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Braille is a code that should be read with the fingers by people who ar evisually impaired or blind - although most sighted people read it with their eyes. The Braille characters consist of a combination of one to six dots, arranged in two side-by-side columns of three dots each, forming a rectangle. The Braille dots are numbered: downward, the left column contains dots 1, 2 and 3 and the right column contains dots 4, 5 and 6. With these six dots, 63 different combinaations can be made, including the 26 alphabetical letters and some other signs.

Sometimes however, a combination of dots can mean different things depending on the context. For example, digits are formed using the same codes as the letters a to j (1 to 0) but with a number sign (dots 3, 4, 5 and 6) in front of them. There are also signs for combinations of characters or whole words. Computer Braille usually consists of eight dots instead of six: dots 7 and 8, located under dots 3 and 6, are used to indicate things like italic, upper-case etc. because on the computer italic-signs etc. don't exist.

Each language has different Braille codes. For example, in Dutch there's a specific sign for the "oe" and the "ij" diphthongs, while English Braille has signs for for example "th".

Louis Braille, who's now known for inventing the Braille print, was born in Coupvray near Paris on January 4, 1809. He became blind at the age of three from an accident while playing with his father's tools. At the age of ten, he was admitted to the Paris Blind School, where he learnt to read using embossed characters.

In 1829, Louis Braille got to know a system invented by M. Charles Barbier, who was a soldier under Napoleon. The characters of this system, which the soldiers used to communicate during the night without making light or sound, consisted of combinations of 1 to 12 dots, arranged in a rectangle. Braille reduced this to a 6-dot system, which, after some modification, in 1834 got the form it has today. However, still there are made changes to the Braille code, such as the addition of signs for combinations of characters or whole words.