This strange script was invented to make note-taking easier, but to many it is unrecognizable.

This strange script was invented to make note-taking easier, but to many it is unrecognizable.

In the digital age, taking notes is easy with the help of technology. Meetings, conversations and ideas can  be recorded with apps that help you with documentation or simply with classic recordings. However,  before these useful inventions, things were not that easy. In the past, taking  notes in real time was  possible thanks to a notation called shorthand.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, shorthand was originally developed by the Greek historian Xenophon.However, it wasn’t until the Roman Empire that the writing system became widely used to quickly take notes while people were talking. The Latin shorthand system was used for over a thousand years before  almost disappearing in the Middle Ages.

After a long hiatus, shorthand regained popularity in the Victorian era. It was also used during the Reformation to provide quicker commentary on Bible translations. Over time, modern shorthand developed thanks to the demand for stenographers during the Industrial Revolution.Sir Isaac Pitman developed a modern version of shorthand in 1837 and his brother brought the system to the United States in 1852. While the Pitman style was widespread in Britain, it was eventually replaced in the United States by the style of John Robert Gregg. Originally called Light-Line Phonography (1888), it later became known as Gregg Shorthand.

The term longhand referred to the long strokes used to write words, while shorthand was intended to reduce letters  to their simplest forms; This made it easier to take notes and document things quicker. Because shorthand bears little or no resemblance to the word it represents,  it can easily be confused with an ancient text.Because of the various dots and loops that shorten our usual method of writing vowels and consonants, some people think it is more reminiscent of Arabic  than English.

Using Gregg’s shorthand, people could write down 280 words after mastering them. The practice is not entirely obsolete as it is still used for note taking in the legal, medical and secretarial sectors.

What do you think of shorthand? Have you used it yourself or do you know someone who has used it before?Be sure to let us know what you think and share it with others so they too can learn more about this peculiar script!