31)Honouring Louis Braille on the occasion of the bicentenary of his birth in 2009:

Honouring Contributors to Society;
Louis Braille (1809-1852);

Celebrating the bicentenary of his birth in 2009:

Louis Braille was born on 4^th January 1809 in Coupvray, France. As a child, he suffered an injury which occurred when he was using an awl (a sharp tool) in his father’s harness workshop. Although injured in one eye, the injury resulted in a total loss of vision in both eyes. 

He was admitted to the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris, at the age of 10 on a scholarship. This was one of the first institutes of its kind anywhere in the World. It was here that he studied and later, made out his career, as a teacher for the blind.  He was a bright student and also an accomplished Cellist and an Organist – he played the Organ at several churches including the Church of Saint-Nicholas-des-Champs and at the Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Paris.

 At the Institute, he found that apart from basic crafts and trade skills, the students were taught to read by touching raised letters made by pressing copper wire against paper, a system devised by the Institute’s founder, Valentin Hauy.  This system had a drawback, in the sense, the raised copper letters weighed a lot and sometimes a book would weigh even upto 100 pounds. Also, the students could only read, but could not write. The teachers, too, delivered their lectures verbally only to the students, as a result of this drawback and there were only a few library books in this style.

In 1821, the Institute was visited by an ex-soldier called Charles Barbier, who shared that he had devised a system called “night vision” in which he used a code with 12 raised dots which led soldiers on the battle-field share vital information without speaking.

Louis developed this technique further and at the age of 15, he devised a system of reading and writing through the means of raised dots arranged in cells of up to six dots (reduced from Barbier’s 12 dots) in a 3x2 configuration (Each cell represents a letter, numeral or a punctuation mark) and at the age of 17 he adapted this method to mathematics and musical notations, music being a field in which he was extremely versatile. The irony was, that, to invent the raised dot system, Louis used the same awl in his father’s workshop , which had injured his eyes in the first place resulting in his blindness. 

One reads Braille by passing one’s fingers over characters, each of which is an arrangement of one to six embossed /raised dots or points. 

The Braille system offers numerous benefits over Hauy’s raised letter method, the most remarkable one being the ability to read and write an alphabet. Another improvement was, that, the slightly raised dots made the books/texts lighter.

In 1829, Louis published a book on his new syatem called “Method of writing words, music and plain songs by means of Dots, for use by the Blind and Arranged for them”. Ten years later, in 1839, he published a method developed for communication with sighted persons. He even developed a Braille typewriter with his friend Pierre Foucault (one of his blind colleagues at the Institute, and equally brilliant as Louis).

Despite initial skepticism in various quarters, including the Institute where he taught (his system was not taught at his Institute during his lifetime). In 1854, France officially recognized his system ( two years after he passed away). Braille writing spread world-wide as more and more persons/people began to get familiar with the language. Thus, he gave blind persons all over the world, a system to read and also to understand musical notes.

 He passed away in Paris on 6th January 1852, at the age of 43, having accomplished his life’s mission and leaving behind him a lasting legacy for the visually challenged persons. He was initially buried at his hometown Coupvray, but later his remains were reinterred  with honours in the Pantheon in Paris.

There are three versions of Braille:

The first one (Grade 1) has 26 standard letters of the alphabet and punctuation, for beginners.

The second  one (Grade 2) adds contractions to Grade 1.  Contractions help in saving space, because a Braille text page can have much lesser letters/words than a printed page. Thus Grade 2 is employed for public signages,menu cards and books for the accomplished Braille readers.

The third one (Grade 3 ) is a kind of shorthand with entire words shortened to a few letters.  This version is used in diaries, notes , personal letters and even in Literature.

Braille can also be used to represent other languages viz. Chinese,Japanese, Korean, Russian etc. 

The 200^th Anniversary of his birth in 2009 was celebrated all over the World. Belgium and Italy took out two-Euro coins, the USA brought out a one dollar coin and India issued a two rupee coin to honour his memory and the lasting legacy which he left behind for the visually challenged persons.

 Obverse of a Ferritic stainless steel (FSS) two rupee coin issued by Reserve Bank of India on the occasion of Louis Braille's birth bicentenary in 2009, showing the words "Bharat" in Hindi and "India" in English on top, the Lion Capital (symbol of the Indian Government) and the numeral "2"denoting the denomination of the coin in the centre and "Rupiye" in Hindi and "Rupees" in English at the bottom of the coin.

