I was invited to this meeting as an expert on braille. Let me first introduce myself. I am Huguette Landry. I am the President and Chief Executive Officer of Braille Edition & Transcription Inc., located in Shediac, New Brunswick. I began working in the field of braille transcription in 1986. From 1988 to 2003, I was an active member of the Comité québécois de normalisation du braille français en éducation under the direction of the ministère de l'Éducation et de l'enseignement supérieur du Québec. I am a transcriber, reviser and user of French and English braille. I am thoroughly familiar with several codes currently adopted in Canada in both official languages, and in the United States.
In Toronto, in 1993, I obtained from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind a certificate in literary, mathematical and scientific braille transcription. Since 1988, I have been training francophone schoolteachers to use French literary and mathematical braille under the direction of the Department of Education of New Brunswick. Since my company was created in 1993, I have been offering services such as the transcription of documents into French or English braille. These services are aimed at a clientele in schools, colleges and universities as well as in government and private sector organizations. Over the past years, great efforts have been made to review the meaning of braille symbols in order to establish a single unified code to group literary, mathematical and scientific braille codes.
On the other hand, a francophone committee and an anglophone committee are currently working independently to develop two different unified codes. Even before the final acceptance of these two codes, we can state that they will create extra difficulties for users and transcribers of braille when they have to learn all the differences between the two languages.
From the point of view of users and transcribers, what would be the ideal unified braille code? First, it would allow us to use one single braille code for reading and transcribing simpler, literary texts and more complex mathematical and scientific texts. The use of a single braille code allows us to use in French or in English, the same typographical, mathematical and scientific braille signs in the printed version. It allows us to use a braille code that does not have any radical changes, so that we can apply our acquired knowledge. Such a code would not have any serious or overly serious impact on implementation and learning in terms of cost and effort.
New Brunswick is a bilingual province. I think it's important to keep the similarities that currently exist between both official languages with regard to the meaning of braille symbols. Currently the Abraham Nemeth Code allows us to do that. This code was adopted in the United States in the early 1960s. It has been used all over Canada in both official languages since the early 1970s. We were able to adapt this flexible code to the French language. With regard to braille transcription in both languages, be it literary, mathematical or scientific, it very successfully meets all the real requirements of printed braille as they stand today. All the figures, typographical symbols, scientific formula, linear or spatial formula, chemical structures, etc. that we find in print are available in the Abraham Nemeth Code. This code is already a universal code in itself.
When texts are transcribed entirely into braille, be they simple literary texts or mathematical or scientific texts, all the braille symbols are identical and have the same meaning for the user, in French as well as in English. The Abraham Nemeth Code can even be adapted to other languages.
In my own opinion as an expert, the codes currently in use, called The Nemeth Braille Code for mathematics and science notation, English version and the Code pour la transcription en braille de la notation mathématique, French version, are the ones that best meet the desired objectives of users as well as transcribers of braille, and they can serve as a solid foundation for creating a future ideal unified code in both of Canada's official languages.
Now, with your permission, for clarification, I would like to use the table to show you the current and future developments of braille codes.
Do the people have the document?