Shorthand

Since the choice of icons for shorthand is mostly arbitrary, from the combinations of different icons formed countless shorthand systems, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. Systems are divided, on the one hand, into italic and geometric ; morphological and phonetic , on the other hand. In italic systems, signs are formed from elements of letters in ordinary letters. In geometric systems, the basis of signs are geometric elements (dot, straight line, circle and its parts) and all combinations of letters have the form of geometric shapes. In morphological systems, morphemes are fixed, in phonetic systems - sounds.

The art of shorthand already existed, according to some sources, among the ancient Egyptians , where the pharaonic speeches were recorded with a conditional sign; from the Egyptians this art passed to the Greeks and Romans , who had scribblers.

December 5, 63 BC e. in ancient Rome, the first known use of shorthand in history took place. According to the testimony of the ancient historian Plutarch , on that day at a meeting of the Roman Senate , where the fate of the conspirator Catilina was decided, Cato Jr. made an accusation. In the 1st century BC e. Roman grammarist Mark Tullius Tyrone invented a special method of shorthand, called the “ Tyrone badges ” (notae Tironianae) ^[2] ; these icons were formed from Roman capital letters by reducing and simplifying them; in conjunction with each other, the icons underwent certain changes and mergers, for some vowels symbolic designations were used; sometimes lettering was used to designate whole words; some letters were omitted, although without a specific system. Among the Romans, the scriptwriters (notarii) recorded public speeches and minutes of meetings with such icons. During the empire, this shorthand was studied in schools, and later the Christian church also used it.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, this art fell, although it continued to exist until the Carolingian era, then it completely disappears. The number of characters was very large: Seneca numbered them up to 5,000, at the time of the Carolingians there were up to 8,000. Manuscripts written in Tyrone badges have been preserved to this day.

In the Middle Ages , after the disappearance of Tyrone badges, only an attempt was made by the English monk Johann Tilbury to draw up a new Latin shorthand (in the XII century ). In the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the New Age, speeches were recorded in the ordinary alphabet, but with abbreviations, which were then supplemented.

At the end of the 16th century , the art of shorthand reappeared in England and was particularly developed at the end of the 18th century . From England, shorthand has spread, beginning in the 17th century , on the European continent. The greatest development of stenography has reached in the North American United States , England, France , Germany , Switzerland and Austria-Hungary .

As a means of recording speech, shorthand is used in almost all parliaments of the globe. Exemplary (at the end of the 19th century) was the stenographic bureau of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, which consisted of 12 stenographers, the same number of scribes, a journalist, and an editor-in-chief. During the meetings of the chamber, the stenographers worked in two, and each couple alternated in their classes every 10 minutes; at the end of the queue, the freed transcripts went to a special room where they dictated the transcript to the scribes (in the case of ambiguity of the text, both transcripts were compared); the finished manuscript was handed over for reading to the speakers, then read by the editor. Determination in shorthand records was made by competition. In England , where there are typesetters who are familiar with shorthand, the transcripts are not written in ordinary letters at all, but are sent directly to the printing house and are corrected and edited in printed proofreading.

The first shorthand society was established in 1726 in London , but did not last long, and only in 1840 a new shorthand society appeared there. There are several shorthand institutes aimed at promoting the development of the theory, practice and literature of shorthand; these are the Königliches Stenographisches Institut in Dresden , founded in 1839, the Duplois instituted in 1872, the Institut sténographique des Deux-Mondes in Paris, and the Pitman Institute in Bath established in 1851 with branches in London and New York . The first journal dedicated to shorthand appeared in England in 1842. The first international stenographic congress was held in 1887, the sixth - in 1897.

England

In England, the first attempt to establish shorthand made by Bright (1588) ended in failure; more successful were the attempts of his followers Willis (1602), Birobom (1726) and Taylor (1786); the system of the latter was transferred to many foreign languages; Isaac Pitman , who by his Phonography (1837) far surpassed other inventors, is also based on his system. The first supporter of the graphic trend in England was Bordley in 1787, but was not successful there. In terms of the prevalence of shorthand in everyday life, England is ahead of other countries. There are no official stenographers in parliament. At the beginning of the 20th century, in England there were 5 central and 95 local shorthand societies and 174 shorthand schools according to the Pitman system .