 The reverse side of the coin depicts a picture of Louis Braille, with his initials ",L.,BRL" and the bi-centenary years "1809-2009". This coin is minted at Kolkata mint. Notice that there is no mint mark on the obverse side of the coin.

The India Government Mint, Kolkata, had recently taken bookings for a two rupee proof coin on Louis Braille's bicentenary . I have booked two coins, which are expected to come in another four months. On receiving them, I shall put up an image on this post. 

Posted on 15.11.11 

Today, after a lot of correspondence with Kolkata mint/SPMCIL and two weeks after the expiry of the six month stipulated period for delivery of booked Commemorative coins, I have received the undernoted coin from Kolkata mint :

Obverse of the commemorative coin (Proof set) issued to celebrate the 200th Birth Anniversary of Louis Braille.

Reverse of the above Proof coin.

The specifications of this coin are as under:

 

Denomination: Two Rupees.

Shape and Diameter: Circular ; 27mm

Metal composition : Ferritic Stainless steel (Iron :83% chromium : 17%)

The rupee cost for this coin was Rs.200/- (plus credit card charges).

Posted on 01.09.2015:

The following is an image of a First day cover issued by India Post on the Bicentenary of the birth of Louis Braille:

A First Day Cover issued by India Post on the occasion of the Bicentenary of the birth of Louis Braille containing a 500 Paise or Rs. Five stamp. Notice the Braille  lettering on the Cover as well as the Cancellation stamp.




Links: 

1) A short story: A tour of Pune's "Blind School" (or as I prefer to call it "The Institution for the Visually Challenged Students")


Some other interesting links related to  posts on French Currency & Coins issues:


 1) Honouring Louis Braille on the Bicentenary of his birth in 2009

2) Honouring Charles Eduord Jeanneret popularly known as Le Corbusieur, the French architect who built the modern city of Chandigarh & several other projects: A 10 Franc Banknote issued by the Swiss National Bank 

3) Fort St. George Museum, Chennai (Part iii): i) Indo-Danish coins ii) Indo-Dutch coins iii) Indo-French coins iv) Indo-Portuguese coins 

4) a) Central Bank of West African States issues: the "Franc African Financial Community" (FCFA) b) Bank of Central African States issues : the "Franc Financial Cooperation in Central Africa (FFCCA)

5) French Indo-China issues: A silver one Paistre coin issued in 1895 

6) Financial Institution for issuing uniform currency/coinage for French Overseas Territories in the Pacific & French Southern Territories of Antarctica: The Institut d'emission d'outre-Mer (IEOM) for French Polynesia (Tahiti), New caledonia, Wallis-et-Futuna and the erstwhile New Hebrides (present day Vanuatu)  

 7) Coinage of the French Polynesian Island of New Caledonia (or Nouvelle-Caledonie in French) - the CFP Franc

8) Bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon's exile to St. Helena (Part I): A one Crown Commemorative Coin issued by the Ascension Island 

9) Bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon's exile to St. Helena (Part II) : coins commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo: 1) A 5 GBP coin issued by the Royal Mint UK: 2) A "Drie Landen Zilverset" issued by the Royal Dutch Mint - which includes coins of Netherlands, Belgium and UK 

 10) Jeanne d'Arc or Joan of Arc or "The Maid of Orleans" or "La Pucelle": 200 & 50 Euro gold coins and 10 Euro Silver coins issued by Monnaie de Paris in July 2016

11) i)"Europa Coin Programme" or the Eurostar Programme ii) Monnaie de Paris has issued a series of six coins with the theme "The Age of Iron & Glass" in January 2017

12) 100th Anniversary of Auguste Rodin's passing away commemorated with gold and silver Euro coins issued by the Monnaie de Paris under its on-going "The 7 Arts" Coin Series

 13) Statue of Liberty, Paris, France: "Treasures of Paris": Coin series issued by Monnaie de Paris on 20.01.2017

14) Marianne (or Liberty): "The Trilogy": A set of Euro denominated coins in Gold and silver brought out by Monnaie de Paris in January 2017