Rules and Guidelines for Contracted Vietnamese Braille (Grade 1)

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Vietnamese official literature Braille has 3 different levels, including

1. Grade 0: uncontracted Braille
2. Grade 1: partially contracted Braille with abbreviations for consonants, dipthongs and rhymes
3. Grade 2: fully contracted Braille with abbreviations for one-syllable words plus contractions in Grade 1.

Example 1: the word "con" is written as "con" = "14-135-1345" in uncontracted Braille.

Example 2: "thành" is written as "w;h" in contracted Braille grade 1 = "2456-56-125". 2456 is the contraction of th, 56 is the grave and 125 is the contraction of anh.

Example 3: "thành phố", is written as ";w f9?" in contracted Braille grade 2 = "56-2456 124-35-1456". The word "thành" follows the rules of Grade 3, while the word "phố", which is not listed in Grade 3, follows the rules of Grade 2. See more in the Tables of Contractions in Grade 3.

Rules:

1. Do not use the contraction code of a rhyme to represent words starting with the same rhyme, such as ai, ơi, anh...
2. Do not use the code of a rhyme to represent words with three or more characters starting with a vowel/dipthong. Use contractions for the dipthong + the final consonant(s) instead. For example: ước, uyển, inh...
3. Do not use contractions for a rhyme if it has the same code as the code of a tone letter and is followed by a punctuation mark, as in "ai", "an". For example, if we use the contraction for "ai" in "tai.", the whole word can be confused with "tướng", because 35 is used for both the acute and "ai", and 245 is used for both the period and "ương".
4. The acute can be omitted in words with special rhymes such as "ác", "ếch", "áp", "ất"...,  which can make exactly the same sound without the acute.

Consonants

Dipthongs

Please note, oa, oe, uê, uy are the 4 dipthongs that can also be considered as rhymes.