There are many reasons why there has not been an update on this site since the State of Access to Biblical Language Texts and Tools for People Who Are Blind in 2020. Some of the reasons are positive. Others are not.
Positive Things
Positive reasons for the lack of updates represent stability in accessibility. It is now theoretically possible for a person who is blind (and who is a braille reader) to study Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, or a transliterated ancient language. There are a few limitations which remain the same since 2020, and this is the reason for the lack of updates:
Screen readers have limitations regarding reading most of these languages out loud. (See below)
JAWS is the only screen reader that provides full capability for displaying these languages in braille, and that is with use of a third-party table that is downloadable via this site. (See below.)
Duxbury software supports these languages via the biblical language template. It is thus possible for someone with knowledge of the software to produce a transcription of a document into braille. I strongly recommend that it be proofread, as I have found that sometimes unsupported characters creep into ancient language documents. More on this in Transcribing Texts for Ancient Language Readers.
The braille codes for Syriac, Coptic and transliterated text have been supported in Duxbury software and thus have been available for use in braille transcription for several years. This has empowered blind students to study at the graduate level and to begin teaching careers.
Not Positive
In several areas access to texts and tools remains at a stand-still. In the following areas the situation remains exactly as described in 2020:
- Lack of fully accessible BHS
- Screen readers mishandle most ancient languages.
- Poor access to biblical study software
- Poor access to electronic texts
- Lack of access to manuscripts and other resources
BHS
No progress has been made in achieving access to the textual apparatus or the Masoretic notes of the BHS. The apparatus can be exported from Logos but it has not been produced in braille or tested to see whether such a production could be used reliably as a learning tool. The braille version of the NA28 that was produced in 2018 is difficult to use but does provide needed information. If a BHS could be produced which was helpful in similar ways, it would be an advancement in access.
Screen Readers and Ancient Languages
NVDA and IOS rely on the LibLouis braille translator, which appears to have a biblical Greek table. In fact, it appears to have both a European one and an American one; but there is no way to activate it. So at this point I have not discovered actual support for Greek within any screen reader that relies on LibLouis.
It is possible to bypass LibLouis in JAWS and thus one can still use my third-party table. Please note: this table is not supported by VFO and thus they will not tell you about it and will not help you with it. They will tell you that JAWS supports Greek and Hebrew. If you install JAWS and attempt to read Greek without the table, the accents will not be displayed correctly.
There is a stable voice for Israeli Hebrew that is supported by all screen readers. It handles pointed Hebrew, so if one arrows through the characters it wil speak the names of the diacritics aloud. I do not recommend this way of reading Hebrew. Besides being laborious, there aree many situations in which words in Hebrew can be misunderstood due to sound-alike letters. If a person endeavors to study Hebrew with only the use of synthetic speech, the instructor and student should both be prepared to attend to the impact of several sound-alike pairs.
Screen readers are made for modern Greek and certainly do not provide useful spoken handling of polytonic text. It may be easy to think of this as a good thing if one uses the modern pronunciation in teaching. I understand the reasons why scholars advocate use of modern Greek pronunciation in teaching, but in synthetic speech modern Greek is inadequate when polytonic Greek is used. It often ignores accented letters and vowels with breathing marks completely, resulting in complete mispronunciations or, worse, pronouncing only the consonants in a word. This can leave a student wondering whether “tau nu” is a masculine or feminine article and, if it is masculine, which case it is.
Screen readers do not recognize Latin as a language at all and instead attempt to pronounce it as English. “Sanctus Christus” is pronounced by my screen reader as if a girl from Texas saw two words on paper and read “Sainct us Chris tus”.
Transliterated letters with diacritics such as the left and right half-rings used to represent ‘alef and ‘ayin or the dotted h used to represent he are ignored by screen readers. These characters are used so often in commentaries and in grammatical discussions that it can disrupt reading.
Biblical Study Software and Electronic Publications
I have evaluated both Logos and Accordance within the last year. Both apps on IOS seem to be somewhat usable. Logos can be used for some reading and search tasks on the PC, though people with beginning skills in technology would likely find it difficult to use. It is not possible to access the reading area with a braille display, so one cannot take advantage of hyperlinking or cross referencing.
