Hi Milos,
>From my understanding, many blind and visually impaired people use hardware
that automatically generates Braille text so they can read computer
screens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display
(others may use screen reader/text to speech technology)
I am doubtful that a server-side implementation of Braille conversion would
actually serve much of a purpose for this reason.
I do think it may be a worthwhile idea to communicate to organizations of
the blind and visually impaired community to see if their accessibility
needs are fully met by Wikimedia sites.
Best,
Mark
On Jan 23, 2017 11:33 AM, "Milos Rancic" <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Braille is one of the tangible symbol system, well adapted into the
alphabetic environment. It is used by visually impaired persons.
So, here are my notes:
1) It is possible to make a transliteration engine from an alphabet to
Braille (not vice versa; but good enough for some purposes).
2) Visually impaired people could use different methods for writing:
typewriting + acoustic feedback and they are doing that way. There is,
of course, possibility to have a keyboard with Braille letters
imprinted on them.
3) At this moment of time it could be imagined that touchscreen
devices would be able to give tactile feedback. That's the main reason
why Wikimedia projects should consider adding Braille as a writing
system option for all of the languages that could be supported by
Braille (and other tangible symbol systems for non-alphabetic writing
systems). That's technical solution and if you are interested doing
that, it could be a development project lead by WM CA, for example. (I
could give you my input in relation to what's needed for the project
to succeed.)
In short, it could be implemented like any of the examples of
multi-script [Wikimedia] languages. The basics are not complex at all
(adding a file into MediaWiki and changing a config file; per
language), but the implementation into the Wikimedia environment could
be tricky, although I don't think that anyone would object to get a
tab on, let's say, English Wikipedia with the options of choosing a
writing system -- or having any other kind of more subtle option to
choose if somebody is visually impaired or just prefers Braille.
Keep in mind, however, that such thing would become realistic after
the devices are able to give tactile feedback. And I think Apple Inc.
or some other company would "invent" such things during the next
couple of years.
However, keep in mind that the specialized keyboards for Braille are
already interpreting alphabets, so I suppose that even that tactile
feedback from the future touchscreens would be likely interpreted into
Braille on lower level than MediaWiki interface.
However, again, we have keyboards for touchscreens and I suppose it
could be implemented into MediaWiki, as well.
On Fri, Jan 20, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Jean-Philippe Béland
<jpbeland(a)wikimedia.ca> wrote:
> How to implement this writing system on the various languages then?
>
> Jean-Philippe Béland
> Vice President, Wikimedia Canada
> User:Amqui
>
>
> Le ven. 20 janv. 2017 09:02, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> a écrit :
>>
>> I've rejected the request for Wikipedia Braille [1], as it's not a
>> language, but a writing system used by various languages.
>>
>> [1]
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_
languages/Wikipedia_Braille
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Langcom mailing list
>> Langcom(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
>
>
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Initially, before I read the content of the page, I've been thinking
to put this as a proposal. However, not just that there are no
reasonable linguistic basis, but I see the proposal [1] as edgy in the
sense of trolling.
My comment with rejection is:
According to the article Reforms of Portuguese orthography [2],
Portuguese and Brazilian philologists and institutions support unified
language. Consequently, the basis for the request doesn't exist.
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Europe…
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reforms_of_Portuguese_orthography