View source for Tironian notes

{{Short description|Roman shorthand system}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2017}}
{{Infobox writing system
|type=shorthand
|creator=[[Marcus Tullius Tiro]]
|date= 60s BC
|time= {{nowrap|1st century BC – 16th century AD}}
|status=a few Tironian symbols are still in modern use
|languages=[[Latin]]
|sample=Laon 444 275v.png
|imagesize=
|unicode= Et: [[General Punctuation|U+204A]], [[Supplemental Punctuation|U+2E52]]; [[Medieval Unicode Font Initiative|MUFI]]
}}

'''Tironian notes''' ({{langx|la|notae Tironianae|links=no}}) are a form of thousands of signs that were formerly used in a system of [[shorthand]] ('''Tironian shorthand''') dating from the 1st century BCE and named after [[Marcus Tullius Tiro|Tiro]], a personal secretary to [[Marcus Tullius Cicero]], who is often credited as their inventor.<ref name="DiRenzo">{{cite journal |title=His Master's Voice: Tiro and the Rise of the Roman Secretarial Class |last=Di Renzo |first=Anthony |date=2000 |journal=Journal of Technical Writing & Communication |volume=30 |issue=2 |url= http://faculty.ithaca.edu/direnzo/docs/scholarship/mastersvoice.pdf |access-date=31 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160708114901/http://faculty.ithaca.edu/direnzo/docs/scholarship/mastersvoice.pdf |archive-date=8 July 2016}}</ref> Tiro's system consisted of about 4,000 signs,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Job |first=Barbara |editor-last=Schierholz |editor-first=Stefan J. |title=Kürzel |trans-title=Shorthand |url=https://www.degruyter.com/database/WSK/entry/wsk_id_wsk_artikel_artikel_21967/html |access-date=2023-01-22 |series=Wörterbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (WSK) Online |language=de}}</ref> extended to 5,000 signs by others. During the [[medieval period]], Tiro's notation system was taught in European monasteries and expanded to a total of about 13,000 signs.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Guénin |first1=Louis-Prosper |last2=Guénin |first2=Eugène |date=1908 |title=Histoire de la sténographie dans l'antiquité et au moyen-âge; les notes tironiennes |location=Paris |publisher=Hachette et cie |language=fr |oclc=301255530}}</ref> The use of Tironian notes lasted into the 17th&nbsp;century. A few Tironian signs are still used today.<ref name="Mitzschke 1882">{{cite book |last1=Mitzschke |first1=Paul Gottfried |last2=Lipsius |first2=Justus |translator-last=Heffley |translator-first=Norman P. |date=1882  |orig-date=1875 |title=Biography of the father of stenography, Marcus Tullius Tiro; together with the Latin letter, "De notis", concerning the origin of shorthand |oclc=11943552}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kopp |first1=Ulrich Friedrich |last2=Bischoff |first2=Bernhard |date=1965 |title=Lexicon Tironianum |location=Osnabrück |publisher=Zeller |language=de |oclc=2996309}}</ref>

==Note on sign counts==
[[Image:Tironisches et.png|right|frame|Tironian ''et'', [[Unicode|U+]]204A {{angbr|⁊}}; with stroke; and capital, [[Unicode|U+]]2E52 {{angbr|⹒}}.]]
Tironian notes can be themselves composites ([[Typographic ligature|ligature]]s) 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===
Before Tironian shorthand became popularized,  literature professor Anthony Di Renzo explains, "no true Latin shorthand existed." The only systematized form of abbreviation in Latin was used for legal notations ({{lang|la|notae juris}}). This system, however, was deliberately abstruse and accessible only to people with specialized knowledge. Otherwise, shorthand was improvised for note-taking or writing personal communications, and some of these notations would not have been understood outside of closed circles. Some abbreviations of Latin words and phrases were commonly recognized, such as those of [[praenomina]], and were typically used for [[inscriptions]] on monuments.<ref name="DiRenzo" />