France

In France, the Kossard system (1651) was not widespread; Coulomb de Theveno (1778) was also not successful. Bertin's attempt (1792) to apply the Taylor system, which is still used in the treatment of Prevost (1826) and Delaunay (1866), became widespread. currently the most common Duploier system (1867); there are 35 societies in France that follow the Duploier system, 2 - the Prevost-Delaunay system, 4 - other shorthand systems.

United States of America

In the United States, Gregg's shorthand system, invented by John Robert Gregg in 1888, became widespread. Unlike the Pitman system, the Gregg system does not use the stroke thickness to distinguish between consonants. Vowels are always indicated with non-diacritical marks .

Italy

In Italy, back in 1678, Ramsay worked on an Italian shorthand system called Tacheographia; it was followed by an attempt by Molina (1797); Amanti was successful (1809) with his treatment of the Bertin system; the latter was also processed by Delpino (1819) and others; since 1863, the processing of the Gabelsberger system, owned by Noe, has been widely adopted, which is adopted by government agencies and 20 shorthand societies with 610 members.

Germany

In Germany in 1678 appeared "Total Station" Ramsey; at the end of the 18th century, Mozengeil (1796) and Gorstig (1797) were quite successful with their geometric shorthand systems; but only with the advent of the graphic system of Gabelsberger (1834) did German shorthand become solid. Gabelsberger borrowed his signs from parts of ordinary letters, but the connection of signs with each other is based in part on the principles of geometric systems. Stolze (1841) pointed out the convenience of using a connecting line, established more precise rules, and generally raised the meaning of shorthand. The number of shorthand systems in Germany is quite large (Arends, Faulman, Aug. Lehmann, Merkes, Roller , Felten). Shrey (1887) successfully combined in his system the advantages of the systems of Gabelsberger, Stolze, Faulman; Browns (1888) applied particularly rational economies to his system. The main difference between the individual groups of German shorthand systems is the way they designate vowels: in Gabelsberger, vowels either do not write out at all, or merge with consonants, or are indicated by raising or omitting, thickening or increasing consonants (symbolic designation); only occasionally are they written out. The followers of Gabelsberger sought to bring vowels under the well-known rules in order to simplify word formation. The Stolze system adheres exclusively to the symbolic designation of vowels; systems of relative symbolism adhere to Faulman, Merkes, Shrey, Lehman. Other systems adhere to writing vowels and partly merging them with consonants (Arends, Roller , Kunovsky). By the end of the XIX century. in Germany there was a desire to unite different shorthand schools: in 1897 the schools of Stolze, Schrei and Felten united their systems, and the Merkes and Lehman school joined this agreement; it is a group of systems with vowel symbolization. In 1898, the Arends, Roller and Kunovsky systems (1898) merged under the name of “national shorthand”; this is a group of vowel prescribing systems. Currently, both of these groups, as well as systems outside the groups, are striving to unite. In general, in Germany, shorthand has reached a high degree of development. Shorthand for the Gabelsberger system was introduced as an optional subject in secondary schools in Bavaria, Saxony, Saxe-Weimar, and others; in Baden and Württemberg, along with the Gabelsberger system, the Stolze systems and the joint Stolze-Schrei system are taught; only Prussia refuses to introduce the teaching of shorthand due to the existence of too many and unsteady systems, but in 1897-1898 and in Prussian military schools an optional teaching of shorthand was introduced according to the Stolze-Schrei system. In the German Reichstag, the Stolze system is used. In total, in 1898 in Germany there were about 2500 shorthand societies with 82,000 members (the Gabelsberger system - 1,137 societies, the Stolze-Schrei - 805).

