Duployan shorthand
Encyclopedia
The Duployan shorthand, or Duployan stenography, , was created by Father Émile Duployé in 1860 for writing French
. Since then, it has been expanded and adapted for writing English
, German
, Spanish
, Romanian
, and Chinook Jargon
. The Duployan stenography is classified as a geometric, alphabet
ic, stenography and is written left-to-right in connected stenographic style. The Duployan shorthands, including Chinook writing, Pernin's Universal Phonography, Perrault's English Shorthand, the Sloan-Duployan Modern Shorthand, and Romanian stenography, have been submitted for inclusion as a single script in the next version of The Unicode Standard / ISO 10646
, and has been provisionally allocated to code points U+1BC00..U+1BC9F.
The line consonants come in five orientations: vertical, horizontal, left-to-right falling, left-to-right rising, and right-to-left falling; and in three lengths: short, long, and extended. Variations of some line consonants will have dots adjacent to the center of the line.
Arc consonants come in two arc lengths: half circle, and quarter circle. The half circle arcs have four orientations: left, right, top, and bottom half; and two lengths: regular and extended. Variations of the half circle arc consonants have dots inside and outside of the bowl, and dashes across the middle. The quarter arc consonants also have four orientations corresponding to the four quadrants of a circle, with both upwards and downwards strokes, and come in regular and extended lengths. The only variant quarter arc consonant is the addition of a dot (Duployan letter H) to the Duployan letter W to make the Duployan letter Wh.
Circle vowels are written by creating a loop that starts from the preceding character acting as a tangent, continuing around the circle until reaching the tangent point of the following character, at which point the following letterform is written, with the two adjacent characters crossing to complete the "circle". Variants of the circle vowels have dots in the middle of the circle, or a protuberance in from the circle. Circle vowels may also take standard diacritic marks when used to write some languages.
Orienting vowels are written by rotating the vowel to match the incoming angle of the preceding character, then mirrored along the axis of that character to avoid the following character crossing. They come in two varieties, defined by whether they will tend toward the right or left if the adjacent characters will allow either. Nasal vowels are considered a special case of an orienting vowel, and will act as orienting vowels, except in the Chinook script, where nasals can appear as diacritics.
and Switzerland
, with the Prévost-Delaunay and Aimé-Paris shorthands more common in northern France and the Paris area.
French Duployan makes use of an extensive list of letter words, combined consonants, and affix marks, but does not cross letters to make abbreviations. Like most European shorthands, French Duployan omits vowels that can be guessed by a fluent speaker.
, Lillooet, Thompson
, Okanagan, and English
, with the intended purpose of bringing literacy and church teaching to the first nations
in the Catholic Diocese of Kamloops. The result was three decades' publication of the Chinook Jargon language
Kamloops Wawa
.
The Chinook writing is notable by the absence of affixes and word signs, the phonological rigor - vowels were not omitted, even when predictable - and its use of W-vowels. Chinook writing is also notable in splitting a word into nominally syllabic units as well as using the only non-joining consonant characters in Duployan.
Unlike other Duployan shorthands, Sloan-Duployan uses a thick stroke to indicate the addition of an "R" sound to a letter. Although not found in the other Duployan shorthands, contrastive thick and thin strokes are common in other shorthands, such as Pitman shorthand
, where thick strokes indicate a voiced consonant, while thin strokes indicate the unvoiced version of the same consonant.
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. Since then, it has been expanded and adapted for writing English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, and Chinook Jargon
Chinook Jargon
Chinook Jargon originated as a pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest, and spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then British Columbia and as far as Alaska, sometimes taking on characteristics of a creole language...
. The Duployan stenography is classified as a geometric, alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
ic, stenography and is written left-to-right in connected stenographic style. The Duployan shorthands, including Chinook writing, Pernin's Universal Phonography, Perrault's English Shorthand, the Sloan-Duployan Modern Shorthand, and Romanian stenography, have been submitted for inclusion as a single script in the next version of The Unicode Standard / ISO 10646
Universal Character Set
The Universal Character Set , defined by the International Standard ISO/IEC 10646, Information technology — Universal multiple-octet coded character set , is a standard set of characters upon which many character encodings are based...
, and has been provisionally allocated to code points U+1BC00..U+1BC9F.