Scholars infer that [[Marcus Tullius Cicero]] (106–43&nbsp;BC) recognized the need for a comprehensive, standard Latin notation system after learning about the Greek shorthand system. Cicero presumably delegated the task of creating such a system for Latin to his slave and personal secretary [[Marcus Tullius Tiro|Tiro]]. Tiro's position required him to quickly and accurately transcribe dictations from Cicero, such as speeches, professional and personal correspondence, and business transactions, sometimes while walking through the [[Forum (Roman)|forum]] or during fast-paced and contentious government and legal proceedings.<ref name="DiRenzo" /> Nicknamed "the father of stenography" by historians,<ref name="Mitzschke 1882" /> Tiro developed a highly refined and accurate method that used [[Latin letters]] and abstract symbols to represent [[preposition]]s, truncated words, [[Contraction (grammar)|contractions]], syllables, and [[inflection]]s. 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 [[Titus Pomponius Atticus|Atticus]], 'whole sentences.'"<ref name= "DiRenzo" /> Tiro's highly refined and accurate method became the first standardized and widely adopted system of Latin shorthand.<ref name= "DiRenzo" /> The system consisted of abbreviations and [[Symbol|abstract symbols]], which were either contrived by Tiro or borrowed from Greek shorthand.

[[File:Example of tironian Notes.svg|thumb|center|800px|Table with examples of Tironian notes which can be modified with various marks to form more complex ideas. A syllable being a consonant followed by a vowel.]]

===Controversy===
[[Dio Cassius]] attributes the invention of shorthand to [[Gaius Maecenas|Maecenas]], and states that he employed his freedman Aquila in teaching the system to numerous others.<ref>Dio Cassius. ''Roman History''. 55.7.6</ref> [[Isidore of Seville]], however, details another version of the early history of the system, ascribing the invention of the art to [[Ennius|Quintus Ennius]], who he says invented 1100 marks ({{langx|la|notae}}). Isidore states that Tiro brought the practice to Rome, but only used Tironian notes for prepositions.<ref name="Isidorus">Isidorus. ''[[Etymologiae]]'' or ''Originum'' I.21ff, Gothofred, editor</ref> According to [[Plutarch]] in "Life of Cato the Younger", Cicero's secretaries established the first examples of the art of Latin shorthand:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Plutarch |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Plutarch%27s_Lives_(Clough,_v.4,_1865).djvu/401 |title=Plutarch's Lives |date=1865 |publisher=Little, Brown, and Company |volume=IV |location=Boston |pages=393 |translator-last=Dryden |translator-first=John |translator-last2=Clough |translator-first2=Arthur Hugh |translator-link=John Dryden |translator-link2=Arthur Hugh Clough}}</ref>

{{blockquote|This only of all Cato’s speeches, it is said, was preserved; for Cicero, the consul, had disposed, in various parts of the senate-house, several of the most expert and rapid writers, whom he had taught to make figures comprising numerous words in a few short strokes; as up to that time they had not used those we call short-hand writers, who then, as it is said, established the first example of the art.}}

===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]].<ref name="DiRenzo" /> Historians typically date the invention of Tiro's system as 63&nbsp;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''.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Administrative Slavery in the Ancient Roman Republic: The Value of Marcus Tullius Tiro in Ciceronian Rhetoric |first=Zach |last=Bankston |journal=Rhetoric Review |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=203–218 |date=2012 |doi=10.1080/07350198.2012.683991 |s2cid=145385697}}</ref> 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&nbsp;BC, when Cicero held public office in [[Sicily (Roman province)|Sicily]] and needed his notes and correspondences to be written in code to protect sensitive information he gathered about corruption among other government officials there.<ref name="DiRenzo" />

There is evidence that Tiro taught his system to Cicero and his other scribes, and possibly to his friends and family, before it came into wide use. In "Life of Cato the Younger", [[Plutarch]] wrote that during Senate hearings in {{no wrap|65 BC}} 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.<ref name="DiRenzo" />

===Expansion===
Isidore tells of the development of additional Tironian notes by various hands, such as Vipsanius, Philargius, and Aquila (as above), until [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] systematized the various marks to be approximately 5000 in number.<ref name="Isidorus" />

