDISH LETTER VEYS WITH SEPARATE RAFE always \x05DB\x05BC 13 # YIDDISH LETTER KAF WITH SEPARATE DAGESH always \xFB3B 13 # YIDDISH LETTER KAF WITH DAGESH כּ always כּ 13 # YIDDISH LETTER KAF WITH SEPARATE DAGESH כּ always פּ 1234 # YIDDISH LETTER PEY WITH SEPARATE DAGESH פּ always פּ 1234 # YIDDISH LETTER PEY WITH DAGESH פּ always \x05E4\x05BC 1234 # YIDDISH LETTER PEY WITH SEPARATE DAGESH פּ always פֿ 124 # YIDDISH LETTER FEY WITH RAFE פֿ always \x05E4\x05BF 124 # YIDDISH LETTER FEY WITH SEPARATE RAFE פֿ always \x05E9\x05C2 156 # YIDDISH LETTER SIN WITH SEPARATE DOT always שׂ 156 # YIDDISH LETTER SIN WITH DOT שׂ always שׂ 156 # YIDDISH LETTER SIN WITH SEPARATE DOT שׂ always \x05EA\x05BC 1256 # YIDDISH LETTER TOF WITH SEPARATE DAGESH תּ always תּ 1256 # YIDDISH LETTER TOF WITH SEPARATE DAGESH תּ always \x05D0\x05B7 12346 # YIDDISH LETTER PASEKH ALEF WITH SEPARATE PASEKH always אַ 12346 # YIDDISH LETTER PASEKH ALEF WITH SEPARATE PASEKH always \x05D0\x05B8 12356 # YIDDISH LETTER KOMETS ALEF WITH SEPARATE KOMETS always אָ 12356 # YIDDISH LETTER KOMETS ALEF WITH SEPARATE KOMETS always \x05D5\x05BC 346 # YIDDISH LETTER MELUPM VOV WITH SEPARATE DAGESH always וּ 346 # YIDDISH LETTER MELUPM VOV WITH SEPARATE DAGESH always \x05D9\x05B4 245 # YIDDISH LETTER KHIREK YUD WITH SEPARATE KHIREK always יִ 245 # YIDDISH LETTER KHIREK YUD WITH SEPARATE KHIREK always ב 12 # YIDDISH LETTER BEYS ב always בּ 12 # YIDDISH LETTER BEYS WITH DAGESH בּ always \x05E2 15 # YIDDISH LETTER AYIN (e) always \x05D5 346 # YIDDISH LETTER VOV (u)