Guest from Europe Matin during International Braille Day, Eric Brun-Sanglard, blind designer and architect, explains why knowing this raised writing system is not essential.

According to him, new technologies make it possible to do without this alphabet on a daily basis.

INTERVIEW

Some 196 years after its invention, is braille still useful for the blind?

While this January 4 marks the international day of this relief writing system developed by Louis Braille (1809-1852), this alphabet is only deciphered by 12% of blind people in France.

From there to say that it is no longer essential?

"Yes", answers the microphone of Europe 1 Eric Brun-Sanglard, designer and blind architect.

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A complex and non-universal system ...

Blind at the age of 33 due to a "virus", Eric Brun-Sanglard began to learn this alphabet but quickly realized several problems.

"It's a lot more complicated than I thought," he says.

"There are several stages: the first is to learn the letters, then you have to learn the combinations of letters and finally the words."

But, surprising as it may sound, as with sign language, braille is not universal.

"There is an American braille and a French braille."

Especially since even with a perfect mastery of Braille, certain problems arise in specific places such as hotels.

"There are Braille inscriptions next to the bedroom doors, but you never know where they are, so you have to touch the whole door to find it. It lacks a lot of standards."

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... struggling with new technologies 

But the rise of new technologies will radically change the situation.

Initially with "screen readers", the blind had more and more access to written information.

“For example, my iPhone reads everything to me and I use it like everyone else,” explains the architect.

And this is not the only technique to do without braille: "There are programs with which you can take a picture of an inscription or a text and your phone will read it to you, it works very well with the menu of a restaurant."

"There are really a lot of techniques today" to do without braille, even in reading books. 

Because with the development of audio books, Eric Brun-Sanglard asserts, he “no longer even has to buy books in Braille to be able to read them”.