Louis Braille: Google Doodle Celebrates Inventor Of Writing And Reading System Braille For The Visually Impaired

Today, 4th January 2022, Google Doodle Celebrates the 213th birthday of Louis Braille, the man responsible for creating the embossed-point alphabet for the visually impaired.

4th January 2022, is World Braille Day and is observed in honour of Louis Braille. It is celebrated to raise awareness of the importance of Braille as a means of communication in the full realization of the human rights for blind and partially sighted people.

Louis Braille was a French educator and inventor of a reading and writing system for use by people who are visually impaired.

Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809, in Coupvray, France to his parents, Simon-René and Monique. He was raised alongside three elder siblings – Monique Catherine, Louis-Simon, and Marie Céline.

Louis Braille had been blinded at the age of three in one eye as a result of an accident with a stitching awl in his father’s harness making shop. Following an infection that spread to both eyes, he became completely blind in both eyes by the age of five.

Louis Braille studied in Coupvray until the age of ten. He was later permitted to attend one of the first schools for blind children in the world, the Royal Institute for Blind Youth (now known as the National Institute for Blind Youth) in Paris.

Louis Braille was able to invent a system of reading and writing that could bridge the gap in communication between the sighted and the blind. However, his contribution was recognized in France and by the rest of the world in 1952 one hundred years after his death.

Louis Braille’s system remains virtually unchanged to this day and is known worldwide simply as braille. His achievement has always been celebrated on World Braille Day which every 4th January since 2019.