Tactile Alphabet

A brief chronology and periodization of the main milestones and achievements of scientific and technological progress and human thought in the development of tactile writing and means for reading / writing it:

Paper Writing

• IV century - the oldest tactile alphabet that survived to this day due to discovered artifacts for the blind was developed by the Greek scholar theologian Didim Blind, first a listener, and then a mentor at the Alexandria Theological School (blind at the age of four and living in Egypt , which was then a province in the Roman Empire ), which applied symbols to the information surface by carving on wood or bone ^[1] . The technology used was similar in the set of operations with the methodology for creating information plates from various materials by the Romans (mainly wax tablets were used by the Romans). As a carrier of information, the inventor used wood , bone , metal in the form of plates. The alphabet was developed by a scientist to facilitate communication between the blind and the sighted. The society of that time was not ready to fully appreciate the importance of the invention, as a result of which the technology did not find wide distribution and, subsequently, was lost. The alphabet used by scientists to date has not been adequately reproduced and scientifically researched ^[2] .
• 1517 (according to other sources, in the second half of the XVI century ) - Spanish inventorFrancisco Luca from Zaragoza developed a technique for carving bone and wood in Latin letters. From historical chronicle it is known that the system he developed was used to teach blind children ^{[2] [3]} .
• 1542 - Spanish writer made guidelines for using Roman wax tablets for teaching the blind ^[3] .
• 1554 - The Italian scientist Gerolamo Cardano proposed a set of recommendations similar to the ideas of Mexia ^[3] .
• 1575 - 1580 - Italian rationalizer Rampasetto improved the methods developed by Francis Luca and proposed by Maya and Cardano. He used only a tree as an information medium, Latin letters were increased in size compared to the source ^{[2] [3]} .

Paper Writing

Embossed Latin alphabet systems

• Valentin Gayui system - embossed latin alphabet of Italian style;
• The "Triangular Alphabet" by James Gall Sr., using capital and lowercase Latin letters of a distinctive style. Applied in 1826 when creating the first English-language book for the blind.
• Edmund Fry's system - capital latin letters.
• John Alston's system - capital latin letters.
• The Jacob Snyder Jr. system - rounded letters, similar to the font Gayui. Used in the 1834 publication of the Gospel of Mark , the first book for the blind in the United States.
• " The alphabet of the Boston style » Samuel Howie - using lowercase acute-angled letters, with the obvious influence of the Gall alphabet, but more similar to the standard Latin alphabet.
• " The alphabet of the Philadelphia style » Julius Friedlander , which used capital letters similar to the Elston alphabet and was used in the Institution for the Training of the Blind of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia .
• The system of William Chapin (also from the Institution for the Training of the Blind of Pennsylvania), combining the lowercase letters of the Boston inscription with the uppercase letters of the Philadelphia (used in 1868 in books published by N. Kniss, Jr.

Arbitrary Character Systems

• The Thomas Lucas system based on shorthand and phonetic writing;
• James Freer system , similar to the stenographic system of Lucas, but using boostrofedon (alternating the direction of writing in even and odd lines);
• New York Dot Alphabet - dot font created by William Waite , who at one time successfully competed with the Braille alphabet.

• en: Tactile graphic
• en: Tangible symbol systems

• A Critical Evaluation of the Historical Development of the Tactile Modes and Reading and an Analysis and Evaluation of Researches Carried out in Endeavors to make the Braille code Easier to Read and to Write
• chapter 3: Early British Codes