Charles Barbier

Charles Barbier ( full name Charles Barbier de la Serre ) (* 1767, † 1841) developed the so-called night writing, a precursor of Braille, a Braille.

Barbier was a captain in the French army during the early 19th century. His interest was generally the encryption and shorthand. Specifically, he was looking for a way to soldiers at the front to give written instructions that they could read without firing a lantern, as they would otherwise have been exposed to the fire from the enemy. Therefore Barbier developed a code which consisted of raised dots, which were stamped into paper and could be sensed after the turning over the sheet. His characters consisted of two vertical rows of one to six points, where 36 French lute were assigned ( phonetic spelling ). He called this 12 - point font or font night sonography. In the army barber night writing but could not prevail because it was too complicated to learn and to read.

On June 28, 1819, therefore, he turned first letter to the Institute for the Blind ( Institut Royal des Jeunes Aveugles ) in Paris, 1820 and personally. There, the then eleven year old Louis Braille learned from this point font and he and his blind fellow students showed great interest. Braille had suggestions to improve the code. Barber, however, was not open due Braille young age for these innovations. Later Braille developed from the night writing his still used Braille, by reducing the number of dots per character, from twelve to six. Thus, each character can be felt without vertical finger movement.