The Moon alphabet

The moon alphabet (the Moon Code) was developed in 1845 by Dr. William Moon and is as a tactile alphabet the most well-known relief writing for the blind.

The font consists of simple geometric symbols whose six basic patterns are repeated in different directions. With this relief font, blind people can learn to read faster, because the symbols are partly similar or similar to the letters of the Latin alphabet.

print version of Moon Alphabet [text version ]

But fluent reading is not possible and for writing by hand, the Moon alphabet is hardly suitable. Because lines (that sighted show the connection) can be difficult to understand by the blind. Likewise, the detection of angular degrees, slopes or arcs is difficult.

The old books in Moon Writing font have a peculiarity: the lines can be read alternately from left to right and from right to left, so that not first the new beginning of the line must be searched. This pendulum pressure was abolished in 1990 in the course of the conversion to computer.

reading hand on a Moon book

Although the Moon Alphabet was invented 20 years later than the Braille alphabet, but since William Moon had a rich sponsor, the Moon alphabet spread quickly. In some cases it is still used as a standard writing for the blind in a few regions of the world (Latin America).

Embossed Moon-letters and the presentation of the Ddevelopment from the Latin letters - contemporary presentation

Embossed Moon-letters and the presentation of the Ddevelopment from the Latin letters - contemporary presentation

The characters of the Moon alphabet are partly similar to Latin letters.

Written with a stencil and reversed on a foil, alternatively there are rubberized signboards, which can be written in the right way. However, only a few affected people achieve useful results.
stencil for writing of Moon, single squares

stencil for writing of Moon, single squares

With the blind-typewriter Moon-Writer (invented only in 1986) is also written in principle by hand, since the letters are traced while pressing the write key only with the finger in the writing area.

How do you use the Moonwriter?

In modern times, too, Moon is used for rehabilitation (e.g., in the UK), but even the writing "Dotty Moon" remains a relief script because the fine dots are not captured individually but only the geometric shapes. The moon alphabet is mainly used by late-blind people for easy reading and multi-disabled children for learning initiation.

Hand touches Moon font from 5 times 5 dots

The Moon alphabet is mainly intended for reading, but only printed material is read. On the PC, Moon can not be read. There are a variety of books for children and adults and Moon printers for individual printouts (usable with acoustic PC systems, for example). For mathematics own numbers have been developed:
1234567890 in Maths-Moon

Here is a sample in moon writing:
Mustertext in Moon 'MOON SPIELT IN DEUTSCHLAND ALS ALTERNATIVE ZU BRAILLE NACH WIE VOR KEINE ROLLE.'

For the tactile operation of an iPhone, Apple even developed in 2008 a keyboard cover:

Exercises:

->>

here you can create and print your own moon texts
->>

encrypt or decode the dot versions of Moon

Further information:

More information about the Moon Alphabet can be found at www.wikipedia.de

look also

Development of the writings for the blind

TTF Font:

Here you will find different Moon fonts.

Neunauge FAKOOSY im Zickzack liegend, Beschriftung: Das Neunauge FAKOOSY vertritt fakoo.de, die Lernseite um Alphabets of disabled people (Beschreibung siehe fakoosy.txt)

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Alternatives to the well-known Moon alphabet (by Alexander Fakoó):

Quadoo

An alternative for handwritten notes would be the curveless writing for the blind Quadoo, in which only the four side lines and the two diagonals of a square are used.

For this writing, it is possible to use the 'Moon Writer' or to write on drawing sheets using a hole template with square holes.

Fakoo

A good alternative to the Moon alphabet is the Fakoo Alphabet, in which the characters are formed from only 9 dots. These characters can be written by hand or by Braille technique and visually better fit the Latin alphabet than Moon. The character recognition is done by Fakoo not by lines and arcs but directly as a dot pattern as in Braille.

However, it was not taken into account that reduction rules were also introduced in the Moon Alphabet, which partially change the value of the character by adding additional dots or arcs. Since Fakoo must remain readable for the sighted, a reduction is not possible. Therefore, for a shorthand only Braille remains as a real alternative!

Siekoo

Another alternative would be the 7-segment writing Siekoo, in which is used the known 7-segment display tactile.

The Siekoo alphabet has the advantage that it is easy to learn and read quickly because of the known structure. For writing you could use a corresponding hole template.

Moon-9

For the use of the Moon writing with braille technique, the dot-writing Moon-9 was developed by Alexander Fakoó. Each Moon character is represented by two Braille characters and is 3 times 3 dots tall.

print versions of Moon-9 Alphabet and the text version

The text READ IN MOON on a braille display in Moon

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