Almost every one of us has heard or met in the literature this mysterious word - “shorthand”. What it is and why it is needed, few know, and very few people have tried to master it. And this, it turns out, is an extremely useful thing for a person not only of the past, non-computerized century, but also of the modern one.
Shorthand - the ability to record information very quickly using special characters. In other words, this is a high-speed recording of human speech at the time of its utterance. Puzzling will naturally arise: why have such a skill? However, for students, and students, it would be useful in lectures, where the teacher does not really care about whether the student has time to write down everything necessary.
About the appearance of shorthand
Symbols of shorthand, which can be considered the first or one of the first, were found among the monuments of Egyptian civilization. The Egyptians invented their own cursive. With its help, the sacred pharaonic words were recorded. Shorthand (as a convenient way to write) paid attention to other ancient civilizations. So, the Greeks and Romans, very observant and striving for perfection, also actively used special signs for the fastest recording of valuable knowledge. It is the period of Ancient Rome and Greece that the flowering of shorthand is attributed. According to historical data, the ancient Roman shorthand was created by Tyrone, the assistant to the
great orator Cicero.
Ancient Roman shorthand, the signs of which totaled almost 5,000 units, was difficult to master. If modern shorthand is alphabetic, that is, each symbol means a certain letter, then the ancient system was word-based, that is, one word denoted a word. Therefore, studying it was extremely difficult.
The official birthday of the verbatim letter is considered December 5, 63 BC. e. - Tyrone’s work on his system of signs.
Interesting from the history of shorthand
Thanks to the shorthand method of writing, today we have the opportunity to read the works of William Shakespeare. The competitors of the famous and successful playwright theater then sent shorthand notes to his performances, so that they would write verbatim dramas directly during the performance. And, no matter how the author of the dramatic works protests, they were recorded, and it was thanks to this that they came to us. At that time, shorthand was still verbal.
But the letter shorthand appeared after the events in the Globe. John Wills created an alphabetical system in which each shorthand symbol was tied to an alphabet sign. From this moment began a new era in the development of shorthand, much simpler and easier to learn.
The famous scientist-zoologist Alfred Brem wrote with the help of shorthand information his book “Animal Life”. Studying animals in their natural environment, he did not have all the conditions for ordinary writing. In the field, on the road, for example, riding a horse, he used the language of shorthand to keep a diary. When enough information was collected, Brem sent a diary to his wife, and she, deciphering the notes, handed them over for printing. From this example we see that shorthand helped people to record more than once in the most extreme conditions.
Shorthand in Russia
At the time of cursive writing in Russia, a complete shorthand system did not yet exist. In the 15th century, people’s nights were recorded in cursive in Pskov and Novgorod. In the 17th century, shorthand was used during the first Romanov kings. Peter the Great also often resorted to the help of stenographers.
The great Russian writers recognized the superiority of speed writing over simple. Among them are F. B. Dostoevsky and L. N. Tolstoy. Full recognition was also on the part of Russian scientists N.E. Zhukovsky and D.I. Mendeleev. The works of these great men were composed of shorthand recorded lectures.
In tsarist Russia, only a few knew shorthand. Such specialists were mainly in large cities - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Minsk.
The Soviet period was marked by the fact that a small group of stenographers worked on recording the historical events of October, for which they subsequently received the approval of famous figures. In the future, this method of writing became more popular, since it became clear that with its help any written work becomes many times more effective. For science, it was an invaluable help.
Types of Shorthand
The stenographic systems that currently exist are subdivided according to several criteria: according to the peculiarities of the visual marking of characters and depending on which unit of speech one character of the system represents (word, morpheme, sound). According to one of them, the systems belong to italic or geometric, morphological or phonetic - on another basis.
Cursive and geometric systems
In geometric systems, shorthand signs are formed from geometric figures: a circle and semicircles, a point, and a straight line. Italic systems are signs formed from parts of the letters of the ordinary alphabet, tilted to the right and based on an oval. Italic signs are considered more aesthetic and convenient in style.
Signs in italic and geometric systems are relatively diverse in style: the lines are either thinner or less, the signs have different heights, sizes, slopes. Therefore, recordings made using such systems are more pleasant and easier to read.
Morphological and phonetic systems
Morphological systems are characteristic of Western countries, since in their languages the established word order, respectively, the meaning-distinguishing parts of sentences have an unchanged position. The sentences of the Russian language are dynamic, so the morphological system of shorthand in it has not gained popularity. Instead of an inappropriate language system, an alternative system called phonostenography was proposed.
Phonostenography (phonetic systems) is represented by the stenographic system of Terne-Alexandrova. It is a way to quickly record speech in different languages, using special characters for this. The signs of the system form a phrase - a sign denoting the whole sentence.
The alphabet of Patkanova-Alexandrova contains 40 characters, which make it possible to take into account the meaning of the sentence when writing, regardless of the language in which the speech is spoken. These two systems do not take into account conditional reductions. This feature helps to quickly master phrasing - one of the systems that includes shorthand. Signs of phonetic systems as a whole represent a more accessible skill to master.
