by Winifred Downing
It is almost 15 years since the plan to establish a single braille code to express all literary, mathematical, and technical material was introduced by a group of experts concerned with braille. The importance of this development was obvious because existing codes had differing ways of expressing things like parentheses, the dollar sign, the decimal and so on; and in some areas, there were no recognized ways of expressing essential concepts.
Committees were identified in the Braille Authority of North America (BANA) to oversee the process, and meetings were held with braille experts from other English-speaking countries in the hope of preparing a single code for all jurisdictions.
Early in the planning process, the developers of the new code advanced several important principles they would follow. First of all, each character would have only one meaning; there would be no ambiguity. Second, a way would be specified for expressing in braille every character used in print. Last -- and this proved to be the most significant decision of all -- the Nemeth code, having been used to express mathematics in braille for almost 50 years, would be abandoned in favor of writing all numerals in the upper part of the braille cell.
At first, eliminating contractions was not opposed; but as work on the code proceeded, decisions were made to drop some of the most used contractions. Little or no attention was given to prioritizing the dropped contractions according to frequency of use; no plan was suggested for how children learning the new code would be able to access the thousands of books that employed the abandoned contractions; no estimates were projected of the costs of personnel preparation for teaching and using the new code, teaching the changes to adult braille users, or altering the translation programs in all the braille devices used throughout the country.
Though most of the resistance and opposition to the Unified English Braille Code as it developed came from those who used braille for literary purposes, where changes would really not have seriously compromised readers' ability to comprehend what they read, it was in the technical area that the code proved to be less and less appropriate. No effort was expended to discover how braille users would write the code, and Abraham Nemeth demonstrated that a simple multiplication problem could not be expressed in the UEBC on a 40-cell braille line.
Hostility toward the code increased as the years passed. The American Council of the Blind passed several resolutions opposing aspects of the code, and the National Federation of the Blind endorsed two very strong resolutions of opposition at their convention in 2002.
At the ACB national convention in Pittsburgh in July 2003, Kim Charlson, ACB's representative to the Braille Authority of North America, told the audience that she would vote against adoption of the UEBC when the matter is voted upon by BANA.
While most observers are profoundly grateful that this situation has been resolved, we who love braille must accept the fact that some alterations are still absolutely necessary. We must agree on signs where ambiguity is leading to confusion, adopt some new signs for expressing concepts and practices that have been adopted in print, and demonstrate a willingness toward the flexibility required to have braille continue to meet our needs.
Change is never pleasant but often necessary.