The Accordance interface is generally intuitive and accessible. However, it is impossible to access the reading area with a screen reader. This is brutally disappointing.
Many electronic library resources have proved to be accessible, especially those from ProQuest. The most notable difficulty with ProQuest is that some odd formatting problems occur in accessibility mode so that the letters “fi” appear as blanks to the screen reader throughout the text of the book. Hebrew text is also sometimes formatted incorrectly so that vowels are placed out of order. They may appear correctly visually but they have been typed incorrectly so they do not appear correctly on braille displays.
I have added links to three online concordance sites via the online resources page. This marks a significant improvement in access to biblical study resources, though it requires that a person be online whereas a sighted person can purchase the concordance in print and use it without relying on a Net connection.
There are some solutions to these accessibility problems that are easily implemented:
Kindle texts that support text to speech can be read on IOS devices or with the Kindle for PC app using speech or braille. Support for Hebrew and Grreek in these texts depends on whether a Unicode font has been used. It is not possible to determine this visually.
- Be sure that buttons are labeled in a meaningful way, e.g. “add to cart” rather than “submit,” or “search for word” rather than “search” if there are multiple search boxes on a screen.
- Include descriptions of images
- Test application controls prior to release to be sure that they are usable with both keyboard and mouse and that they are identified properly by screen readers.
- If publishing electronic text, use a Unicode font and follow W3C guidelines for accessibility
- If publishing via Kindle, follow guides for accessibility and do not turn off text to speech.
- It is not necessary to build text to speech into your program for users who are blind. We would really like for you to work with us to make your program work with our screen readers!
- Please don’t leave accessibility initiatives half done!
Access to Manuscripts and Geographic Resources
A few sites have manuscript transcriptions available. More of these would be exxtremely useful. Incidentally, we cannot use the manuscript comparison features in Logos or Accordance. It would be useful to be able to use these to retrieve transcriptions and/or descriptions.
Manuscript descriptions would be invaluable additions to online libraries. Since we rely on others to interpret the physical features of manuscripts, having ready access to this information would be very helpful in the research process.
Geographic information is extremely lacking for us. One set of braille maps of Old testament lands is available. This can be used as a supplement to atlases in electronic format that provide access to articles and charts. No maps of New Testament lands or early church world are available.
Likewise, descriptions of archaeological sites are extremely vague. Online catalogues of archaeology would greatly improve access by including detailed image descriptions.
Transcribing Text
The Duxbury translator consistently produces good translation of multilingual text in English, Hebrew, Greek, and modern languages together in one document when all languages are correctly identified in Word. This means that it is possible to produce commentary text in braille. There are some languages that are not formally recognized by Windows as languages. So when, for example, a transliterated language has been used, I mark it with a unique style and send it to Duxbury as a Semitic language.
Occasionally there are characters in multilingual documents that don’t behave as we expect them to. If you are not used to working with braille transcription software, don’t have time to think about it, or want someone to take extra care with your documents, contact me about transcribing.
Looking Ahead
There are a number of things I and other blind scholars would like to see happen in the near future:
I would like to see a consortium come together to fund the production of a braille BHS with apparatus and notes. This is a significant project that would take time to complete. A couple of people have suggested that the BHQ be used instead. If the BHQ were complete this would be a reasonable consideration. The BHQ is quite a way from completion and as far as I know most classrooms are still using the BHS. I think it won’t go out of style for a while.
Many people greatly need improved access to Bible study software. It isn’t enough to have access to Bible gateway or to English Bible software. It isn’t enough to refer us to a web app, especially when the web has glaring accessibility shortcomings. Access to biblical study software is long overdue.
We greatly need access to biblical manuscripts. There needs to be a deep discussion about what this means.
We need a volume of maps of New Testament and early church lands.
In 2020, I made a note concerning the need for transcribers. I still feel strongly about this. Looking forward, I anticipate documenting how I go about producing a transcription and the details of these braille code systems.