Typology and structure
Duployan is classified as a geometric stenography, in that the prototype for letterforms are based on lines and circles, instead of ellipses. It is alphabetic, with both consonant and vowel signs in equal prominence. Writing is in a Left-to-Right direction, proceeding down the page, as in standard European writing. Most Duployan letters will attach to adjacent letters, allowing a word (or words) to be written in a single stroke, without lifting the pen.Consonants
Consonant characters come in two basic styles: line consonants and arc consonants. All consonants have a shape, size, and stroke direction that do not change based on the surrounding characters. Both types of consonants are contrasted by orientation, length, and the presence of ancillary dots and dashes on or near the letter.The line consonants come in five orientations: vertical, horizontal, left-to-right falling, left-to-right rising, and right-to-left falling; and in three lengths: short, long, and extended. Variations of some line consonants will have dots adjacent to the center of the line.
Arc consonants come in two arc lengths: half circle, and quarter circle. The half circle arcs have four orientations: left, right, top, and bottom half; and two lengths: regular and extended. Variations of the half circle arc consonants have dots inside and outside of the bowl, and dashes across the middle. The quarter arc consonants also have four orientations corresponding to the four quadrants of a circle, with both upwards and downwards strokes, and come in regular and extended lengths. The only variant quarter arc consonant is the addition of a dot (Duployan letter H) to the Duployan letter W to make the Duployan letter Wh.
Vowels
Vowels characters also come in two basic styles: circle vowels, and orienting vowels. Vowels have only a general shape and size, but their orientation and exact appearance are usually dictated by the adjacent characters.Circle vowels are written by creating a loop that starts from the preceding character acting as a tangent, continuing around the circle until reaching the tangent point of the following character, at which point the following letterform is written, with the two adjacent characters crossing to complete the "circle". Variants of the circle vowels have dots in the middle of the circle, or a protuberance in from the circle. Circle vowels may also take standard diacritic marks when used to write some languages.
| Some circle vowels | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Orienting vowels are written by rotating the vowel to match the incoming angle of the preceding character, then mirrored along the axis of that character to avoid the following character crossing. They come in two varieties, defined by whether they will tend toward the right or left if the adjacent characters will allow either. Nasal vowels are considered a special case of an orienting vowel, and will act as orienting vowels, except in the Chinook script, where nasals can appear as diacritics.
Affixes and word signs
Many Duployan shorthands use small unattached marks, as well as various crossing and touching strokes, as markers for common prefixes and suffixes. Individual letters and letterlike symbols are also used in many Duployan shorthands to stand for common words and phrases. Overlapping two or more letters and signs can be used in some shorthands as word signs and abbreviations.Ligatures
Most Duployan scripts do not make use of true ligatures that are not just one of its constituent letters with a distinguishing mark. The Romanian stenography is fairly unique in having a number of vowel ligatures, especially with the Romanian U.Connecting letters
Most Duployan letters cursively connect to any adjacent letters. Circle vowels will sometimes reduce to as small as a semi-circle in order to accommodate the incoming and outgoing strokes of adjacent letters, and orienting vowels will rotate to meet the preceding letter at a straight angle, while mirroring to present themselves to the following letter.| + | + | = | |||||||||||
| P | + | A | + | T | = | pat | |||||||
| + | + | = | * Note that E would normally sit on the left side of P, except that it must sit on the right to join with the T. | ||||||||||
| P | + | E | + | T | = | pet | |||||||
| + | + | + | = | ||||||||||
| J | + | A | + | I | + | N | = | shine | |||||
| + | + | + | + | + | = | ||||||||
| P | + | E | + | Lh | + | T | + | E | + | N | = | pelten (Chinook) | |
Alphabetical order
Duployan does not have a widely agreed alphabetical order. A precursory order for the alphabet has been invented for the Unicode script proposal, however; and this order can basically be found in the order of the Unicode allocation (see below). This order places consonants before vowels, with similar type and size letters grouped roughly together by shape and size.Table of characters
