Special Symbols Page: Category heading for Spanish Accented Letters, Category 2

[Melissa Klepper]

We need some guidance. We aspire to be as accurate as possible in the terms we use or add (as transcribers) to our braille transcriptions. (l know that this may seem extremely nitpicky and you may be smacking your head or rolling your eyes on this one, I apologize in advance.)

For context, we are transcribing a Spanish instructional textbook using Guidelines for Braille Transcription of Languages Other Than English, Approved May 2022: Category 2 method for Spanish, and UEB for the English portions of the text.

We've been down the rabbit hole, searching for the most appropriate language for category heading to use on Special Symbols page. I've listed some findings from the guidelines below. (describing the type of symbol/sign or whatever they are.)

Guidelines for Braille Transcription of Languages Other Than English:
Category 2 (page 4-5) … Use non-English <u>alphabet signs for accented letters</u> and UEB punctuation, including inverted punctuation marks (UEB §13.5).

The Rules of Unified English Braille:
13.4 Representing accented letters
13.4.1 There are two ways to represent <u>accented letters </u>in braille within a UEB context:
• by means of UEB signs for modifiers (see section 13.5), or
• by means of the <u>foreign code signs</u> used in braille production in the country where the language is spoken (see section 13.6).
Hybridization of these two methods is to be avoided since UEB symbols and <u>foreign code signs</u> are different and may conflict.

On the transcriber generated Special Symbols page, we have listed all of the required UEB Symbols (in accordance with Braille Formats Principles of Print-to-Braille Transcription, 2016, in braille order. We are using a category heading for the Spanish Accented letters.

Based on what we are reading in the guidelines, we deduct that they are 'technically' Spanish alphabet signs for accented letters.

Finally... Here is the questions:  When transcribing an instructional textbook using Category 2 (English speaking student, learning Spanish), what is the most appropriate terminology to use on the Special Symbols page for a category heading over the Spanish accented letters?

Here are some ideas/options we came up with:

Option 1: Spanish alphabet signs

Option 2: Spanish accented letters

Option 3: Non-English alphabet signs

Option 4: Spanish accents

Disclaimer: We are having a conflict in opinion as some of our team believes we should use a heading shown in an NBA workshop we attended in 2023: Foreign Language Braille: Step by Step Through a Foreign Language Textbook.

Example showed the Special Symbols Page heading as: Spanish Braille Symbols

The other "argument" (not in favor of the above heading) is that it does not contain the actual 'terminology' for the list of 'symbols' from the code books and may not provide enough context. 

Any help, clarification, or insight would be much appreciated. LOL, the life of a transcriber ... Perhaps Merriam Webster should add Braille Transcriber to the definition of Nitpicky

[Anna]

There is no single "correct" answer here, so it's up to transcriber discretion.  In the end, so long as the language is in the heading, whatever wording you use will probably be fine (otherwise you will have to define the individual symbols as "Spanish a with acute symbol" "Spanish e with acute symbol" etc.)

My thinking about this is colored by the fact that when we do the workshops and webinars we're trying to make recommendations that can apply to multiple languages.  For Spanish, the only braille symbols we will use are accented letters, so it would be accurate to label these symbols as "Spanish accented letters" or "Spanish alphabetic symbols".  In other languages, there are symbols that don't fit as easily into these categories (like a glottal stop, or the Ancient Greek breathing marks), so in some cases a broader heading is necessary.

When I have more than one language, I put a heading on each set of symbols. UEB symbols are "Unified English Braille symbols", so for consistency, it would make sense to call the other symbols according to the code they are taken from.  If we wanted to use the official name of the code, the problems are that 1) the name can be difficult to find, and 2) the name is probably in that non-English language, and then we have a question of how we are brailling it.  So that leads me to prefer a descriptive heading like "Spanish braille symbols".  "Spanish braille code symbols" would be about the same.  What I want to communicate with the heading is that these are symbols taken from Spanish braille - I'm not sure that "Spanish accented letters" says the same thing, because we could have a UEB representation of a Spanish accented letter within the same book (e.g. in an accented name within English context).

In terms of "terminology," I think you mean that we are not using that code's definition of the symbol?  I don't think there's any way of avoiding that - we are in a UEB context and need to define print symbols in a way that makes sense to a reader of UEB.  (I could write several paragraphs on what I think about defining non-English symbols but I won't unless you really want that.)  In many cases there is more than one reasonable way to define a non-English letter.

One final note: I think it can help to put a note on the Transcriber's Notes page about the transcription; this can help add context for the special symbols.  For example, the TN page could include "Spanish text is transcribed uncontracted, using Spanish braille symbols for alphabetic symbols and using UEB for punctuation, indicators, and other symbols. Spanish braille symbols are taken from World Braille Usage, Third Edition."  Adding this information about where the symbols come from could maybe take some pressure off the symbols heading?

Let me know if this wasn't helpful enough, or if this brings up more questions/issues.

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