How Braille was invented | Moments of Vision 9 - Jessica Oreck

翻译人员: Melvin Yu 校对人员: Yangyezi Cao

In a Moment of Vision...

这里是“灵光一闪”系列。

Early 1800s.

十九世纪初期，

It's the middle of the Napoleonic Wars in the middle of Europe,

拿破仑战役期间，欧洲中部，

and it's the middle of the night.

一个半夜。

One Captain Charles Barbier of Napoleon's army

拿破仑军队里的一名上校， Charles Barbier

is trying to relay a message to one of his troops.

正在试图向他的一支军队 传达一则消息。

But sending written communications to the front lines

可是，用书面的明文与前线沟通

can be deadly for the recipient.

有可能对收信人来说是致命的：

Lighting a candle to read the missive can give away their positions to the enemy.

点亮蜡烛读信的时刻 可能会向敌方暴露他们的位置。

In a moment of vision,

灵光一闪，

Barbier pokes a series of holes into a sheet of a paper with his blade,

Barbier用刀尖在一张纸上 刺出一连串的小洞，

creating a coded message that can be deciphered by fingertip,

创造出了一种用指尖就能解码的 加密信息，

even in the pitch black.

即使在黑暗中也能轻松读取。

The merits of his so-called night writing are never acknowledged by the military,

他所创造的这种“夜间书写”的价值 从未被军方正式认可过，

but in 1821, Barbier approaches the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris

但在1821年，Barbier接洽了位于巴黎的 盲人青年皇家学院，

in the hopes that they might find a use

寄希望于他们能

for his innovative, new communication method.

为他这种新颖的通信方法 找到实际用途。

There, a precocious teen by the name of Louis Braille does just that.

Louis Braille，那里的一位早慧少年 投身于研究巴比尔的发明。

Louis spends the next several years improving on Barbier's idea,

Louis在这之后花了几年 来改进Barbier的设想,

creating an organized alphabet fitting into a six dot standardized cell.

发明了一种用 标准格内六个点就能表示的字母系统。

The system catches on.

这个盲文体系自此流传开来。

Today, Braille is the universally accepted system of writing for the blind,

今天，盲文（布莱叶盲人用点字法） 已经成为世界公认的盲人书写方式，

adapted for more than 130 languages.

可适用于130多种语言。