By Yeo Sze Ling

- Head of Chinese Literacy Department

Independent Society of the Blind (Singapore)

These days, when you enter a lift of a new or upgraded building, you will most probably notice different arrangements of embossed dots pasted on the buttons. Indeed, such protruded dots, termed "Braille", remain a significant substitute for pen-and-paper writing for blind people around the world for more than one and a half-century.

The basic unit of the Braille system, called a Braille cell, is composed of six dots arranged in 2 columns and 3 rows. With a total of 63 possible patterns formed from embossing some of these dots, the simple concept provides a sound framework for numerous people to devise representations of nearly all languages known, thus enabling blind people to be Iiterate in their own ways.

To a large degree, the introduction of blindness integrated educational system, together with its adoption of the British Braille system, offers sufficient opportunities for blind Singaporeans to achieve educational levels comparable to their sighted peers in subjects including English, Malay, Sciences and the Humanities. One exception though, comes from the Chinese language. Presently, blind students throughout all levels can opt for exemption from the Chinese subject. This is primarily due to the ignorance of effective Chinese Braille codes. "Can a blind person cope with Chinese" and "how does a blind person write Chinese" are common questions posed. As a consequence, most blind Chinese Singaporeans are, at the very best, verbally fluent in the language. This inevitably limits his/her ability to appreciate the language. But a major concern is that those who are interested to study their mother tongue lack the means to do so.

For the past two years, the Chinese Literacy Department under the Independent Society of the Blind (Singapore) is challenged to seek for answers to address the above concerns. At first thought, it appears highly unattainable for a six-dot Braille system to represent the thousands of Chinese characters. Yet, Chinese, an elegant language, is by no means the most complex of all. Besides, the sizeable blind population of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong will certainly not be contented with merely speaking their own language.

Motivated by an increasing importance in bilingualism and the desire to provide well-rounded educational prospects for the blind, the Society launched an initiative in 1998, known as the Chinese Literacy Project. Its underlying objective was, naturally, to promote and enhance the level of Chinese literacy amongst blind Singaporeans. As such, reliable contacts were established with blind organizations and schools in China and Taiwan to explore the various Chinese-writing techniques employed by the blind in these areas. In May 1998, four members spent one and a half months in Beijing School for the Blind so as to immerse themselves in their environment. On the whole, this trip yielded much success with members returning with a thorough knowledge of Chinese Braille as well as trends and latest developments in blindness technology in China.

Currently, we are adopting a Chinese Braille system developed by an academic from China, which we deem to be most appropriate to cater to our needs given our local conditions.

Using the six-dot Braille system and the Hanyu Pinyin as its basis, Braille Chinese words can now be easily produced. Perhaps, one may be misled to assume that a Chinese character is formed using English letters based on its Hanyu Pinyin. Besides being uneconomical, this method fails to preserve the unique identity of the Chinese language. On the contrary, our system cleverly makes use of the unique decomposition of a Chinese syllable into vowels (Shengmu) and consonants (Yunmu). More precisely, each syllable is allocated two Braille cells; one for the vowel and the other is reserved for the consonant and the tone. By assigning a Braille symbol to each vowel and consonant, every Chinese character can be braiIled following certain designated rules.

Further, our department is actively looking into Chinese blindness technology such as speech-equipped word processors, OCR packages and possible Internet access. This year, we are privileged to receive funds from the Canadian Braille Literacy Foundation under the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to aid us explore such developments. Besides offering more sources of Chinese information, we believe that such equipment will help to bridge the gap between the two seemingly different modes of writing, namely Chinese Braille and Chinese Characters.

So far, efforts are undertaken to generate interests in the language among existing students and members. Courses are conducted to introduce Chinese Braille to some of them as well. In addition, we are committed to offer our assistance to students who wish to take up the Chinese subject in schools.

So, can a blind person cope with Chinese? Although Braille and available technology may not provide the best solutions, we are hopeful that with sufficient support from all sources, blind Singaporeans will soon be comfortably equipped with the necessary infrastructure to enjoy and appreciate the language to their fullest potentials.

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