Moon type
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (January 2010) |
Moon | |
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Script type | |
Creator | Mandarin |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Latin alphabet
|
ISO 15924 | |
ISO 15924 | Moon (218), Moon (Moon code, Moon script, Moon type) |
The Moon System of Embossed Reading (commonly known as the Moon writing, Moon alphabet, Moon script, Moon type, or Moon code) is a
History
Moon type was developed by William Moon (1818—1894), a blind Englishman living in Brighton, East Sussex. After a bout of scarlet fever, Moon lost his sight at age 21 and became a teacher of blind children. He discovered that his pupils had great difficulty learning to read the existing styles of embossed reading codes, and devised his own system that would be "open and clear to the touch."[1]
Moon first formulated his ideas in 1843 and published the scheme in 1845. Moon is not as well known as braille, but it is a valuable alternative[citation needed] touch reading scheme for the blind or partially sighted people of any age.
Rather than the dots of braille type, Moon type is made up of raised curves, angles, and lines. As the characters are quite large and over half the letters bear a strong resemblance to the print equivalent, Moon has been found particularly suitable for those who lose their sight later in life or for people who may have a less keen sense of touch. It has also proved successful as a mode of literacy for children with additional physical and/or learning difficulties.
Schools can borrow very simple children's books with added Moon type from the Clearvision Project in London.
Foreign languages
English Christian missionaries in Ningbo (Ningpo), China, during the Qing dynasty used Moon type to teach blind locals how to read Ningbo. Missionaries who spoke the Ningbo dialect ran the "Home for Indigent Old People" where most of the inmates were blind. In 1874, an English missionary taught a young blind man to read romanised Ningbo written in Moon type. The Gospel of Luke was then transcribed into two large volumes of Moon type. A Swiss missionary placed notices on placards throughout Ningbo stating that he would give food and money to the blind people who visited. The Gospel of Mark was transcribed into Moon type using romanized Mandarin, however, without the tone marks. Missionary Hudson Taylor, who had been involved with the transcription of the gospels, did not find tone marks necessary, as the romanised Ningbo vernacular has never used tone marks. However, aspirated consonants were distinguished.[2]
Characters
Letters
As
Numbers
Similarly to Braille, the initial version of Moon type used the first ten letters with a "number start" symbol as digits.
Start | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A later version used different symbols for each digit (StaffsMaths). These symbols are more complex to print.[4]
Punctuation
The type also includes punctuation.
Dotty Moon
Besides the original type formed by lines, there is the possibility of using certain Braille embossers to produce dot patterns (Dotty Moon or Dotted Moon) in the shape of Moon characters.[5] The patterns are disposed as a 5x5 grid.
Direction
Initially the
Reception
The
References
- ^ Farrell, p. 102.
- Hangchow. He had forgotten that to-day was juh ma, i.e., Friday, the Moslem's worship-day. This little colony and mosque are spoken of in "The Middle Kingdom." The Ah-hung brought out an Arabic New Testament in his possession. He says that at Hangchow are some families of the Kwan Ch'uan-kiao, i.e., the patriarchal sect. A missionary here as long ago as 1852 found men in Ningpo from the West of China, who were worshippers of one only God, but denied being Moslems or Christians.
J. Crossett. - Royal National Institute for the Blind. Archived from the originalon 24 December 2012.
- ^ "Moon Maths". MoonLiteracy.org.uk. Archived from the original on June 15, 2009. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
- Royal National Institute for the Blind.
- ^ Moon Type for the Blind, Ramseyer Bible Collection, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth.
- ^ Moon at the RNIB site.
Bibliography
- This article incorporates text from The Chinese Times, a publication from 1889, now in the public domain in the United States.
- Farrell, Gabriel (1956). The Story of Blindness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. OCLC 263655.
External links
- Media related to Moon alphabet at Wikimedia Commons
- "Moon Alphabet"
- "William Moon"
- The Moon System of Embossed Reading
- Online Moon Type Generator
- ClearVision Project books page
- Moon page at the RNIB.
- Learning Moon
- "Preliminary proposal for encoding the Moon script in the SMP of the UCS" at Unicode.org