hello all, wish you a very happy new year 2011.
find here the article copied from a source on the internet.
i've lost the URL, but can obtain if someone really wants to know.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment
Invention, Evolution and Advent of Braille in India
________________________________________
18:23 IST
BACKGROUNDER : WORLD BRAILLE DAY
After its invention and evolution, Braille has replaced a host of
strategies/methodologies/ways and means, employed, in the retrospect,
to provide literacy skills and some form of education to the blind
persons around the world. Strategies developed before the advent of
Braille, could hardly qualify to be termed as “scripts” because the
blind could read them at an extremely slow speed and painstakingly,
but could not at all write them.
Today, the visually impaired children and adults are receiving
education in regular, special schools and integrated/inclusive
settings throughout the world through the medium of Braille (the
touch script). Braille as a potential instrument has empowered the
blind people to read and write freely, think critically and creatively
and independently. It has enabled them to acquire useful and gainful
knowledge and social communication skills to make their mark in the
society. Higher education, acquired with the medium of Braille, has
developed their all round personality, imbuing them with valuable
qualities of self-awakening, self-confidence and self-reliance.
Riding high on the ladder of Braille, myriads of blind persons have
managed to become administrators and professionals at various levels
of human development and excellence as also have set up their
families. Quite a few of them around the globe have even established
voluntary organizations and conducted them resourcefully and
professionally to inspire and empower their blind brothers and sisters
through the active use of Braille medium in their day to day
activities.
Invention of Braille System
Even before the Braille came to be invented by Louis Braille, a blind
Frenchman, in 1829, sporadic efforts were made by several well-meaning
persons to educate the blind people across Europe and elsewhere. Such
efforts were concentrated mainly to Europe and to Iran in Asia, during
the 16th and 17th centuries.
In Europe too, Germany was the torch bearing pioneer in the field. A
German blind man devised a method for himself of pricking holes in the
paper with a pin by keeping it on a cushion. He could decipher these
symbols but at a staggeringly and phenomenally slow/low pace.
Vizemburg, another German, used to emboss normal German letters on the
cardboard in order to help blind decipher the German print letter.
Maria Theresa Von Peradis, an Austrian pianist of international
repute, had used both these methods for self-learning, just before
Braille came to replace them.
In due course of time, Von Camplan, another German, invented a machine
that could emboss German script, which could be configured by touch
but woefully slowly. Close on the heels, France, England,
Switzerland, Sweden and several other countries of Europe also
followed suit. Gradually, the idea of providing a suitable medium of
reading and writing and learning to the blind gained momentum in
Europe as well as the other countries.
Towards the close of the 18th century, this movement spread thick and
fast, involving all other continents and engulfing hundreds of
countries around the globe, depending on their level of commitment and
economic development.
Even though the Germans were the first people to think of some ways
and means to afford some semblance of education to the blind, French
snatched away the leading role from them and became the real pioneers
in this field. Rousseau acted as a Linguafranca between Denis Diderot
and Velintine Hauy to carry the idea of the former to start some
institution for those who can’t see, to the latter.
And, Velintine Hauy accepted the challenge with a great deal of
courage and conviction and set up the first-ever historic school for
the blind in Paris in 1784, creating a scintillating sensation all
around. The same Hauy’s School soon became a laboratory for one of his
brightest pupils who shortly thereafter invented a touch script
inspired by the Night Writing System whose knowledge Capt. Charles
Barbier shared with him. Enkindled at once by the Night Writing System
of Capt. Charles Barbier on November 18, 1821, Louis Braille,
possessing a true scientist’s productive and proactive supreme genius,
sat himself to invent a dot system, employing Permutation and
Combination theorem, completed his long and strenuous work nay, a
historic and revolutionary invention, based on six dots to be
configured by the periphery of finger tips, and handed it first to his
own school to be put to use to teach his schoolmates in Paris.
But Louis, the young inventor, was soon to be rebuffed and rejected by
the cruel and callous apathy shown by his school authorities who could
not see any merit or worth in it. Thereafter, Louis approached the
French Government authorities to recognize his invention as a medium
for educating the blind across the country, but again to be disquieted
and discouraged and decimated with an outright blatant refusal to
utilize his system of raised dots. However, notwithstanding the brutal
rejection to recognize Louis’s revolutionary neonate invention, Hauy’s
school in Paris became the epicenter of revolution, which created
ripples all around and proved to be a watershed for creation of
educational facilities for the blind across the globe.
Although, the inventor was trying his utmost best to get his dot
system recognized for educating the blind with ease, during his
lifetime- from 1829 until death in 1852, all his efforts proved futile
and were thrown to winds in this respect and the young man must have
felt quite decimated and heart broken and let down. Posthumously
however, in 1856, on the occasion of 49th birth anniversary of Louis
Braille, his invention got dully recognized and the script was
befittingly given his name “Braille”.
For this invaluable contribution of his to the education and all round
evolution of the blind, the world community observes his birth
anniversary every year on 4th January with a festive and joyous mood.
