Tironian notes
Tironian notes is a system of shorthand invented by Tiro, Marcus Tullius Cicero's slave and personal secretary and later a freedman. Tiro's system consisted of about 4,000 symbols that in classical times were extended to 5,000 signs. During the medieval period, Tiro's notation system was taught in European monasteries and was brought to about 13,000 signs. The usage of Tironian notes declined after 1100 but were still in some use in the 17th century. A handful are still common today.
Note on sign counts
Tironian notes can be themselves composites of simpler Tironian notes, the resulting compound being still shorter than the word it replaces. This accounts in part for the large number of attested Tironian notes, and for the wide variation in estimates of the total number of Tironian notes. Further, the "same" sign can have other variant forms, leading to the same issue.History
Development
Nicknamed "the father of stenography" by historians, Tiro was a slave and later a freedman who served as Marcus Tullius Cicero's personal secretary. Like others in his position, Tiro was required to quickly and accurately transcribe dictations from Cicero, such as speeches, professional and personal correspondence, and business transactions, sometimes while walking through the Forum or during fast-paced and contentious government and legal proceedings.The only systematized form of abbreviation in Latin at the time was used for legal notations, but it was deliberately abstruse and only accessible to people with specialized knowledge. Otherwise shorthand was improvised for note-taking or writing personal communications and these notations would not have been understood outside of closed circles. Some abbreviations of Latin words and phrases were commonly recognized, such as those inscribed on monuments, but according to literature professor Anthony Di Renzo: "Up to this point, no true Latin shorthand existed."
Scholars believe that after learning about the intricacies of the Greek shorthand system, Cicero recognized the need for a comprehensive, standard Latin notation system and delegated the task of creating one to his slave, Tiro, whose highly refined and accurate method became the first standardized and widely adopted system of Latin shorthand. Tironian notes, also known as Tironian shorthand, consisted of abbreviations with Latin letters, abstract symbols contrived by Tiro, and symbols borrowed from Greek shorthand. Tiro's notes represented prepositions, truncated words, contractions, syllables, and inflections. According to Di Renzo: "Tiro then combined these mixed signs like notes in a score to record not just phrases, but, as Cicero marvels in a letter to Atticus, 'whole sentences.'"
Controversy
attributes the invention of shorthand to Maecenas, and states that he employed his freedman Aquila in teaching the system to numerous others. Isidore of Seville, however, details another version of the early history of the system, ascribing the invention of the art to Quintus Ennius, who he says invented 1100 marks. Isidore states that Tiro brought the practice to Rome, but only used Tironian notes for prepositions. According to Plutarch in "Life of Cato the Younger", Cicero's secretaries established the first examples of the art of Latin shorthand:Introduction
There are no surviving copies of Tiro's original manual and code, so knowledge of it is based on biographical records and copies of Tironian tables from the medieval period. Historians typically date the invention of Tiro's system as 63 BC, when it was first used in official government business according to Plutarch in his biography of Cato the Younger in The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. Before Tiro's system was institutionalized, he used it himself as he was developing and fine-tuning it, which historians suspect may have been as early as 75 BC, when Cicero held public office in Sicily and needed his notes and correspondences to be written in code to protect sensitive information he had gathered about corruption among other government officials there.There is evidence that Tiro taught his system to Cicero and his other scribes, and possibly to his friends and family, before it was widely used. In "Life of Cato the Younger", Plutarch wrote that during Senate hearings in relating to the first Catilinarian conspiracy, Tiro and Cicero's other secretaries were in the audience meticulously and rapidly transcribing Cicero's oration. On many of the oldest Tironian tables, lines from this speech were frequently used as examples, leading scholars to theorize it was originally transcribed using Tironian shorthand. Scholars also believe that in preparation for speeches, Tiro drafted outlines in shorthand that Cicero used as notes while speaking.
Expansion
Isidore tells of the development of additional Tironian notes by various hands, such as Vipsanius, "Philargius", and Aquila, until Seneca systematized the various marks to be approximately 5000 in number.Use in the Middle Ages
Entering the Middle Ages, Tiro's shorthand was often used in combination with other abbreviations and the original symbols were expanded to 14,000 symbols during the Carolingian dynasty, but it quickly fell out of favor as shorthand became associated with witchcraft and magic and was forgotten until interest was rekindled by Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, in the 12th century. In the 15th century Johannes Trithemius, abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Sponheim, discovered the notae Benenses: a psalm and a Ciceronian lexicon written in Tironian shorthand.Current
A few Tironian symbols are still used today, particularly the Tironian et, used in Ireland and Scotland to mean 'and', and in the z of viz..In blackletter texts, it was used in the abbreviation = etc. still throughout the 19th century.
The Tironian et can look very similar to an r rotunda,, depending on the typeface.
In Old English manuscripts, the Tironian et served as both a phonetic and morphological place holder. For instance, a Tironian et between two words would be phonetically pronounced ond and would mean 'and'. However, if the Tironian et followed the letter s, then it would be phonetically pronounced sond and mean 'water'. This additional function of a phonetic as well as a conjunction placeholder has escaped formal Modern English; for example, one may not spell the word sand as s&. This practice was distinct from the occasional use of &c. for etc., where the & is interpreted as the Latin word et and the c. is an abbreviation for Latin cetera.
Support on computers
The use of Tironian notes on modern computing devices is not always straightforward. The Tironian et is available at Unicode point U+204A, and can be made to display on a relatively wide range of devices: on Microsoft Windows, it can be shown in Segoe UI Symbol ; on macOS and iOS devices in all default system fonts; and on Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, and Linux in the free DejaVu Sans font.Some applications and websites, such as the online edition of the Dictionary of the Irish Language, substitute the Tironian et with the box-drawing character U+2510 ┐, as it looks similar and displays widely. The numeral 7 is also used in informal contexts such as Internet forums and occasionally in print.
A number of other Tironian signs have been assigned to the Private Use Area of Unicode by the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative, who also provide links to free typefaces that support their specifications.