Dilum Braille Dictionary [English - Sinhala]

Abstract

Visually impaired people are of one category of disability, which live among us without being able to see the world. They need help and assistance from others to face the life. We are responsible to help them to succeed in life. Communication is an important factor in the rehabilitation and education of the sight impaired. The sight impaired can speak but cannot read and write in the same way as the sighted. The problem of communication has been overcome to a certain extent with Braille. Braille, a tactile language in which people read with their fingers, uses a combination of six raised dots to represent the alphabet, numerals and other signs. All visually impaired students use Braille for written communication. This thesis presents the outcome of a research on English to Sinhala translator for Braille Language. The Braille word presented by the user in English in translated to Sinhala, converted back to Braille and presented to the user. This system will be extended to facilitate the Tamil Language. At present, there are many electronic types of equipment introduced to the visually impaired using Braille characters. Braille Keyboard, Braille Display, Braille Embossers, Braille Writers etc. However, unless in their educational activities, visually impaired Students rarely use this equipment in their day to day life. They do not have study opportunities in a normal school environment to use these. The main reason being that this equipment are of a high cost and are highly sensitive. Our main intention is to create more opportunities for the visually impaired community to do their day to day things independently.