RE: [EXTERNAL] Some braille references

Very interesting! In the Russian journals I’ve published in, Cyrillic letters weren’t used for math variables, only for text. There’s a bit of a quandary in figuring out how to express all of the Unicode math symbol set in Nemeth braille. But since OfficeMath handles the whole set, it needs to do the best it can. Maybe putting our minds together, we can extend Nemeth math braille further…

Thanks,
Murray

From: Deyan Ginev <deyan.ginev@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 3:36 PM
To: Murray Sargent <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com>
Cc: soiffer@alum.mit.edu; ljmaher03@outlook.com; www-math@w3.org
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Some braille references

[this reply is off-topic to the Braill thread, focus on the internationalization aspects]

re Murray's: "But since Russian math doesn’t use Russian letters"

... it doesn't, but it also does, so you may have made a very brave choice. Some examples.

Here's a recent Russian algebra book I've grabbed online
https://www.mccme.ru/shen/algebra.pdf<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mccme.ru%2Fshen%2Falgebra.pdf&data=04%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7C2c9d278517564b02881608d940ce6d28%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637612078262010535%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=DQaw6qPV4G1j0I0hBv0ttkfhojqJuQ%2BE%2FDnVN5WLt%2FQ%3D&reserved=0>

Even though it mostly uses English letters in math, cyrillic uses are also sprinkled in some equations:
 - digit variables (pages 7,8)
 - metric units written with their Russian spellings (м, см, км) (page 28).
 - underbrace annotations, e.g. annotating "5 раз" for 5 multiplications of a. (section 18 on page 29)
 - variable names for musical notes, "ре:ля = 2:3" (page 79)
 - simple equalities about "even" and "odd" numbers  (page 135)
   "чётное + нечётное = нечётное"
   "чётное × нечётное = чётное"

---
Also, here's a very enjoyable tutorial on magnetic induction in Russian where you see some annotations in cyrillic (links to specific times in the video).
Generally the tutorial uses latin letters as the base alphabet for the math expressions, Greek letters for angle variables (and maybe others), and Russian for annotations.

1. https://youtu.be/HZ7a9YkF204?t=2007<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FHZ7a9YkF204%3Ft%3D2007&data=04%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7C2c9d278517564b02881608d940ce6d28%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637612078262010535%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=GWfAcVgr6xi3jQ%2F6bVm6BGPOaV3d5CxD%2F7cbe371FI4%3D&reserved=0>

Annotation: "внеш" as a shorthand for "external". Likely to reside in an mtext in MathML, and one way to write the full variable in TeX would be:
\overrightarrow{B}_{\text{внеш}}

2. https://youtu.be/HZ7a9YkF204?t=4655<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FHZ7a9YkF204%3Ft%3D4655&data=04%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7C2c9d278517564b02881608d940ce6d28%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637612078262020494%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=mUm3iA9Qr1Ms6yxLgSSpHYP%2BkqzVVYv0o3myPEwYU0Q%3D&reserved=0>
Annotation: "кин" as a shorthand for "kinetic". Likely TeX here would similarly be:
E_{\text{кин}}

---

On the other hand, I have also seen that some/many Russian submissions to arXiv are extra diligent to only use English and Greek letters in math mode, I think staying mindful of the international readership.
But, in my experience, it is quite common to spot meaningful cyrillic letters in documents that we use for internal consumption, such as K14 education within our own borders.

Greetings,
Deyan


On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 5:47 PM Murray Sargent <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com<mailto:murrays@exchange.microsoft.com>> wrote:
Yes I chose ⠨⠈⠈⠙ for differential d (U+2146) which officially for Nemeth is a math-italic Russian letter. But since Russian math doesn’t use Russian letters, I repurposed the Russian alphabets for the math open-face (double-struck) alphabets. Please see this post<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.microsoft.com%2Fen-us%2Farchive%2Fblogs%2Fmurrays%2Fnemeth-braille-alphanumerics-and-unicode-math-alphanumerics&data=04%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7C2c9d278517564b02881608d940ce6d28%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637612078262020494%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=CegsnJVAtWC5XKhsCri%2FQ%2FgKGBzMKoZjyZH9M39WhzU%3D&reserved=0> for further discussion of Unicode math alphanumerics in Nemeth braille.

