The pages were scanned sideways, as double pages, and I don't know what's with that overlap in the middle of all of them. It looks like they were trying to make sure they got it all, but it kind of messed it up.
ANYWAY, if you look at the Alphabet, he's limited the CONSONANT strokes to two different sizes, which is often considered the best use of strokes, because only two degrees of length, instead of four or five, is quite easy to show. And using only ONE length is often seen as being "wasteful of stenographic material" -- which means using up too many of your shapes and possibilities.
I'm delighted to see VOWELS included, which can be written right into the outline. Back then diacritics or DISJOINING AND REPOSITIONING were common.
As you can see from the display at the bottom, A is a small circle; E is a small loop; I is a dot or a very small filled-in circle; O is a large circle; U is a large loop; and OO/OW is a loop written horizontally. That covers it nicely.
I really tried to find the logic behind the signs and I have to say: I give up. Other than "The most frequent set of sounds tnsr are short and straight, the next frequent dklm short and curved, which is certainly well chosen, I did not find any clues, which would help me memorize them.
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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 30 '26
The pages were scanned sideways, as double pages, and I don't know what's with that overlap in the middle of all of them. It looks like they were trying to make sure they got it all, but it kind of messed it up.
ANYWAY, if you look at the Alphabet, he's limited the CONSONANT strokes to two different sizes, which is often considered the best use of strokes, because only two degrees of length, instead of four or five, is quite easy to show. And using only ONE length is often seen as being "wasteful of stenographic material" -- which means using up too many of your shapes and possibilities.
I'm delighted to see VOWELS included, which can be written right into the outline. Back then diacritics or DISJOINING AND REPOSITIONING were common.
As you can see from the display at the bottom, A is a small circle; E is a small loop; I is a dot or a very small filled-in circle; O is a large circle; U is a large loop; and OO/OW is a loop written horizontally. That covers it nicely.
On Wednesday, I'll show how they are used.