Forkner Shorthand is an alphabetic
shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...
created by
Hamden L. Forkner
Hamden Landon Forkner, Sr. (March 10, 1897 – November 25, 1975) was an American educator and writer who created Future Business Leaders of America, an educational organization for high school and college students, and developed the Forkner short ...
and first published in 1955. Its popularity grew through the 1980s as those who needed shorthand every day (such as secretaries) began to favor the easier learning curve of alphabetic systems to the more difficult (but potentially faster) symbol-based ones. Forkner was taught in high-schools and colleges throughout North America along with comparable shorthands such as
AlphaHand,
Speedwriting
Speedwriting is the trademark under which three versions of a shorthand system were marketed during the 20th century. The original version was designed so that it could be written with a pen or typed on a typewriter. At the peak of its popularity ...
,
Stenoscript Stenoscript or ''Stenoscript ABC Shorthand'' is a shorthand system invented by Manuel C. Avancena (1923–1987) and first published in 1950. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', perhaps erroneously, claims it was based on a system published in London in 16 ...
and
Personal Shorthand
''Personal Shorthand'', originally known as ''Briefhand'' in the 1950s, is a completely alphabetic shorthand.
There are three basic categories of written shorthand. Best known are pure ''symbol'' (stenographic) shorthand systems (e.g., Gregg, ...
.
Writing
Forkner is written with a handful of special symbols mixed with simplified versions of
cursive longhand letters. A long horizontal stroke replaces ''m'' and a curved line stands for ''ing.'' The letters used are almost exclusively lower-case, written from left to right and joined in a standard cursive hand. Capital letters are used for special purposes; a detached ''T'' stands for the prefix ''trans-'' and the upper-case ''S'' represents ''s'' followed by ''t.''
Vowels
The way Forkner represents vowels may be unique among alphabetic systems. Instead of using only ordinary cursive forms, the vowels a/o/u and short i are reduced to dots and apostrophe-like strokes and ticks, mostly written after the body of word has been made. These vowel marks can be omitted if the writer feels they are unnecessary since many words are legible without their vowels.
Ordinary cursive vowels are reserved for long e, for
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s (e.g., ''o'' for ''ow/ou''), or as
affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...
es (e.g. ''u'' for ''under-''). The "long i" diphthong is written as a dotless cursive i, for example, ''fine'' becomes ''fın.''
While consonants are written phonetically, vowels generally reflect their original spelling. Forkner's symbol for ''a'' might express any of the sounds represented by ''a'' in English words such as ''cat, father, ago, day.''
The ''oo'' sounds in ''too'' and ''book'' are represented by the ''u'' symbol. The short ''e'' sound is simply omitted: ''less'' becomes ''ls.''
Abbreviations and phrasing
Forkner makes use of several standard shorthand features to gain additional speed: brief forms, common abbreviations, and phrasing. Brief forms are essentially shortened versions of frequent words or words potentially encountered in business letters. They are not always immediately transparent to the untrained reader, such as ''Db'' for ''distribute''. The more commonly known abbreviations, like those for the days of the week, are also used in Forkner.
The shorter brief forms (one or two letters) that follow each other in a sentence are joined together as though they were one word; this is known as phrasing. Those familiar with
Gregg or
Pitman Shorthand
Pitman shorthand is a system of shorthand for the English language developed by Englishman Sir Isaac Pitman (1813–1897), who first presented it in 1837. Like most systems of shorthand, it is a phonetic system; the symbols do not represent lette ...
will recognize this feature: operating on the philosophy that the time taken to repeatedly lift the pen between short words is wasted, the words in a group such as "will you be able" are compacted into one word. Though it may sound confusing, it is always clear to the transcriber what is meant, both through context and the words most commonly found in phrases, such as "all" (''l''), "of" (''v''), "the" (–), "please" (''p''), "be" (''b''), etc.
Punctuation
Punctuation is fairly similar to the ordinary