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Happy 2026! With the New Year comes resolutions, and why not learn a new skill this year? Braille Awareness Day was celebrated earlier this month on 4 January, and this incredible system has improved the lives of millions across the world for decades. For those unfamiliar with Braille, it is a system of raised dots read by people who are blind or visually impaired, enabling them to understand written language. If you have ever seen or felt these raised bumps on signs, handrails and buttons in lifts, then you have encountered Braille!
The idea of a form of written language that didn’t need to be seen was first innovated by Charles Barbier in the early 1800s, when he served under the French army and realised that a way for his soldiers to communicate at night without light would be valuable for preventing detection from the enemy soldiers. However, his 12-dot system was less convenient to read by touch quickly and didn’t catch on widely.
Later on, in 1820, a man named Louis Braille started to amend Barbier’s system to make it more accessible and efficient to be read by only using 6 dots instead of 12. Blind from a young age, Louis Braille pioneered the creation of a system that would help integrate countless blind and visually impaired people into a society dominated by those with sight. His code was only widely used after his death in 1853, but his work continues to improve lives.
Nowadays, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is the leading organisation working to support the blind community. Their library has over 11,000 braille books, which helps encourage literacy for blind children, giving them the same opportunity to enjoy curling up with a good book and getting lost in stories as a child with sight. Companies are using braille on their products more and more – anything from medicines to beauty products will have braille on their packaging, and restaurants like Nando’s offer menus in braille. The popular card game company UNO even released a deck of cards with braille in 2019. With more awareness and understanding of the importance of braille, and efforts by companies to actively include this system in their products, society can become more accessible to everyone!
So, how does learning braille sound? The RNIB offers a great variety of resources for learning this code, and the Community Library in Devonshire House has a metal braille learning tool – this can be freely borrowed and used to learn the English alphabet in braille! The Community Library is outside the Greenhouse and has a wide variety of books that are available to everyone, including a great selection on disabilities and tools to support students with dyslexia.
Sources
https://brailleworks.com/braille-resources/history-of-braille/
https://www.rnib.org.uk/living-with-sight-loss/education-and-learning/braille-tactile-codes/braille-through-the-years-past-present-and-future/
https://www.rnib.org.uk/living-with-sight-loss/independent-living/leisure/reading-and-books/braille-books/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16984742