Chinese speak a monosyllabic tongue and write in ideographic characters. They average 180 to 200 words a minute in speaking and 35 to 45 characters a minute in writing. Fast speakers may reach a speed of 320 characters a minute, whereas the fastest writer cannot do much better than 50 characters. Until the close of the 19th century, the verbatim recording of speeches and conversation was impossible. No scrivener could keep up with the spoken language. Then, in 1896, Shen Hsueh of Kiangsu invented a form of speed writing. This was improved and expanded by Ch'ai Hsi-yung of Lunghsi, Fukien province, and became Chinese shorthand.
Ch'ai invited friends to his home one evening and said: "I can write down what you say as fast as you can say it." No one believed him. A demonstration followed and his guests were quickly convinced. They became the first students of Chinese shorthand. Ch'ai called his system tzuan ying k'uai tzu, or "speed words of sound." His symbols were phonetic. The marks themselves have been lost but the concept was picked up and developed by others.
Chinese shorthand has had many contributors. In 1898, Li Chieh-shan devised a speed writing system for the Fukienese dialect. In 1908, a Japanese, Kenichiro Kumazaki, published The Art of Chinese Shorthand. This approach was further developed by Li Liang-ch'ai, who published his Simple Method of Phonetic Notations in 1913. In the same year, Mandarin was made the official Chinese spoken language. Four years later, Chang Ts'ai (1867-1933), a scholar of Punyu, Kwangtung province, originated the han wen k'uai tzu, "speed words of Han language" (Mandarin). He promoted his shorthand in Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces and in Hongkong. Both Chang Ts'ai and Ch'ai Hsi-yung had been to the United States and had studied English shorthand. Although their systems were different, both came to be regarded as masters of Chinese shorthand. They were known as Ch'ai of the north and Chang of the south.
Ch'ai taught his shorthand in Peiping and monopolized stenographic positions in the Government Council of the Ch'ing dynasty during the rule of the Empress Dowager and later in National Assembly of the Republic. One of his brothers, Ch'ai Chang, improved the shorthand of Ch'ai Hsi-yung and developed his own in 1912, the first year of the Republic. For the next 10 years, members of the Ch'ai family held the position of chief stenographer of the Legislative Yuan. Ch'ai Chang is regarded as the first official stenographer of the Republic of China.
Chang Ts'ai's shorthand, at first popular in the south, was made known throughout the country by a student named Lin Chun-hua in 1924. Lin served as recorder for the First National Congress of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and recorded Dr. Sun Yat-sen's speech on San Min Chu I (the Three Principles of the People). In 1927, Lin opened shorthand classes in Shanghai. One of his students was Hsu Shih-shen of Kiangsu province, who established the Chinese Shorthand Academic Society in 1947. In May of the following year, Hsu received citations from the National Government for his contribution as stenographer of the National Congress and for his notes on an oral report on the history of the Hsing Chung Hui by Chen Shao-pai, one of Dr. Sun's best friends. These notes are now prized manuscripts in the archives of the Kuomintang.
Hsu came to Taiwan with the National Government in 1949 and started a Chung Hua shorthand class under the sponsorship of the Chinese Women's Anti-Aggression League. In 1954, he helped establish the Chinese Shorthand Study Association in Taipei. He opened a correspondence school in 1962 and is presently working at the Academia Historica (National Academy of History and Historical Archives) and teaching at the Political Warfare College and the National Normal University.