4 January, 2009, was Louis Braille’s bi-centenary birth Anniversary.
Every year, the whole world unites to observe this day across the
globe with robust enthusiasm and renewed spirit and tenacious resolve
to rededicate and redetermine educational standard for children with
visual impairment.
EVOLUTION AND ADVENT OF BRAILLE IN INDIA
The genesis of Braille System in India could be traced
back to Miss Hewlett who, at a very young age, lost her vision for a
year or so and providentially regained it after a successful eye
operation. It was Miss Hewlett, a Christian missionary, in1879 or a
little later, who invited and requested one more young Christian
missionary, Miss Annie Sharp, her friend, to receive requisite
training in special education to teach the blind of this country who
were living in quite a pathetic and sorrowful situation . Drawing
inspiration from Miss Hewlett, Annie Sharp on her return from Perkins
after training in special education, set up a north India Industrial
Home for the Christian Blind in Saint Catharine Hospital at Amritsar
in 1887, the first-ever school for the blind in this country. Thus,
Miss Annie Sharp became the “mother of educational facilities for the
blind in India”.
Doctor Neelkanth Rai Dahiyabhai Chatrapati, even before
launching his own co-ed school for the blind at Ahmedabad in 1895,
visited Annie Sharp’s school at Amritsar and received training in
Braille. (Doctor Neelkanth Rai Dahiyabhai Chatrapati lost his vision
adventitiously but even then, he worked tirelessly to evolve a common
Braille code for India.) L. Garth Waite in unison with Reverend J.
Knowles developed Oriental Braille and brought it to India at around
the same time when Annie Sharp opened her first school in1887.
Another luminary Lal Bihari Shah of Kolkata after having
learnt Braille from L. Garth Waite in 1893 developed his own Braille
code for Bangla. He also strongly advocated the need for a common
Braille code for the whole country. Subsequently, P.M. Advani evolved
Sindhi Braille Code but kept striving for a common Braille code for
the country.
Apart from these luminaries of Braille World in India,
many other veterans relentlessly worked for evolving a common Braille
code for Indian languages. By the year 1947 when India gained her
freedom, there were ten different Braille codes being used in
different schools for the blind across the country which were as
follows:
1. Tamil Braille of Miss Askwith
2. Oriental Braille by Reverend J. Knowles and Mr. L.
Garth Waite
3. Shah Braille Code
4. Indian Braille of Doctor Neelkanth Rai Dahiyabhai Chatrapati
5. Mysore and Kannada Code
6. Sindhi Braille Code of Mr. P.M. Advani
7. Shirreff Braille
8. Chatterjee Braille Code
9. Uniform Indian Braille Code framed by the Expert
Braille Committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education
10. Standard Indian Braille Code framed by an Informal
Committee under the Chairmanship of Lt. Col. Sir Clutha Mackenzie,
Commandant, St. Dunstan’s Hostel for Indian War Blinded which later
culminated into NIVH.
Role of the National Institute For Visually Handicapped in Braille Development
After its invention in 1829, different English speaking
countries evolved different codes, in next 100 years and upwards, as
per their understanding and appreciation of the system. As a result,
almost all countries had their different Braille codes being used in
schools for and of the blind. In this kind of scenario prevailing
over, the western countries, therefore, initiated concerted action to
avoid the resultant chaos and confusion created in the path of
educating the visually impaired all around. Solution to this quaint
problem was finally achieved in 1931 when Braille experts assembled in
an International Braille Meet at New York (U.S.A.). The following
year, the experts finalized uniform standard English Braille and
devised contractions and abbreviations, and even short hand system
thereafter hectically followed in training blind stenographers/clerks
to man different offices in these countries.
India also initiated and accelerated its initiatives to
develop a single uniform Braille code to replace all ten codes
prevalent at that time here. In this regard, the efforts of St.
Dunstan’s Hostel for the Indian War Blinded (mother of NIVH) through
the Ministry of Education in collaboration with UNESCO proved of
immense worth, which culminated into the formulation and execution of
Bharati Braille to be followed throughout the country in 1951.
Through the course of its existence and development of
over 64 years, NIVH as a premier body in the field of Braille
Development under the Ministry of now, Social Justice and Empowerment,
has boldly taken up the task of enriching and popularizing Braille in
the Indian Sub-Continent to suit the emerging technologies of the day.
In the sphere of Research and Development of Braille, the institute
has contributed significantly which cannot be overemphasized but is,
however, succinctly enumerated as under:-
Through the BRAILLE DEVELOPMENT UNIT, the institute evolved
contractions and abbreviations in 1985 for different Indian languages,
with a view to reducing the size and bulk of Braille books and to
accelerate the reading rates, which are essentially conducive to
education, more especially higher education.
###
Material for this Backgrounder has been received from the National
Institute of Visually Handicapped, Dehradun. (Under the Ministry of
Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India)
regards,
prateek agarwal.
website:
http://www.prateekagarwal.webs.com
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