===Use in the Middle Ages===
[[File:Tironian et Dunstan.jpg|thumb|upright 0.25|Tironian ''et'' in an Anglo-Saxon manuscript]]
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 fell out of favor as shorthand and was forgotten until interest was rekindled by [[Thomas Becket]], [[archbishop of Canterbury]], in the 12th century.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Shorthand |first=Allien R. |last=Russon |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Online |date=15 August 2023 |url= https://www.britannica.com/topic/shorthand |access-date=1 August 2016}}</ref> In the 15th century [[Johannes Trithemius]], abbot of the Benedictine abbey of [[Sponheim]] in Germany, discovered the ''notae Benenses'': a psalm and a Ciceronian lexicon written in Tironian shorthand.<ref>{{cite book |first=David A. |last=King |title=[[The Ciphers of the Monks: A Forgotten Number-notation of the Middle Ages]]}}</ref>

In [[Old English]] manuscripts, the Tironian {{lang|la|et}} served as both a phonetic and morphological place holder. For instance, a Tironian {{lang|la|et}} between two words would be phonetically pronounced ''ond'' and would mean 'and'. However, if the Tironian {{lang|la|et}} followed the letter ''s'', then it would be phonetically pronounced ''sond'' and mean 'water' (ancestral to [[Modern English]] ''[[Sound (geography)|sound]]'' in the geographical sense). 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&'' (although this occurs in an informal style practised on certain Internet forums and sometimes in texting and other forms of instant messaging). This practice was distinct from the occasional use of ''&c.'' for ''etc.'', where the ''&'' is interpreted as the Latin word {{lang|la|et}} ('and') and the ''c.'' is an abbreviation for Latin {{lang|la|cetera}} ('[the] rest').

==Current==
[[File:Pay and Display sign with Tironian et for Irish agus.jpg|thumb|A bilingual [[pay and display]] sign in Dublin with the Tironian {{lang|la|et}} for the Irish {{lang|ga|agus}} ('and').]]
Just one Tironian symbol remains in common use today, the Tironian {{lang|la|et}} ({{char|⁊}}, equivalent to {{char|[[&]]}}), used in Ireland and Scotland to mean ''and'' (where it is called {{lang|ga|agus}} in [[Irish language|Irish]] and {{lang|gd|agusan}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=Dwelly |first1=William |last2=Robertson |first2=Michael |last3=Bauer |first3=Edward |title=Am Faclair Beag – Scottish Gaelic Dictionary |url= http://www.faclair.com/?txtSearch=agusan |website=Faclair}}</ref> in [[Scottish Gaelic]]).

===Recent historic===
{{uncited section|date=March 2024}}
[[File:Fliegende Blätter Band 1 (München 1845) Nr. 21 S. 168.png|thumb|left|upright 1.5|[[R rotunda]] substituting for Tironian {{lang|la|et}} in the abbreviation {{lang|de-Latf|etc.}} in a German print from 1845]]
In [[blackletter]] texts (especially in German printing), it was still used in the abbreviation {{char|⁊c.}} meaning ''etc.'' (for {{lang|la|[[et cetera]]}}) throughout the 19th century.{{cn|date=March 2024}} However, as not all typesets included a [[sort (typesetting)|sort]] for the {{angbr|⁊}} character, the similar [[R rotunda]] {{angbr|ꝛ}} was substituted (which produced {{char|ꝛc.}}).