Austria-Hungary

In Austria-Hungary, German shorthand was first proposed by Danzer (1800) on the geometric system, but it disappeared with the advent of the Gabelsberger system, which had by the beginning of the XX century. most common and was used in the Reichsrat and local landtags; her education was introduced in secondary schools; of the new systems, the Faulman, Lehman, and Shrey systems were common. The first shorthand system for the Magyar language was proposed by Gati (1820), but without success, as was the Borzos system (1833); The alteration of the stenography of Stolze-Fenivessi and Gabelsberger-Markovich (1863) was more successful: both of these systems were adopted in schools and in parliament. In Czech, shorthand appeared according to the Gabelsberger system thanks to the work of the Prague Shorthand Society (1863), which subsequently sought to replace this system with a new national system. For the Polish language , the Gabelsberger system was redone by Polinsky (1861) and Olevinsky (1864), for the Croatian - by Magdić (1864). In total, there were 181 shorthand societies in Austria-Hungary, including 130 Gabelsberger systems (in various languages) with 10,334 members.

Russia

In pre-revolutionary Russia, shorthand was used little, mainly processing italic German systems were used. The first original and applied shorthand system for the Russian language was the system of Mikhail Ivanin , published in 1858 in his book "On Shorthand, or the Art of Cursive Writing, and its Application to the Russian Language". In 1860, for the first time in Russia, shorthand (according to the Ivanin system) was used at St. Petersburg University to record a dispute about the origin of Russia between academician Mikhail Pogodin and professor Nikolai Kostomarov .

After the October Revolution of 1917, new stenographic systems appeared: M. I. Lapekin (1920), N. I. Fadeev (1922), N. N. Sokolov (1924), and others. In the 1920s, shorthand was taught according to different systems, which hindered the development of stenographic education. Based on the theoretical and practical comparison of the seven best systems made by the People's Commissariat of the RSFSR in 1933, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted a resolution on the introduction of the State Unified Shorthand System (GESS) into the RSFSR, which is based on the Sokolov system. In the future, this system was partially improved, and alternative shorthand systems were proposed, such as: the system of O.S. Akopyan, the system of O. Alexandrova (built on the phonetic principle irrational for the Russian language), the system of V. Gerasimov, etc.

On April 1, 2018, the posts “Secretary-stenographer”, “Stenographer” and “Head of the typewriting bureau” in Russia were excluded ^[3] from the Qualification Directory of the posts of managers, specialists and other employees by order of the Minister of Labor and Social Protection Maxim Topilin . ^[four]

In N. N. Sokolov’s system, the basis of the alphabet contains the simplest graphic elements. Unlike ordinary writing, the size of the character and its position on the line have a meaningful meaning. Due to this, the number of graphic elements is minimized.

Thus, the entire alphabet is graphically simplified.

Vowels are expressed by changing the position of consonants.

Special signs are used to express the most common combinations of consonants, such as: ST, CH, STR, PR and others - the so-called "merged signs".

Special signs are used to express the most common initial (RAS-, ZA-, PERE-, etc.) and final combinations (-ENIE, -STVO, etc.), roots (-ZDRAV-, -KERZH-, etc.). Railway - “railway” and other abbreviations.

There are general rules for reducing words (for example, reducing the beginning of a word, the beginning and end of a word, the end of a word), and there are already fixed specific abbreviations for the most frequent words (for example, RESULT = RES, TIME = BP, etc.).

Some frequently occurring words are abbreviated by special characters (PRODUCTION, INDUSTRY).

Common phrases are combined in the so-called. “Phraseograms” are written without interruption, possibly with a skip to the middle of the phrase.

There are also about a dozen ideograms .

Vowels "A" and "I" are usually skipped. Adjective endings are not written. Use superscript and subscript spelling of consonants to indicate vowels.

The tradition of shorthand is supported by enthusiasts and specialists for whom shorthand is important as an auxiliary skill in foreign countries; existing periodicals that arose during the heyday of the phenomenon are also supported ^[5] .

• Cursive (font)

• Shorthand // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• The shorthand library ^[1] .

1. ↑ Shorthand library (neopr.) . www.gzos.ru. Date of treatment February 5, 2019.