SHORTHAND is the art of writing legibly, by means of brief signs, at a rate sufficiently rapid to record speech. It has been variously known as stenography (close, little or narrow writing), tachygraphy (swift writing), brachygraphy (short writing). But the term "shorthand" is now almost universally applied to it. Shorthand is now employed widely in reporting the proceedings of parliament and legislative bodies, the trial of cases in courts of law and especially for taking dictated business correspondence, reports and other business communications.
The Shorthand of the Ancients.—The earliest record we have of an organized system of shorthand dates from the year 63 B.C., the age of eloquence in Rome. At that time a freedman and friend of Cicero, Marcus Tullius Tiro, invented a system of notae that was used in recording the speeches of Cicero, Seneca and others of the Roman senate. The system invented by Tiro was taught in the Roman schools, was learned by em perors, and remained in use for several centuries. We are informed by Plutarch, in his life of Cato the younger, that the speeches of Caesar and Cato in connection with the conspiracy of Catiline were taken down verbatim by notarii who had been placed by Cicero in various parts of the Senate.
An inscription on a marble slab from the Acropolis at Athens, attributed to the 4th century B.C., indicates that a system of brief writing was practiced among the Greeks. Tiro's system was based on the orthographical principle; it abounded in the use of initials, following in this respect the abbreviating formulae in common use with the Romans; and, principal distinc tion of all, it was marked by this peculiar excellence which renders it superior to every other system known till to-day namely, that by it, one and the same consonant letter, without the addition of points or any other signs whatsoever, expressed, by the inclination of such letter in three different directions, the exact vowel, a, e, or i, which followed. In the case of some of the consonants the whole five vowels, and even the diphthongs, were capable of like indication.
Example of Tironian Notae: Nemo fideliter diligit quern fastidit nam et calamitas querula Shorthand in the Middle Ages.—After the fall of the Roman empire, the use of the Tironian system survived for several centuries. In A.D. 625 Tironian notes were used in the royal diploma of the Merovingian King Clotaire II. In sub sequent years we find on public documents brief notations as to the composition of deeds, names of officials concerned, etc.
It is the opinion of some authorities that such notations were a protection against forgery. Examples of Greek shorthand are confined to a few fragmentary papyri and waxen tablets ranging from the 4th to the 8th century, chiefly among the Rainer col lection at Vienna to which Prof. Wessely has devoted much labour. A manuscript (Add. ms. 18231) in the British Museum contains marginal notes in shorthand of the date A.D. 972 (Wattenb., Script. Graec. specim., tab. 19). Dating from the loth century, we find the Paris ms. of Hermogenes, with some tachygraphic writing of that period which Bernard de Mont faucon deciphered with incredible labour (Pal. Gr., p. 351). But the largest amount of material is found in the Vatican ms. 1809, a volume in which as many as 47 pages are covered with tachygraphic writing of the 11th century. Cardinal Angelo Mai first published a specimen of it in his Scriptorum veterum nova collectio (1832); and in his Novae patrumbibliothecae tom. secundus (1844) he gave a second, which, in the form of a marginal note, contained a fragment of the book of Enoch.
Shorthand and the Early Christian Church.—With the rise of the Christian Church and a demand for the exact utter ances of the religious leaders of the day, the teaching and prac tice of the Tironian Notae received a new impetus. Many of the trials of the early Christians were reported by shorthand writers who were employed by the church for that purpose.