Unified English Braille (UEB): What Changed from EBAE

Unified English Braille (UEB) is the braille code for English that the United States has used since January 4, 2016, and that the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the other members of the International Council on English Braille use too. In the US it replaced English Braille American Edition (EBAE), the literary code American readers learned before. The alphabet, the digits and almost all contractions stayed the same. The main changes fit in a short list: nine contractions were dropped, a handful of short words are no longer run together, some contractions are now used in words where EBAE spelled the letters out, and a number of symbols, such as parentheses, the decimal point and the dollar sign, got new cells.

In braille, the abbreviation itself is written ⠠⠠⠥⠑⠃: the capitalized word indicator, then u, e and b.

Key points

• UEB was developed internationally by the International Council on English Braille (ICEB) from 1993, and ICEB declared it substantially complete in April 2004.
• The Braille Authority of North America (BANA) voted to adopt it on November 2, 2012, and set January 4, 2016 as the date for its general use in the US.
• It replaced EBAE. For math and science, the US kept the Nemeth Code as an official code.
• Nine EBAE contractions are gone: by, into, to, ble, com, dd, ation, ally and o'clock. UEB keeps 180.
• a, and, for, of, the, with, and to, into, by, are now spaced as in print.
• Some contractions are used more often: words such as professor and reduce take a contraction in UEB that EBAE did not allow.
• One code covers text, web addresses and email: there is no switching into Computer Braille Code.
• The 26 letters, the digits and the capital sign are the same as before.

What is Unified English Braille?

UEB is a code, not a grade. Like EBAE before it, it comes in grade 1, letter by letter, and grade 2, with contractions. "Braille" in grade 2 is ⠠⠃⠗⠇, exactly as it was in EBAE.

The word unified has two meanings here. Before UEB, an American braille reader met several codes with overlapping cells: EBAE for ordinary text, Computer Braille Code for computer notation, Nemeth for math, and others. And English-speaking countries did not all write literary braille the same way: the American code was, by its very name, an American edition. UEB set out to be one code that works across subjects and across countries, so English text transcribed in Australia reads the same in Ohio.

The project started with a worry, not a design. In its motion to adopt UEB, BANA recalls that in 1991 it saw braille use eroding among both children and adults, and that one of the reasons given was the complexity and disorder of the code. Its board decided an overhaul was needed.

Timeline: from the 1991 project to 2016

The switch was not overnight. Between the vote and 2016, states drew up their own plans for schools and transcribers: a UEB implementation plan for California, published by the California School for the Blind on April 20, 2015, laid out the steps from winter 2015 to fall 2016, covering the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years.

What stayed the same

For someone who learned EBAE, most of UEB is familiar, and for a beginner, everything on our braille alphabet page is valid in both codes:

• The 26 letters, a to z, use the same cells.
• The digits still use the number sign ⠼ (dots 3-4-5-6) followed by the letters a to j.
• The capital sign is still dot 6, ⠠, and a word in capitals still takes two of them: "NASA" is ⠠⠠⠝⠁⠎⠁ in both codes.
• Most contractions survived. UEB grade 2 has 180 of them, all listed in braille contractions.

The nine contractions UEB dropped

According to BANA's overview of the changes, these nine EBAE contractions do not exist in UEB:

Two details in the UEB column are worth a second look. In "into", the in is still contracted, ⠔: only the to part lost its sign. And "nation" is not spelled out in full: UEB still has the final-letter contraction for tion, so the word becomes n, a, tion.

BANA gives three reasons for the cuts: braille has to translate accurately by computer, in both directions; the code needed room for new symbols without conflicts; and the rules should have fewer exceptions. It adds that ation and ally caused trouble with capitals inside words.

You can see the problem in the cells themselves. The EBAE sign for ble is dots 3-4-5-6, the same cell as the number sign. The sign for dd is dots 2-5-6, the same cell as the period. The sign for com is dots 3-6, the same cell as the hyphen. And ation and ally both open with dot 6, which is also the capital sign. A human reader settles these from context; a translation program has to guess, and UEB removed the need to guess.

Words that are no longer joined

EBAE ran some short words into the next one with no space. UEB writes them spaced as in print. That covers to, into and by, shown above, and the group a, and, for, of, the, with, which keep their contractions and simply gain a space:

Put several changes in one sentence and the difference shows. "Go to the table by the window at ten o'clock." takes 21 cells in EBAE and 29 cells in UEB grade 2:

• EBAE: ⠠⠛ ⠖⠮ ⠞⠁⠼ ⠴⠮ ⠺⠔⠙⠪ ⠁⠞ ⠞⠢ ⠕⠄⠉⠲
• UEB grade 2: ⠠⠛ ⠞⠕ ⠮ ⠞⠁⠃⠇⠑ ⠃⠽ ⠮ ⠺⠔⠙⠪ ⠁⠞ ⠞⠢ ⠕⠄⠉⠇⠕⠉⠅⠲

That sentence was chosen to contain four of the changes, so the gap is wider than in typical text. The trade is deliberate: a little more length in exchange for braille that software can translate in both directions without errors.

