French Braille Translator/QUÉBEC    

FUNCTIONAL SUMMARY

The French/Québec tables support print-to-braille translation of French-language literary text, following the French Braille Code as defined by the Ministry of Education in Québec, Canada, which at this writing (April 2006) differs slightly from the older French code as defined by the Association Valentin Haüy (AVH), Paris and also from the newer Unified French Code. The American Computer Braille Code (CBC) is also supported.

REFERENCES, HISTORY AND CREDITS

The development of Duxbury's original French tables, upon which these are based, commenced in March 1987, under the sponsorship of the Association Valentin Haüy (AVH), Paris, and as a joint technical effort of Duxbury Systems, Inc. and AVH. The primary specification for French literary braille usage with contractions is "Abrégé Orthographique Étendu," a publication of AVH. "Table de Transcription pour la Production du Braille Abrégé par Ordinateur," by Michel Jacquin and published by AVH (1986) was also instrumental in this early development.

The braille-to-print translation tables were added starting in November 1990, with the same sponsors and developers.

In October 1993, Gérard Cécire of Point-Par-Point, Longueuil, Québec, Canada, starting with the then-current print-to-braille tables for French Braille per AVH, developed this variant table to conform to the Québec customs. He made several updates through September 1995.

Apart from a few minor corrections, there has been no further development of this table. In particular, the changes to the Québecois braille code that were defined in 1996 have not been systematically incorporated into this table as of this writing (April 2006).

(Documentation reviewed: May 2006.)

Duxbury DBT: Braille Translation in Many Languages.