International Council on English Braille
(ICEB)
UEB Decisions Since July 2007
(through December 9, 2009)
For historical reference purposes only, the decisions taken by the main UEB Committee or the ICEB General Assembly since July 2007 are listed below, chronologically. In many cases, these decisions simply confirmed or codified existing practice. Typically the wording as given here is just a summary or even merely a subject heading, but in any case is given out of the discussion context and thus should not be relied upon as the rule.
September 16, 2007: A decision was made regarding a rule for the use of alphabetic wordsigns.
January 28, 2008: — regarding the extent of grade 1 mode when initiated by numeric mode.
February 12, 2008: — regarding grade 1 and 2 for computer notation.
February 19, 2008: — that only the first contraction be used in a string of letters consisting only of “ar” and “gh” in a series, e.g. in “argh” or “arar” or “gharar”, to avoid ambiguity with line drawing, e.g. of a ring structure. [This decision was reversed at the April 2008 General Assembly.]
February 19-20, 2008: — that individual tally marks be represented by the vertical line segment (dots 456) and that four tally marks with strike through to indicate a count of five be represented by four dots 456 followed by dots 25.
March 3-5, 2008: — regarding contraction rules for simple wordsigns.
March 9, 2008: — regarding simple contractions.
April 2008 (at General Assembly): — that “argh” and similar words be contracted normally per the rules on simple groupsigns, and that complex line drawings be done in grade 1 mode if any real possibility of ambiguity exists.
October 1, 2008: — regarding use of simple groupsigns.
October 1, 2008: — regarding contraction rules for lower signs.
December 3-4, 2008: — to approve a document entitled “Guidelines for Technical Material” for distribution and use for the next three years.
December 15, 2008: — to adopt a rule to consider all quotes as lower signs for purposes of the lower sign contraction rules.
January 1, 2009: — regarding contraction rules for lower groupsigns.
January 28, 2009: — regarding contraction rules for initial-letter contractions.
January 28, 2009: — regarding contraction rules for final-letter contractions.
February 1, 2009: — regarding contraction terminology.
February 4, 2009: — regarding contraction rules for shortforms.
April 3, 2009: — regarding word division with contractions.
May 3, 2009: — regarding preference rules for contraction usage.
June 9-10, 2009: — to assign symbols for tone and stress. This also includes the UEB slash symbol used twice in succession for the print symbol consisting of two unspaced dashes for the scansion caesura.
June 9, 2009: — to assign symbols for diacritics.
July 3, 2009: — regarding rules on use of punctuation.
July 12, 2009: — regarding rules on contractions bridging syllable and other boundaries.
August 12, 2009: — that (1) it is permissible for the Rules Working Group to draft the rule for Old and Middle English before the assignments have been made to the four upper and lower case symbols (eth, thorn, wynn, yogh) used in early forms of English, and (2) the upper and lower case ligatures (ae, oe) and the macron which are used in early forms of English should be represented using the existing UEB ligature and modification symbols.
September 20, 2009: — to assign symbols for lowercase and uppercase Old English and Middle English letters yogh, thorn, eth, and wynn (wen).
December 9, 2009: — to establish rules for transcription of early forms of English, especially as to the use or non-use of contractions.
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Page content last updated: December 10, 2009