Modern tendencies
Shorthand, the training of which is not as widespread as the usual language, as well as all the language systems of the world, seeks to simplify, so that it is easier for users to apply and master it. She seeks to combine all systems together on the basis of rational considerations. The purpose of the transformation and development of cursive writing is the unification of all systems in order to achieve conciseness, content and universality.
In the study of shorthand today, scientific methods and connections with other sciences are used, primarily with studies of the physiological characteristics of human speech. If earlier, in past centuries, the creators of shorthand systems acted at their discretion, now innovations are introduced taking into account the peculiarities of human use of language. An important factor is also the fact that when transferring the cursive system from one language to another, there is always a need for its changes. This greatly complicates the creation of a universal system.
About signs of shorthand
We already learned what shorthand is, what are different cursive systems. Dismantled and their main differences. But the signs of the shorthand of the Russian language have their own interesting features.
Visually, they consist of parts of the alphabet we are familiar with. They are easily and beautifully interconnected. Even with a quick letter to a stenographer, it’s important to remember that signs should not be distorted.
They denote vowels and consonants of the alphabet, but their spelling is very specific. Vowels between consonants are not written, but are placed only at the end, at the beginning of a word or separately. Consonants are also joined according to special rules, and depending on this, they may or may not be read.
Writing Shorthand Characters
In an unusual way, shorthand signs are written relative to the line. There are three levels of writing: in the line, above and below the line. Levels change depending on how the signs connect. The connections themselves are always short, because the most important thing in cursive writing is simplicity for the sake of recording speed. In addition, thanks to short connections, the recording is compact, and this is also important.
Now that there is enough information about such a landmark system as shorthand, what it is and how it has evolved over time - we present. There is also an idea of how it was used before. But now the era is completely different than when the shorthand was more common. Where is the shorthand system used today?
Shorthand Nowadays
The relevance of shorthand information is preserved in our time. Studies have shown that human speech is five times faster than the ability to record behind it manually, and a person can write only about 20 words per minute, despite the fact that he speaks about 100-120.
Acquiring quick writing skills today would be useful in the work of secretaries-referents, students, high school students, journalists who prefer to take notes manually - to all people who are faced with the need to write something quickly and accurately, for example, at lectures, seminars, press conferences and other public speaking. For students, transcribing information can have another extremely important use - writing cheat sheets. They turn out compact and incomprehensible to others, therefore, even if found, cheat sheets may simply not be recognized as such.
The benefits of knowing shorthand are not limited to the convenience of quick speech recording. Mastering the cursive skills greatly saves time and effort, improves the quality of work. In addition, it is proved that shorthand develops thinking, the ability to clearly and meaningfully articulate your thoughts.
How to learn shorthand
Today, there is nothing difficult in mastering the useful skills that shorthand provides. Learning her can take only a few weeks. If possible, you can enroll in special courses. Here professional transcripts will introduce you to the basics of shorthand and teach you what you can do.
No special training is required to attend the shorthand course. The only things that are required of you are presence, readiness to study and writing accessories (notebook, pen or pencil). With a shallow study of shorthand, you can learn to write 60-70 words per minute (instead of 20 words in the usual language), and if you study more seriously, then 100-120 words per minute. Great results will no longer be so relevant, because people hardly speak at a faster rate.
The shorthand record seems unusual to a beginner. At the beginning of training, it is always difficult to get used to the new principles of writing, but after a few hours, practitioners usually get used to it.
Cons of verbatim writing
With all the positive aspects, shorthand is not ideal. With very fast recordings, there is always a risk of writing signs so that it will be extremely difficult to disassemble them later.
A more serious drawback of cursive writing is that it practically does not adhere to spelling rules. The simplest example is the spelling “a” instead of “o” in the prefixes, because the connection with “a” is easier. For compilation of verbatim abstracts for your own use this does not present any inconvenience. However, you can get used to this principle of writing so much that you continue to adhere to it when you need to write in simple language. Indeed, no one canceled spelling in it.
New direction
For centuries, only classical, hand-used shorthand was available to people. What is it, we have already studied in detail. But now there is a new look. What is computer shorthand and why is it created if modern technologies have many other ways to quickly record speech?
First of all, this system concerns the field of information security. For a long time after the discovery of this area, it did not develop a single terminology. Different concepts were created, and as a result, its main difference from cryptography stood out: if the latter involves encrypting information, then hiding the very fact of its transmission is the task that shorthand solves. Programs of varying complexity are designed for these purposes. Simple and affordable in terms of use, and at the same time free, - Fox Secret 1.00. With it, you can hide information in popular text formats, graphic and sound. As a result, the user receives a container with hidden information. The file in which it was hiding naturally increases in size. Information is retrieved from the container with a password.
findings
Shorthand is a way to quickly record information that has been used for many centuries. It developed and transformed until our time, until a system was created that could satisfy the needs of many languages, as well as be compact and easy to learn. The development of shorthand, like any other language, did not stop there, since much more needs to be done to make it even more universal. This is what all the stenographers of our day are striving for.
We figured out the basic concepts that shorthand includes, what it is and why we would need it in life, we learned about the classifications of shorthand systems, the features of their signs and connections.
Now that we have an idea of this unusual writing system for us, we can weigh all the arguments in favor of getting to grips with it. We hope that our article was informative and useful for you.