Charles Aloysius Ramsay

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Charles Aloysius Ramsay († after 1681) was a Scottish traveling scholar, translator and stenographer and the author of the first German-language shorthand book .

Life

Ramsay came from a Scottish noble family. His father was probably Carl Ramsay (1617–1669), an administrator and writer in Elbing , East Prussia . After studying chemistry, medicine and the Latin language, Charles Aloysius Ramsay lived as a traveling scholar on mainland Europe. In 1677 it was recorded in Frankfurt am Main and in 1680 in Paris . His further life is in the dark; since there were no new publications by him after 1681, he probably died soon afterwards.

plant

Ramsay published shorthand textbooks in German (1678), Latin (1681) and French (1681). In it, with minor changes, he used the shorthand system of tachygraphy established in 1626 by the Englishman Thomas Shelton , which Ramsay called Tacheographia. In Ramsay's German shorthand, two characters are different and two are omitted from Shelton; in his French shorthand eight characters are different and four are left out.

Ramsay's Tacheographia from 1678 is the first shorthand book to be printed in German. At best, this could have been preceded by the originally Latin shorthand instructions from a Dutch clergyman from 1666, which, according to Daniel Georg Morhof's testimony, was later also translated into German; but no copies of this have survived. Ramsay's German tacheography was published until 1792, but there are few traces of its actual use in Germany.

In France, Ramsay's tacheography was only reprinted until 1693, but there it replaced or superseded the little-used shorthand by Abbot Jacques Cossard (1651).

Ramsay also worked as a translator and translated two chemical treatises by the alchemist Johannes Kunckel from German into Latin (1678).

Catalog of works (without reprints and new editions)

  • Joh. Kunckelii Elect. Sax Cubiculatii intimi & Chymici Observationes Chymicæ. In quibus agitur De principiis Chymicis, Salibus acidis & alcalibus, SIXIS & volatilibus in tribus illis Regnis, Minerali, Vegetabili, & Animali, itemque de odore & colore etc . London - Rotterdam 1678.
  • Johannis Kunkelii, Elect. Sax. Cubicularii intimi & Chymici Utiles Observationes sive Animadversiones De Salibus sixis & volatilibus, Auro & argento potabili, Spiritu mundi, & similibus: Item de colore & odore metallorum, mineralium aliarumque rerum quæ à terra producuntur . London - Rotterdam 1678.
  • Tacheographia, or swift writing art, by means of which anyone can write the German language as swiftly as it may be spoken of: for the sake of all those who are hungry for art, carefully composed and displayed . Frankfurt am Main 1678.
  • Tacheographia ou l'art d'escrire aussi viste qu'on parle . Paris 1681.
  • Tacheographia. Seu Ars breviter et compendiose scribendi: methodo brevissima tradita, ac paucissimis regulis comprehensa, ita ut quilibet mediocriter in hac arte versatus, quaelibet inter perorandum verba assequi, et integram orationem nullo negotio describere possit; Theologis, Jurisconsultis, Sijndicis, scribis, nec non concionum auditoribus, perquam necessaria . Frankfurt - Leipzig - Jena 1681.

literature

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Karl Ramsay, Mayor of Elbing , cf. Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the correspondence houses 1913. Seventh year p.642
  2. ^ Franz Xaver Gabelsberger : Instructions for the German art of speech drawing or shorthand . Munich 1834, p. 79.
personal data
SURNAME Ramsay, Charles Aloysius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish stenographer, translator and traveling scholar
DATE OF BIRTH 16th century or 17th century
DATE OF DEATH after 1681