International Council on English Braille (ICEB)
IPA Braille

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Introduction

IPA Braille is a braille code for the transcription of the International Phonetic Alphabet (as revised to 2005). It is based upon the 1934 braille code for IPA devised by W. Percy Merrick and W. Pothoff, brought up to date primarily through the efforts of Robert Englebretson, Ph.D., under the auspices of the ICEB‘s Unified English Braille Linguistics Committee, chaired by Jean Obi. Dr. Englebretson is the editor of the defining documents, entitled “IPA Braille,” listed below. Transcription to braille, and preparation of the tactile supplement and the various file formats, were carried out by CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind).

IPA Braille was launched as an ICEB recommended code at the 4th ICEB General Assembly in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in April 2008.

Although IPA Braille is not part of UEB and employs a different prefix-root symbol pattern, it can be used in conjunction with UEB and other codes, and ICEB recommends its use generally for the transcription of IPA inclusions within non-IPA text.

Print Document

Note that when using Adobe Reader to view this PDF file onscreen, you may need to use the View / Rotate View / Clockwise option to read the text in normal orientation.

• IPA Braille (PDF [Adobe] file format, 61 pages)

Braille Document with Tactile Supplement (Download)

The braille document is in two parts. Part 1 presents the complete IPA Braille as a braille document, transcribed in UEB. Part 2 presents the IPA print glyphs as tactile graphics, with a braille introduction. The braille files are available either in “BRF” format, which contains formatted braille pages (page sizes as listed below, encoded per North American “ASCII-Braille” conventions), or DXB (Duxbury Braille file) format. The tactile graphic portion of Part 2 is available either in CDR (Corel Draw) or PDF (Adobe) format, suitable for production on 8.5 by 11 inch swell-paper.

Hard Copy Braille and Print Versions

Hard copies of IPA Braille are available for purchase from RNIB.

• Braille with Swell Images
• Braille without images
• Swell images only
• Print

BRF format braille files

• IPA Braille – Part 1 (BRF format, 25 lines per page by 40 cells per line, 116 pages)
• IPA Braille – Part 2 Introduction (BRF format, 25 lines per page by 28 cells per line, 13 pages)

DXB format braille files

• IPA Braille – Part 1 (DXB format)
• IPA Braille – Part 2 Introduction (DXB format)

CDR format tactile file

• IPA Braille – Part 2 Tactile (CDR [Corel] format, 28 pages)

PDF format tactile file

• IPA Braille – Part 2 Tactile (PDF [Adobe] format, 28 pages)

ICEB contact information
Page content last updated: November 22, 2021