Chinese shorthand is base on the phonetic characteristics of Mandarin, which has 410 basic vocables. These become 1,305 sounds to provide the pronunciation for some 9,000 characters. The Chang Ts'ai school uses 400 symbols to represent the 410 basic vocables. The remaining 10 are represented by abbreviated symbols or abbreviated combinations of symbols. A symbol represents pronunciation without regard to tone. This means that a symbol may stand for as many as 100 characters and commonly for 10 to 20. The shorthand symbol for shu represents 58 characters. Context is the determiner of the meaning of nearly 7,000 characters in common use.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g)
Chinese shorthand is basically composed of four straight lines, eight curved lines and the closed loop, or small circle, on the left:
The 4 straight lines are taken from parts of the 4 characters: (pu) 不, (tao) 倒, (chi) 基 and (chih) 之 to represent the basic vocables possessed by the respective characters. The slanted stroke on the right of the character 不 is singled out to represent the vocable pu. The vertical stroke on the right of 倒 represents the vocable tao. The slanted stroke at the center of 之 represents the vocable chih. The middle cross bar of 基 represents the vocable chi. Adding the small loop on top and bottom of (e) gives (f) and (g) which become symbols for the vocables hsin and hao, respectively.
Each of these symbols denotes one vocable but various numbers of characters. They are written from left to right horizontally as in English shorthand. Whereas English shorthand spells out words in a simplified way, Chinese shorthand spells out sentences of monosyllabic characters. Each shorthand mark corresponds to one distinct vocalized character. Shorthand notations, vocables represented and meanings of characters represented are illustrated as follows:
Shorthand Vocable Meanings of characters
(a) pu no, cloth, feed, step, department, notebook, patch, etc.
(b) chi record, send, season, base, hungry, hurry, help,
calculate, although, collection, sickness, etc.
(c) chih to point, to knit, to cure, knowledge, straight, quality,
juice, to know, a branch, a twig, ignorance, to lag,
only, to hold, to plant, etc.
(d) tao to direct, upside down, island, knife, steal, arrive, the
way, to pray, to mourn, to step across, etc.
(e) jen person, patience, knife, love, in charge of, recognize,
to cook, pregnant, etc.
(f) hsin heart, letter, to believe, fragrance, happiness, led,
salary, etc.
(g) hao good, number, oyster, bad news, pompous, etc.
Many combinations have been standardized as abbreviations. When a character is repeated, a hyphen-like mark follows the first symbol in lieu of a second. However, if two different characters sharing the same vocable follow each other, the symbol is repeated in shorthand.
Common phrases, nouns and verbs may be written in brief form by deleting portions of the shorthand notation. For example, the symbol for the vocable ai is V. In brief form, the size is halved to v. Other brief forms are the "x" and two dots to represent repetitions. These are used when a word or one or more characters appears in all of several consecutive sentences or phrases. Only the first is written in shorthand. The rest are recorded by two dots or the "x." Understanding of the consecutive sentences or phrases depends on the context.
A competent Chinese stenographer is expected to know at least half of the 35 major dialects of the Chinese people. Mandarin was promulgated as China's national language in 1913 and the 37 phonetic symbols for standardized Mandarin pronunciation were adopted in 1918. Many older people of today speak only their own provincial dialects or have regional accents.
Context is the sole determiner of the correct meaning in transcribing shorthand into the characters. The transcriber must determine the appropriate character from as many as a hundred possibilities represented by the symbol. In English, this would be the problem of "to," "too" and "two" multiplied by 30 times or more.
Word order is ordinarily important in discerning meanings in the Chinese language, which has few morphological case changes. This dependence on order is also strong in Chinese shorthand. To avoid confusion in transcribing, the shorthand script is first read aloud.
A skilled stenographer reads shorthand as fast as he is able to read aloud, usually 180 to 200 characters per minute. Transcribing time averages 50 characters per minute. This means transcription time takes four to five times as long as the recording of the shorthand notes. In the practice of today the tape recorder is often used to supplement the shorthand record.
The first shorthand contest in Taiwan was held November 15, 1953. The text was read at 180 to 200 characters per minute. The first two winners were of the Chang Ts'ai system. Other participants represented the Wong Yi, Ping Hsun, Pong Yung, Ching Chen and Ya Wei systems. All six are taught in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. The most popular is the Chang Ts'ai system taught by Hsu Shih-shen, who has had 5,000 students.
Fifty stenographers are employed by the five Yuans (Councils) of the government and the National Assembly. With 20, the Legislative Yuan has the largest number. The Republic of China has one officially designated chief stenographer.