This table lists the characters used in all of the Duployan shorthands. The Unicode code points listed are not official until the publication of a future version of the Unicode Standard and may change before that time. A basic alphabetization can be derived from the order of the letters. Letters with a name otherwise identical to a more universal letter will have a parenthetical denoting its shorthand of use, with (Rom) = Romanian stenography and (Sl) = Sloan-Duployan shorthandSpacing and line consonants
| spacing consonants | | short line consonants | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | |||||||||
| Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC00 | 1BC01 | 1BC02 | 1BC03 | 1BC04 | 1BC05 | 1BC06 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| H | X | P | T | F | K | L | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| long line consonants | | extended line consonants | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC07 | 1BC08 | 1BC09 | 1BC0A | 1BC0B | 1BC0C | 1BC0D | 1BC0E | 1BC0F | 1BC10 | |||||||||||||||||||
| B | D | V | G | R | PN | DS | FN | KM | RS | |||||||||||||||||||
| variant line consonants | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC11 | 1BC12 | 1BC13 | 1BC14 | 1BC15 | 1BC16 | 1BC17 | 1BC18 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Th | Dh (Sl) | Dh | Kk | J (Sl) | hL | Lh | Rh | |||||||||||||||||||||
Arc consonants
| half arc consonants | | half arc consonants (cross variants) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | |||
| Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC19 | 1BC1A | 1BC1B | 1BC1C | 1BC1D | 1BC1E | 1BC1F | 1BC20 | ||||||||||||||||||
| M | N | J | S | MN | NM | JM | SJ | ||||||||||||||||||
| half arc consonants (dotted variants) | | large variant half arc consonants | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC21 | 1BC22 | 1BC23 | 1BC24 | 1BC25 | 1BC26 | 1BC2F | 1BC30 | 1BC31 | |||||||||||||||||
| M + dot | N + dot | J + dot | J + dots | S + dot | S + dot below | JS + dot | JN | JNS | |||||||||||||||||
| large half arc consonants | | large half arc consonants (cross variants) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC27 | 1BC28 | 1BC29 | 1BC2A | 1BC2B | 1BC2C | 1BC2D | 1BC2E | ||||||||||||||||||
| MS | NS | JS | SS | MNS | NMS | JMS | SJS | ||||||||||||||||||
| downslope quarter arc consonants | | large downslope quarter arc consonants | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC32 | 1BC33 | 1BC34 | 1BC35 | 1BC36 | 1BC37 | 1BC38 | 1BC39 | 1BC3A | |||||||||||||||||
| ST | STR | SP | SPR | TS | TSR | W | Wh | WR | |||||||||||||||||
| upslope quarter arc consonants | | large upslope quarter arc consonants | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC3B | 1BC3C | 1BC3D | 1BC3E | 1BC3F | 1BC40 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| SN | SM | KRS | GRS | SK | SKR | ||||||||||||||||||||
Vowels
| circle vowels | | I / E | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | | | Code | | Letter | |||||||||
| Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | Name | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC41 | 1BC42 | 1BC43 | 1BC44 | 1BC45 | 1BC46 | 1BC47 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| A | Ow (Sl) | OA | O | AOU | I | E | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| non-orienting I/E variants | | I/E variants | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC48 | 1BC49 | 1BC4A | 1BC4B | 1BC4C | 1BC4D | 1BC4E | 1BC4F | 1BC50 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Ie | short I | Ui | EE | Eh (Sl) | I (Rom) | Ee (Sl) | Long I | Ye | ||||||||||||||||||||
| quarter circle vowels | | Other 'U' vowels | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC51 | 1BC52 | 1BC53 | 1BC54 | 1BC55 | 1BC56 | 1BC57 | 1BC58 | 1BC59 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| U | Eu | Xw / Uh | UN | Long U | U (Rom) | Uh | U (Sl) | Ooh | ||||||||||||||||||||
| dotted circle vowels | | compound W-vowels | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC5A | 1BC5B | 1BC5C | 1BC5D | 1BC5E | 1BC5F | 1BC60 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ow | Ou | Wa | Wo | Wi | Wei | Wow | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| basic nasal vowels | | variant nasal vowels | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC61 | 1BC62 | 1BC63 | 1BC64 | 1BC65 | 1BC66 | 1BC67 | 1BC68 | 1BC69 | 1BC6A | |||||||||||||||||||
| Un | On | In | An | An (Per) | Am (Per) | En (Sl) | An (Sl) | On (Sl) | uM | |||||||||||||||||||
Affixes, marks, punctuation, and others
| invariant attached affixes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Code | Affix | Code | Affix | Code | Affix | Code | Affix | Code | Affix | Code | Affix | |||||||||||||||||
