Tironian notes are a form of thousands of signs that were formerly used in a system of shorthand dating from the 1st century BCE and named after Tiro, a personal secretary to Marcus Tullius Cicero, who is often credited as their inventor. Tiro's system consisted of about 4,000 signs, 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. The use of Tironian notes declined after 1100 but lasted into the 17th century. A few Tironian signs are still used today.
A bilingual pay and display sign in Dublin with the Tironian et for the Irish agus ('and').
"Letter of Consolation for Departing Warriors", 9th century
R rotunda substituting for Tironian et in the abbreviation etc. at the end of the nobility title list. 1768
Irish Green postbox at Adare, County Limerick, with the P⁊Ꞇ (P&T) logo
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 stenos (narrow) and graphein. It has also been called brachygraphy, from Greek brachys (short), and tachygraphy, from Greek tachys, depending on whether compression or speed of writing is the goal.
Dutch stenography using the "System Groote"
Sun Guoting's Treatise on Calligraphy, an example of cursive writing of Chinese characters
Tombstone of Heinrich Roller, inventor of a German shorthand system, with a sample of his shorthand
Yiddish shorthand