==Support on computers==
The use of Tironian notes on modern computing devices is not always straightforward. The Tironian {{lang|la|et}} {{angle bracket|⁊}} is available at {{unichar|204A|Tironian sign et}}, and displays (e.g. for documents written in Irish or Scottish Gaelic) on all common operating systems: on [[Microsoft Windows]], it can be shown in [[Segoe|Segoe UI Symbol]] (a [[font]] that comes bundled with Windows Vista onwards); on [[macOS]] and [[iOS]] devices in all default system fonts; and on Windows, macOS, [[ChromeOS]], and [[Linux]] in the [[Free software|free]] [[DejaVu fonts|DejaVu Sans]] font (which comes bundled with ChromeOS and various Linux distributions). On the Microsoft [[Windows 11]] Scottish Gaelic keyboard layout, the ⁊ can be entered by pressing {{kp|[[AltGr]]}}+{{kp|[[7]]}}.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/keyboards/kbdgae |title=Scottish Gaelic Keyboard
 |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=8 Dec 2022 |website=Microsoft Learn |publisher= |access-date=15 April 2023 |quote=}}</ref> On some Irish layouts, the shortcut is {{kp|[[Shift key|Shift]]}}+{{kp|[[AltGr]]}}+{{kp|[[7]]}}

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]] {{unichar|2510|box drawings light down and left}}, as it looks similar and displays widely. The numeral 7 is also used in informal contexts such as Internet forums and occasionally in print.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cox |first=Richard |title=Brìgh nam Facal |date=1991 |publisher=Roinn nan Cànan Ceilteach |isbn=978-0903204-21-7 |page=V}}</ref>

A number of other Tironian signs have been assigned to the [[Private Use Area]] of Unicode by the [[Medieval Unicode Font Initiative|Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI)]].<ref name="CYFI">{{Citation
| last1= Cleminson | first1= Ralf 
| last2= Baranov   | first2= Victor 
| last3= Rabus     | first3= Achim 
| last4= Birnbaum  | first4= David 
| last5= Mitlas    | first5= Heinz 
| year    = 2010
| journal = Scripta
| issue   = 8–9/2010
| title   = Proposal for a unified encoding of Early Cyrillic glyphs in the Unicode Private Use Area
| url     = http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/issuedetails.aspx?issueid=8a0f51c9-cc01-4cc2-b4a3-c24778fe6e3d&articleId=740d1c8a-24f3-48ee-afa9-2f91d81cec83
| pages   = 9–26
}}
</ref>

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Reg.lat.846 fol. 103v.jpg|"[[Epistola consolatoria ad pergentes in bellum|Letter of Consolation for Departing Warriors]]", 9th century
File:Tironian Notes Psalm 68.png|Psalm 68. Manuscript, 9th century
File:Tironian Notes Codex Casselanus.png|Tironian note glossary from the 8th century, codex Casselanus. "Notae Senecae", Seneca's notes.
File:Initialen.jpg|R rotunda substituting for Tironian {{lang|la|et}} in the abbreviation [[etc.]] at the end of the nobility title list. 1768
File:Post-Box-1020891, Adare, Co. Limerick, Ireland.jpg|Irish Green postbox at Adare, County Limerick, with the {{serif|P}}⁊Ꞇ (P&T) logo
</gallery>

==See also==
* [[Ampersand]]
* [[Gaelic type|Gaelic script]]
* [[Scribal abbreviation]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{wiktionary|⁊|viz.}}
* [https://archive.org/details/commentariinotar00schm Wilhelm Schmitz: Commentarii notarum tironianarum], 1893 (Latin)
*[[Émile Chatelain]]: [https://archive.org/details/introductionala00chatgoog/page/n7 Introduction à la lecture des notes tironiennes], 1900 (French)
* [http://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/Lexikothek/hs_b_16/hs_b_16.html? Karl Eberhard Henke: Über Tironische Noten] Manuscript B&nbsp;16 of the Bibliothek der [[Monumenta Germaniae Historica]], c.&nbsp;1960 (German) (See 33. within for examples of composite Tironian notes.)
* [http://www.martinellus.de/snt2/n/incipit.htm Martin Hellmann: Supertextus Notarum Tironianarum] Online dictionary of Tironian notes, based on Schmitz 1893 (German)

{{list of writing systems}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tironian Notes}}
[[Category:Shorthand systems]]
[[Category:Latin language in ancient Rome]]
[[Category:Typography]]
[[Category:Latin-script letters]]
[[Category:60s BC establishments]]
[[Category:1st-century introductions]]
[[Category:Writing systems introduced in the 1st millennium]]