Language Diary – What is Stenography?

You may have heard the term, but you still do not know what it means. If you’ve ever wanted to take notes really fast, this skill will be of interest to you. Shorthand is a fast way of writing, in that the word is spelled at the same speed as it is pronounced. The word stenography comes from the Greek word stenos which means short, narrow and the word graphia which means writing, shorthand.

Shorthand has been around for a long time. The beginnings of the shorthand can be considered the symbols found among the monuments of the Egyptian civilization which mark the words of the pharaohs.

The rise of shorthand is attributed to the ancient Greeks and Romans. In ancient Greece, scribble was called a tachograph. The oldest evidence of this is a marble tablet with an inscription found in the Parthenon from the middle of the 4th century BC. Roman shorthand is also the best studied and according to the records dates from December 5, 63 BC. Then was born the shorthand letter called Tyrone’s note, named after Marco Tulier Tyrone. The letter was written by Mark, who wrote the speech of Cicero, one of the greatest Roman speakers, and called his notes notes.

In the Middle Ages, shorthand was almost forgotten, and then the need for abbreviated writing reappeared. John Willis published a book in 1602 and was the first to use the word shorthand. His shorthand consisted of circular and semicircular shapes, which are part of the geometric system.

The founder of the Greek shorthand system was the Bavarian Franz Xaver Gabelzberger who published his shorthand called The Art of Drawing.

John Robert Gregg was born in Shantonagh, Ireland. He was a publisher, inventor, educator and humanitarian. He was the man who invented this form of writing in 1888. It is a cursive writing, which uses elliptical figures and serves to quickly capture notes. This form of writing is based on the phonetic system instead of our actual written language. It is basically a simple and effective way to write a long English word. The English think that the Roman alphabet is quite complicated. Greg’s letter consists of simple forms. Consonants are composed of shallow curves or straight lines; vowels are loops or small hooks. The word “day” is written as “d” and “a”. The letters are less complex and simply merge, so there is less of them to write which will increase your speed!

This form was used in the past, but is now a forgotten or completely unknown skill for today’s generations. With mechanical dictation machines, then newer technology this skill has remained somewhere in the past. It can now be said that it is almost unthinkable to use this skill, as opposed to the various technologies that are available that allow data to be copied and transmitted.

Today, all lectures can take place at universities or schools, or at a presentation, then the lecture is available as recorded material, so there is no need to take notes and the like. If you still need to take any notes, it would be done on your smartphone or computer. It is interesting that this skill, ie these symbols look like some ancient Sanskrit.