Six Dots – Jen Bryant – Class 6, SCERT

Louis Braille lost his sight when he accidentally injured his eye with his father’s awl, and the infection spread to both eyes. Even though his world became dark, he learned to understand it through sounds, touch, and smell. His family helped him by making letters he could feel, and he slowly learned to move around and read with his fingers. When he joined the Royal School for the Blind, he found that the raised‑letter books were too big and slow to read. Later, he learned about a dot‑based code used by soldiers, and this inspired him to create a simpler system. After years of hard work, he invented a new code using six dots to represent letters. This system was easy to read and write by touch, and the other students loved it. Louis had created the Braille script that changed the lives of blind people everywhere.

പിതാവിന്റെ വാളുകൊണ്ട് അബദ്ധത്തിൽ കണ്ണിന് പരിക്കേറ്റതിനെ തുടർന്ന് ലൂയിസ് ബ്രെയ്‌ലിന് കാഴ്ച നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടു, അണുബാധ രണ്ട് കണ്ണുകളിലേക്കും പടർന്നു. അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ ലോകം ഇരുണ്ടുപോയെങ്കിലും, ശബ്ദങ്ങൾ, സ്പർശനം, മണം എന്നിവയിലൂടെ അത് മനസ്സിലാക്കാൻ അദ്ദേഹം പഠിച്ചു. അദ്ദേഹത്തിന് അനുഭവപ്പെടുന്ന അക്ഷരങ്ങൾ നിർമ്മിച്ചുകൊണ്ട് കുടുംബം അദ്ദേഹത്തെ സഹായിച്ചു, പതുക്കെ വിരലുകൾ ഉപയോഗിച്ച് ചലിപ്പിക്കാനും വായിക്കാനും അദ്ദേഹം പഠിച്ചു. റോയൽ സ്കൂൾ ഫോർ ദി ബ്ലൈൻഡിൽ ചേർന്നപ്പോൾ, ഉയർത്തിപ്പിടിച്ച അക്ഷര പുസ്തകങ്ങൾ വളരെ വലുതും വായിക്കാൻ മന്ദഗതിയിലുള്ളതുമാണെന്ന് അദ്ദേഹം കണ്ടെത്തി. പിന്നീട്, സൈനികർ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്ന ഒരു ഡോട്ട് അധിഷ്ഠിത കോഡിനെക്കുറിച്ച് അദ്ദേഹം മനസ്സിലാക്കി, ഇത് ലളിതമായ ഒരു സിസ്റ്റം സൃഷ്ടിക്കാൻ അദ്ദേഹത്തെ പ്രേരിപ്പിച്ചു. വർഷങ്ങളുടെ കഠിനാധ്വാനത്തിനുശേഷം, അക്ഷരങ്ങളെ പ്രതിനിധീകരിക്കാൻ ആറ് ഡോട്ടുകൾ ഉപയോഗിച്ച് ഒരു പുതിയ കോഡ് അദ്ദേഹം കണ്ടുപിടിച്ചു. ഈ സിസ്റ്റം സ്പർശനത്തിലൂടെ വായിക്കാനും എഴുതാനും എളുപ്പമായിരുന്നു, മറ്റ് വിദ്യാർത്ഥികൾക്ക് ഇത് വളരെ ഇഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടു. ലോകമെമ്പാടുമുള്ള അന്ധരുടെ ജീവിതം മാറ്റിമറിച്ച ബ്രെയ്‌ലി ലിപി ലൂയിസ് സൃഷ്ടിച്ചു.

Questions from Textbook

1. What caused Louis to lose his sight?
   Louis lost his sight after he accidentally poked his eye with his father’s awl, and the wound became infected; the infection then spread to his other eye, and by the time he was five, he was completely blind.
2. What sounds did Louis hear when he sat by the window?
   When Louis sat by the window, he heard Papa working in his shop, ladies swishing past on their way to the market, soldiers marching loudly on the street, and the neighbour’s angry dog growling and barking.
3. How did Louis’ brother, sisters and Papa help him read?
   Louis’ brother helped him by teaching him to whistle so he could sense obstacles, his sisters made a straw alphabet for him to feel and read, and Papa created letters using leather strips and round‑topped nails so Louis could learn by touching them.
4. How did Louis learn to experience the world around him without sight?
   Louis learned to experience the world by using his other senses—he walked with a cane, counted steps, listened to echoes, felt letters with his fingers, recognised trees by touch, flowers by smell, and birds by their songs, with help from his family and the village priest.
5. How did Louis initially learn to ‘read’ at the Royal School for the Blind?
   At the Royal School for the Blind, Louis first learned to read by tracing large raised letters on a wooden board with his fingers, slowly feeling each shape to understand the words.
6. What was the major challenge Louis faced at the Royal School for the Blind?
   Louis’ biggest challenge was that the raised letters were extremely large, so a single sentence took up half a page, making reading slow, tiring, and not very useful for learning many things.
7. What was peculiar about the French army captain’s code?
   The French army captain’s code was unusual because it used patterns of dots that could be read by touch, and each pattern stood for a sound rather than a letter, making it different from normal writing.
8. How was the code different from the normal alphabet?
   The code was different from the normal alphabet because it represented sounds like “ou” or “ch” instead of individual letters, and it was designed for sending secret messages during war, not for reading books.
9. What was special about the new code?
   Louis’ new code was special because it used only six dots arranged in two columns, with each pattern standing for a letter of the alphabet, making reading and writing fast, simple, and practical for blind people.
10. How did the other students react to Louis’ new system?
    The other students were excited and happy when they tried Louis’ system, saying it was easy to learn and very fast, and they loved that it allowed them to read and write just like sighted people.

The Writer

Jen Bryant (1960- ) is an American poet, biographer and fictionist. Her works are mostly for children and young adults. She is famous for her award winning books The Right Words and A River of Words.