Forkner shorthand

Forkner shorthand
Type	script alphabetic shorthand
Creator	Hamden L. Forkner
Published	1955

Forkner Shorthand is an alphabetic shorthand created by Hamden L. Forkner 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 shallower 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, Stenoscript and Personal Shorthand.

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.

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 diphthongs (e.g., o for ow/ou), or as affixes (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.

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.

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