Talk:Pitman shorthand

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[edit] Grammalogues

I'm only familiar with New Era shorthand and haven't come across the term grammalogue. However, the following sentence from the article is confusing.

"In shorthand, frequently or commonly occurring words are represented in a single outline which are termed as Grammalogues and the shorthand outlines that represent the grammalogues are called logograms."

It seems to be saying that the outline is termed Grammalogue and then that the shorthand outlines that represent grammalogues are called logograms. Can anyone clarify what the writer originally intended? It's not clear whether the outline is the grammalogue or the logogram. Adrian Robson 08:55, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I think what's meant is that the words that are abbreviated are grammalog(ue)s, whereas the outlines used to represent them are logogram(me)s. --Siva 19:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abugida

I would describe this script as an Abugida and not an Abjad. In an Abjad, the vowel symbols are optional, as in Hebrew or Arabic.   Andreas   ^(T) 20:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The fact that vowels are indicated by dots and dashes (rather than tails and flourishes) suggested to me that Pitman's Shorthand is an abjad like Arabic and Hebrew, both of which also use dots and dashes to indicate vowels. For your information, the vowel signs are optional; the position of the stroke with respect to the baseline usually carries sufficient information about the main vowel of a word or phrase, and hence you will find that advanced users of Pitman's Shorthand generally do away with the vowel signs unless they are absolutely necessary. (Beginners, on the other hand, are usually encouraged to keep them.) --Siva 23:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Something of a borderline case. But the shapes of the vowel diacritics is irrelevant here. Thai isn't an alphabet just because it can be written in a form that looks like Latin; Pitman isn't an abjad just because the vowels look Hebrew. And when the vowel diacritics drop out, they are preserved through modification of the consonant - another characteristic of an abugida. But the fact that only one vowel is specified, and that incompletely, does reduce the role of vowels considerably, so Pitman shifts toward the abjad side of things just as Arabic and Hebrew, which indicate some vowels, have shifted toward the abugida side. kwami 23:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

ineedofpitmanshorthandbook