| 1BC70 | 1BC71 | 1BC72 | 1BC73 | 1BC74 | 1BC75 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| orienting attached affixes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC76 | 1BC77 | 1BC78 | 1BC79 | 1BC7A | 1BC7B | 1BC7C | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| high affixes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC80 | 1BC81 | 1BC82 | 1BC83 | 1BC84 | 1BC85 | 1BC86 | 1BC87 | 1BC88 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| low affixes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1BC90 | 1BC91 | 1BC92 | 1BC93 | 1BC94 | 1BC95 | 1BC96 | 1BC97 | 1BC98 | 1BC99 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Other marks and symbols | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Code | | Symbol | | | Code | | Symbol | | | Code | | Symbol |
| Name | Name | Name | |||||
| 1BC9C | 1BC9E | 1BC9F | |||||
| Chinook Likalisti (eucharist) sign | Double Mark | Chinook punctuation mark |
| Invisible Unicode format characters | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Code | Name | Code | Name | Code | Name | Code | Name | Code | Name | ||||
| 1BC7F | Duployan Thick Letter Selector |
1BCA0 | Shorthand Format Letter Overlap |
1BCA1 | Shorthand Format Continuing Overlap |
1BCA2 | Shorthand Format Down Step |
1BCA3 | Shorthand Format Up Step |
French Duployan
The use of French Duployan shorthand has historically been heavier in areas of southern FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, with the Prévost-Delaunay and Aimé-Paris shorthands more common in northern France and the Paris area.
Chinook writing
The Chinook writing, or Wawa shorthand, was developed by Father J.M.R. LeJeune in the early 1890s for writing in Chinook JargonChinook Jargon
Chinook Jargon originated as a pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest, and spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then British Columbia and as far as Alaska, sometimes taking on characteristics of a creole language...
, Lillooet, Thompson
Thompson language
The Thompson language, properly known as Nlaka'pamuctsin or the Nlaka'pamux language, is an Interior Salishan language spoken in the Fraser Canyon, Thompson Canyon, Nicola Country of the Canadian province of British Columbia, and also in the North Cascades region of Whatcom and Chelan counties of...
, Okanagan, and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, with the intended purpose of bringing literacy and church teaching to the first nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
in the Catholic Diocese of Kamloops. The result was three decades' publication of the Chinook Jargon language
Chinook Jargon
Chinook Jargon originated as a pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest, and spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then British Columbia and as far as Alaska, sometimes taking on characteristics of a creole language...
Kamloops Wawa
Kamloops Wawa
The Kamloops Wawa was a publication of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kamloops in British Columbia, Canada, in the 1890s and 1900s. The contents of the Kamloops Wawa were near-entirely written using an adaptation of the French Duployan shorthand writing system...
.
The Chinook writing is notable by the absence of affixes and word signs, the phonological rigor - vowels were not omitted, even when predictable - and its use of W-vowels. Chinook writing is also notable in splitting a word into nominally syllabic units as well as using the only non-joining consonant characters in Duployan.
Romanian stenography
The Romanian stenography was developed by Margaretta Sfinţescu in the 1980s. Like French Duployan, Romanian stenography uses a large number of affix marks and word signs.English shorthands
Several people made adaptations of Duployan for writing English, including Helen Pernin, J. Matthew Sloan, Denis Perrault, Carl Brandt, and George Galloway. The Pernin, Perrault, and Sloan shorthands are distinguished from other Duployan shorthands by the presence of the quarter-arc compound consonants. They also make use of affix marks, and omit redundant vowels. Galloway and Brandt shorthands are not included in the Duployan Unicode proposal.Unlike other Duployan shorthands, Sloan-Duployan uses a thick stroke to indicate the addition of an "R" sound to a letter. Although not found in the other Duployan shorthands, contrastive thick and thin strokes are common in other shorthands, such as Pitman shorthand
Pitman Shorthand
Pitman shorthand is a system of shorthand for the English language developed by Englishman Sir Isaac Pitman , who first presented it in 1837. Like most systems of shorthand, it is a phonetic system; the symbols do not represent letters, but rather sounds, and words are, for the most part, written...
, where thick strokes indicate a voiced consonant, while thin strokes indicate the unvoiced version of the same consonant.