Some contractions are used more often

The change also runs the other way. To cut exceptions from the contraction rules, UEB uses some contractions in words where EBAE wrote the letters out. BANA's overview gives professor, atmosphere, reduce, erase and renewed as examples:

In "professor", UEB writes the sign for of, dots 1-2-3-5-6, inside the word; in "reduce", the sign for ed, dots 1-2-4-6. Each word comes out one cell shorter. UEB still leaves the contraction out when it would bridge the two parts of a compound word or get in the way of pronunciation: BANA's examples are chemotherapy, enamel, doghouse and hereditary.

Capitals, punctuation and numbers

Beyond contractions, UEB reorganized several signs:

• The period and the decimal point are now the same cell, dots 2-5-6, in every use. In EBAE the decimal point had its own sign.
• Parentheses have an opening and a closing form, two cells each. In EBAE one cell did both jobs.
• Capitals work as a set: ⠠ for one letter, ⠠⠠ for a word, ⠠⠠⠠ to open a passage of three or more capitalized words, and ⠠⠄ to close it. "THE END IS NEAR" is ⠠⠠⠠⠮ ⠢⠙ ⠊⠎ ⠝⠑⠜⠠⠄.
• The grade 1 indicator, ⠰ (dots 5-6), is the cell EBAE used as the letter sign. It now has a wider job: it tells the reader that the next symbol is not a contraction. A letter b standing alone, which would otherwise read as the word "but", is written ⠰⠃.
• Numbers: after the number sign, no contractions are used until a space or a hyphen.
• Bold, italics and underline have separate indicators in UEB, used only when the emphasis matters to the meaning, not for visual effect.
• Other symbols changed too, among them the dollar sign, the percent sign, the asterisk, the dash, the ellipsis, brackets and braces. And accented letters, which EBAE marked with dot 4 before the letter, now take a separate modifier for each accent: acute, grave, umlaut, cedilla, tilde.

Computer code and math

Under EBAE, a web address or a file name meant switching into a separate code, Computer Braille Code. In UEB there is no switch: the same symbols and rules write an email address, a URL or a file name, as BANA's overview notes.

Math is the one place where the US did not unify fully. UEB has its own math notation, but BANA's motion kept the Nemeth Code for Mathematics and Science Notation as an official US code, alongside the music braille code and the IPA braille code. American students therefore read math either in UEB or in "UEB with Nemeth", which our Nemeth Code guide explains.

Does EBAE still matter?

For a new learner, no: learn UEB. It has been the code for general use in the US since 2016, and its letters are the ones EBAE used. EBAE matters mostly for older books, transcribed before the switch, which did not change when the code did. A UEB reader who opens one meets the nine missing contractions, the joined short words, a few symbols written differently, and some words spelled out where UEB would use a contraction.

For teachers and parents, the practical point is the reverse: an older EBAE workbook can still teach the alphabet, but not the contracted spelling a child will meet today.

Try UEB yourself

Our English braille translator writes any text in UEB grade 1 or grade 2, with the same open-source engine, liblouis, and the same UEB tables used to build the examples on this page. Type a sentence with "to the" or "nation" and compare the two grades.

To learn braille step by step, the Braillito app for iPhone and Android has lessons with exercises you play, with lives, levels and a daily streak, plus a translator, a dictionary and a braille builder. In English it has 59 lessons in 8 worlds. It does not teach the grade 2 contractions. It is a subscription with no free version: depending on the plan, it starts with a free trial or a cheaper first period, only for your first subscription.

How we made this page

Every braille cell here was generated by a script, not typed. The UEB examples come from liblouis 3.39.0 with its official UEB grade 1 and grade 2 tables, the engine behind our translator. The EBAE examples come from liblouis's EBAE table (en-us-g2), and the cells of the nine dropped contractions were read straight from that table's rules. The dates and rules come from the BANA, ICEB and RNIB documents linked above. BANA's overview says it is not a complete list of every difference, and neither is this page: it covers the main changes.

Frequently asked questions

What does UEB stand for in braille?

Unified English Braille, the braille code for English adopted by the member countries of the International Council on English Braille, including the US, the UK, Canada and Australia.

When did the US switch to UEB?

BANA voted to adopt UEB on November 2, 2012, and set January 4, 2016 as the date for its general use in the United States.

What is the difference between EBAE and UEB?

UEB dropped nine EBAE contractions (by, into, to, ble, com, dd, ation, ally, o'clock) and spaces short words that EBAE joined. It also uses some contractions in words where EBAE spelled the letters out, such as professor and reduce. Several symbols changed: the period and the decimal point are both dots 2-5-6, parentheses have separate opening and closing signs, the dollar sign, the dash, brackets and others have new cells, and accents use their own modifiers. Computer notation is written without switching codes. The letters, digits and capital sign did not change.

Is UEB grade 1 or grade 2?

Both. UEB is the code; grade 1 is UEB written letter by letter, and grade 2 is UEB with its 180 contractions.

Did UEB replace the Nemeth Code?

No. In the US, BANA kept Nemeth as an official code for math and science, so students use either UEB math or UEB with Nemeth.

Can a UEB reader read EBAE books?

Mostly, yes. The letters, digits and most contractions are the same. The main differences a reader notices are the nine dropped contractions, the joined short words, some words that EBAE spells out where UEB contracts them, and a few symbols.