mángwén (máng·wén blind · writing → [braille] 盲文) 👈🏼 Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”
Recently, jw.org featured the video “ ‘Without It, I Would Feel Lost’ ”, which, as its description says, is about “the experience of a blind man who has benefited from having the Bible in braille”. Where the English description of this video uses the word “braille”, the Mandarin description uses this week’s MEotW, “mángwén (máng·wén blind · writing → [braille] 盲文)”. And yes, as the existence of this Mandarin expression suggests, Chinese Braille (Zhōngguó (Zhōng·guó Central · Nation → [Chinese] 中国 中國) Mángwén (Máng·wén Blind · Writing → [Braille] 盲文)) does indeed exist.
Braille in the Land of Characters
But, one may ask, how does braille, with just a limited number of raised dots, work for Mandarin Chinese when thousands and thousands of Chinese characters are usually used to write this language? The post “How Chinese Braille works”, on the blog The Language Closet, discusses this question:
There is one system that intrigues me. one that, [sic] seems a little too big for what braille is able to handle.
You see…, one braille cell contains 6 dots. Including the space, which consists of zero raised dots, there are only 64 possible combinations that can be formed per braille cell. But yet, it is this same system that could represent the entirety of the Mandarin Chinese language to provide accessibility to the blind users. How does it do that? After all, Chinese as we know it is written with thousands upon thousands of characters, each with their own meaning.
To get around this problem of representing thousands of characters in braille, we would have to ditch the concept of the character, and to focus on the structure of the Chinese syllable. Chinese is fairly restricted in its syllable structure, with syllables having a (CG)V(X)T structure, where C is the initial consonant, G is the glide, V is the vowel, X is the coda, and T is one of the four tones, or a neutral tone for weak syllables. So in the hanyu pinyin, the syllable zhuāng can be split into zh + u + a + ng + tone 1. After factoring in tone, there are around 1300 possible syllables, although Mandarin Chinese uses way less than that.
In Mandarin Chinese, there are only 21 possible consonant initials, which are, in hanyu pinyin,
b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, j, k, q, h, x, zh, ch, sh, r, z, c, and s.
Furthermore, with a limited number of final combinations, that is, combining glides, vowels, and codas, every single combination of Chinese initials and finals could be represented in braille.
So, Chinese Braille does NOT work by trying to shoehorn a Chinese characters writing system into braille—even the Simplified one just wouldn’t fit. Instead, the approach taken was to “ditch the concept of the character, and to focus on the structure of the Chinese syllable”, a basic unit of Mandarin speech. Instead of being based on a Chinese characters writing system, with its thousands and thousands of inconsistent, haphazardly designed symbols, Chinese Braille is based on Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), which consistently and elegantly represents any and all Modern Standard Mandarin speech with a reasonable number of symbols.
As the article “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Is a Good, Workable Writing System on Its Own” says:
But, is Pīnyīn even really a writing system? Interestingly, the Chinese national standard Zhōngguó Mángwén (中国盲文/中國盲文, Chinese Braille) is basically a transliteration or conversion of Pīnyīn into braille letters.
From this fact, we can logically draw the following conclusion, as stated in the above-mentioned article:
Braille is obviously a writing system, so Pīnyīn must also be a writing system (see p. 9), not just a pronunciation aid.
⠪⠆
is the (Mainland) Chinese Braille representation ofài (love 爱 愛)
⠪ corresponds to “ai” in _Pīnyīn_, and
⠆ corresponds to 4th tone.Blind Mandarin-speaking people need to read and write about love too! https://t.co/sXSVzycXre
— Troubadour WW (@troubadourww) January 5, 2021
“_Chinese Braille_…is in principle a conversion of _Hanyu Pinyin_ into braille letters…If braille is a script [writing system], which no one doubts, especially not blind people, then _Hanyu Pinyin_ must also be a script [writing system].” https://t.co/EpGCXe7OOp
— Troubadour WW (@troubadourww) January 5, 2021
Blind Chinese people cannot see Chinese characters, but they can still read and write Mandarin with _Chinese Braille_.
_Chinese Braille_ is based on _Pīnyīn_—they both represent the sounds of Mandarin.
Since _Chinese Braille_ is obviously a writing system, so is _Pīnyīn_.
— Troubadour WW (@troubadourww) January 5, 2021
But, What About Homophones?!
One of the primary objections raised to the idea of using Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) as a writing system, and not just as a pronunciation aid, is that there are supposedly so many homophones (different words that sound the same) in Mandarin that characters are required to disambiguate them, otherwise there would be mass confusion. However, users of Chinese Braille, which is based on Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), seem to be doing just fine, along with the billion or so people who regularly speak Mandarin without constantly showing each other the Chinese characters that are supposedly required to distinguish homophones from one another.
For more information about Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) and homophones, see the subheading “But There Are So Many Words That Sound the Same!” in the article “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Was Plan A”. For those saying “tl;dr”, here is a bit of material from the conclusion of that section of the article:
The ultimate clarifier in modern Mandarin, even with all its existing homophones, is context, not characters. Characters themselves can have multiple possible meanings and multiple possible pronunciations, so one often has to, yes, check the context of something written in characters before the meaning and/or pronunciation of certain words in it can be determined with certainty.…
…That there are so many different words in modern Mandarin that sound the same is not a good reason not to use Pīnyīn, any more than it is a good reason not to speak Mandarin. Ironically, it is actually a good long-term reason not to use characters!
Many claim that _Pīnyīn_ shouldn’t be used as a writing system because characters are required to avoid confusion from all the homophones (different words that sound the same) in Mandarin.
If that’s true, then people shouldn’t SPEAK Mandarin either! But many do, and it’s fine. pic.twitter.com/1MK0ERuFjc
— Troubadour WW (@troubadourww) April 8, 2025
So, rather than being a real, valid reason not to use Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) as an actual writing system for Mandarin, the objection that characters are required to cope with Mandarin’s homophones is really just copium (“cope”+“opium”) for those who fear that all the blood, sweat, and tears they have invested into trying to learn and remember characters will be made irrelevant. (Such ones shouldn’t really fear, though—the world is and will continue to be awash in Chinese characters, so knowledge of characters will continue to have some value, probably right up until the end of this system of things.) The truth, for those who are willing to face it, is that Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) is just as real and workable a writing system for Mandarin as is Chinese Braille, which is based on Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音).
