[Athen] Advice Sought for Student Learning Arabic

[Doug Hayman]

Don't know about that but found this bit on Duxbury site:

The rules for contracted Arabic were originally specified by the former 
Middle East Committee for the Welfare of the Blind (now under the auspices 
of the Department of Education) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Working from that 
specification, Duxbury Systems developed an automated braille translation 
system for Arabic, believed to be the first anywhere, which was installed 
at MECWB in 1982. That original form of the system, designed for DBT as it 
ran on minicomputers of the early 1980s, was used with only minor updates 
until the late 1990s. The present tables have been updated to work with 
the much more advanced Windows version of DBT, to incorporate facilities 
for embedded English as well as Arabic, and to reflect feedback from more 
recent users.

Duxbury Systems is grateful to Mr. Mohammed Ramadan of Nattiq Technologies 
for translating the relevant portions of "Modern Arabic Braille System" 
(October 2002) and for his further assistance in understanding and 
arranging for testing of the changes introduced in that revision.

The rules for contracted literary English generally follow British 
practice as of 2009 but embedded "computer braille", if used, follows the 
American CBC code.

(Documentation reviewed April 2010)

http://www.duxburysystems.com/lan_arabic.asp



Doug Hayman <dhayman at u.washington.edu>
Senior Computer Specialist
DO-IT Program (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, Technology)
UW Technology Services
Box 354842
Seattle, WA 98195
(206) 221-4165
http://www.washington.edu/doit

On Tue, 13 May 2014, Asha Kinney wrote:


> Greetings Athen List:

>

> We have a student with a visual impairment who reads in braille and will be taking a course in Arabic this fall.

>

> Has anyone ever dealt with a student learning another language which uses a special character set and/or has its own unique braille code? Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, etc??

>

> I would appreciate any and all advice. This extremely motivated student has volunteered learn the Arabic braille code over the summer but I am trying to wrap my head around the translation process.

>

> I'm also wondering what the most useful approach would actually be, and if it's even braille-based at all. This student does have limited vision so we could also make use of enlarged graphics, as well as tactile ones, etc.

>

> Any other thoughts, stories, advice, or referrals welcome! Feel free to reply off-list and I am happy to compile responses and share.

>

> Thanks!

>

> Asha Kinney

> Assistant Director of IT - Instructional and Assistive Technology

> Hampshire College

> Amherst, MA 01002

> akinney at hampshire.edu

>

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