And yes, the Nemeth reader needs to learn some new sequences to handle Unicode math text. Even with my extensions, there’s a lot of Unicode math symbols I wasn’t able to create braille sequences for. So I just put in the Unicode code for those symbols. Interestingly, there are Nemeth math braille symbols that aren’t in Unicode as well. Probably should add them at some point.

Thanks,
Murray

From: Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu<mailto:soiffer@alum.mit.edu>>
Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 2:01 PM
To: Murray Sargent <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com<mailto:murrays@exchange.microsoft.com>>
Cc: ljmaher03@outlook.com<mailto:ljmaher03@outlook.com>; www-math@w3.org<mailto:www-math@w3.org>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Some braille references

Murray,

Your example means the Pearson statement is wrong and that at least in this case, Nemeth follows presentation.

I am a little dubious that the braille produced for the 'd'  ( ⠨⠈⠈⠙ ) is correct. I'm guessing your code produced something for U+2146, which is the &DifferentialD you use internally. I strongly suspect this is not what a Nemeth reader would expect or understand even though it may be a technically correct translation of what is there. Hopefully a Nemeth reader will chime in.

    Neil


On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 12:23 PM Murray Sargent <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com<mailto:murrays@exchange.microsoft.com>> wrote:
It’s nice when an integral ends with the ⅆ𝑥, since you know for sure where the integrand ends. But it’s not necessary for Nemeth braille. For example, the integral
[cid:image001.png@01D77284.CCD63980]

has the Nemeth braille
⠮⠰⠴⠘⠆⠨⠏⠐⠹⠨⠈⠈⠙⠨⠹⠌⠁⠬⠃⠀⠎⠊⠝⠀⠨⠹⠼
Here the integrand is presumed to be the fraction and no more, but that is admittedly a heuristic. I use that heuristic both for LaTeX and for Nemeth braille, since OfficeMath needs to know the integrand (as does MathType). In MathML, it’s important to enclose the integral and the integrand in <mrow>’s (although I apply the heuristic to poorly formed MathML as well).

Thanks,
Murray

From: Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu<mailto:soiffer@alum.mit.edu>>
Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 12:11 PM
To: Louis Maher <ljmaher03@outlook.com<mailto:ljmaher03@outlook.com>>
Cc: Murray Sargent <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com<mailto:murrays@exchange.microsoft.com>>; www-math@w3.org<mailto:www-math@w3.org>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Some braille references

I forgot to add in my last message that the reason I asked the question about integrals is because, if the Pearson statement is true, that would be a case of a non-presentation example of braille (because the 'dx's location would be different than in the presentation and hence require a little semantics knowledge).

     Neil


On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 11:55 AM Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu<mailto:soiffer@alum.mit.edu>> wrote:
In the pearson symbol site, it says this about integrals<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Faccessibility.pearson.com%2Fresources%2Fnemeth-curriculum%2Fnemeth-symbol-library%2Findex.php%23IndefiniteIntegral&data=04%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7C2c9d278517564b02881608d940ce6d28%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637612078262030451%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=u3ibIm3rvRes%2FGAC227pjueEFfk5lMVys2L2wJJRr%2BU%3D&reserved=0>:
The integral, or indefinite integral, starts with the integral sign (dots 2-3-4-6). Then it is followed by the function and ends with dx.

I'm dubious about this statement -- what happens when the 'dx' is in the numerator? I looked in the green book, and in the section about integrals, it only has examples where the 'dx' is at the end (also true for the APH tutorial). Does anyone who knows Nemeth well know the answer?

Another practical bit I liked from that talk was a short description of "common issues in Nemeth code transcriptions" from a practitioner writing such materials

Interesting to see that she highlights the parts that I called out in my original email (makes me feel like I know more than I do :-)

   Neil