World Braille Day: The Boy Who Invented Script For Visually-Impaired

Bhubaneswar: January 4 is celebrated across the world as Braille Day, marking the birth anniversary of Louis Braille, who invented the Braille script.

Born in 1809, in France, Louis lost his eyesight afted an accident when he was three years old. He was not the one to lose direction and mastered the new life quite quick.

At the tender age of 15, Louis created a reading and writing system based on Charles Barbier’s night writing system. This system came to be known as the Braille script.

World Braille Day is celebrated as a reminder of the importance of accessibility and independence for the visually impaired. The day spreads awareness about braille and other accessible forms of communication.

Louis was equally passionate about music. In later part of his life, he made Braille language for music as well. He made it a point to keep the lingo for music, supple so it is smoother to be adapted to any musical instrument.

Unfortunately, however, Louis did not live long enough to see his invention coming to the help of so many. Two years after his death in 1852, France’s Toyal Institute for the Bpind Youth, adopted a braille curriculum. By 1916, several schools around the United States taught braille to their visually impaired students.

Today, rubix cubes, watches, lego-style bricks and others have been changing our outlook on braille use, helping increase braille literacy as well. There is braille on almost every daily-use materials- signs, ATMs, elebators, calculators.