Speed writing
Speedwriting is an abbreviation that uses shortened letters from conventional cursive (longhand) and achieves further shortening through a variety of abbreviation rules.
Emergence
| Character / letter | word |
|---|---|
| . | the |
| · | a |
| + | other |
| v | of, have, very |
| f | for, if |
| b | by, bye, buy |
| r | are, re- |
| u | you (r) |
| s | is |
| k | can |
| t | it |
| Line under
last letter |
-ing |
| Line over
last letter |
-ed |
| - | -ment |
| a | -ate |
| j | g as in age |
This abbreviation was invented around 1924 by the American Emma Dearborn, a professor at the University of Chicago . This font version can not only be written by hand, but also with a typewriter , since all characters are available on the keyboard . From 1941 onwards, the American Dr. Alexander L. Sheff extensively revised and distributed. In 1949 it was given its final form for the English language and was published under the title “Speedwriting ABC-shorthand”. Sheff's version, which can only be used as handwriting due to the changes in the characters, but is more powerful, is very different from Dearborn's script. There were also adjustments for other languages, e.g. B. for Spanish , Italian , Portuguese , Flemish and Afrikaans .
In 1965 an adaptation of the German language by Alfred Gross, the director of the Benedict language school in Dortmund, was published under the name "ABC-Kurzschrift Speedwriting". The abbreviation rules are based on the shorthand abbreviation principles. Speedwriting should be able to achieve 140 to 180 syllables per minute . The script has a fairly extensive set of rules both in the English-speaking mother system and in the adaptation for the German language, which means a high learning curve.
The alphabet of the Abbreviation Script Speedwriting uses the partially changed letter characters exclusively from the long script. There is no mixture of your own shorthand characters such as B. with the German memo .
Reductions in the German adaptation
There are a large number of foreshortenings. The strokes and strokes of the long-written letters are omitted, as are head loops for letters at the beginning of a word and foot loops for letters at the end of a word. The points above i and j as well as the slash of the t are omitted. The f is also used for v in some shorthand systems (e.g. stepography ). The consonant sequence chs is represented by x according to pronunciation. The letter m is given a special form. Basically, nouns and proper nouns also - as usual in all shorthand systems posted only small -. Abbreviated capital letters are only used as additional abbreviations. Letters that are unnecessary for readability such as B. simple vowels within the word and also the second vowel in a vowel sequence are omitted. The double sounds ei, ai, eu and äu are replaced by y. Instead of ch you just write h, instead of sch just c. The comma is used for st, stands on the baseline and is connected with the following letter. Nachlaut-st is set off and placed under the writing line, which however requires special rules for some punctuation marks. After b, ch, f, g, l, k and p, suffix-t may be omitted. The sound sequences tz, tzt, ts, zt and tze in the final are replaced by z.
Abbreviation
There are abbreviations for the most common words, prefixes and suffixes ; each word consists of only one or a few lower or upper case letters. The period is used for "the", "the" (with multiple underlining of the period), "the" and "that"; here - as in other places in the German adaptation - the influence of the American mother system is evident: a point for the only English gender word "the". The list of abbreviations has 177 abbreviations for words with a total of 230 meanings. In addition, there are special forms for greetings , points of the compass, groups of words, etc. The selection of abbreviations according to the frequency of the words is based more on American frequency statistics when adapting speedwriting to German. As in many shorthands, some abbreviations have multiple meanings; in speedwriting e.g. B. da = you = you, it = she, for = before, against = good, have (t) = has = today, I = im = in, can = come (e, en, t); the indexing takes place through the sentence context.
Punctuation marks
Since the point has already been assigned for various abbreviations, the end of the sentence is replaced by a slash to the right (new paragraph two slashes). Because the comma is used for st, the comma is indicated by a strikethrough (also applies to semicolons ) when used as a punctuation mark .
Textbook
The German speedwriting adaptation by Alfred Gross consists of five learning and exercise books ranging from 58 pages (book with dictation texts) to 169 pages (dictionary) per volume. The lessons were only allowed to be given by teachers who were authorized by the German Speedwriting Center. A distance education was offered. The distance learner had to undertake not to pass the teaching material on to third parties for teaching purposes.
literature
- Gross, Alfred: Why only a shorthand ?, Deutsche Speedwriting-Zentrale 1966
- Haeger, Fritz: Expert opinion on the German memo (Deno), in: Der Stenografielehrer. Scientific monthly to promote teaching in shorthand, typing and related fields 11/1966, pp. 269–273 (also contains explanations about speedwriting)
- Kaden, Walter: New history of shorthand. From the creation of writing to contemporary shorthand, Dresden 1999
- Karpenstein, Hans: What is “Speedwriting” ?, in: The shorthand teacher. Scientific monthly to promote teaching in shorthand, typing and related fields 12/1966, pp. 297-306
- Kojic, Branko: Stenography as a memo, in: Report of the 34th Intersteno Congress 1981 from July 18 to 24 in Mannheim, o. O. (1981), p. 104 (including about speed writing)
- Mentz, Arthur, among others: History of the shorthand, Wolfenbüttel 1981, 3rd edition
- Moser, Franz, among others: Living shorthand story. A guide through the theory of shorthand and shorthand history, Darmstadt 1990, 9th edition
- Sheff, AL, among others: Speedwriting / ABC shorthand 5th dictionary, Dortmund 1965
- Tartsch, Sabine: PitmanScript - a modern English abbreviation font 5. A comparison between PitmanScript and Speedwriting, in: Archives for shorthand, typing, office technology. Bayreuther Blätter 4/1984, pp. 9-12
- The Bobbs-Merill Company, Inc. (Ed.): Principles of Speedwriting. College Edition, Indianapolis 1977
Web link
English-language site on various shorthand systems, including speedwriting