A Brief History of Court Reporting

Marcus Tullius Tiro, a former slave, became Cicero's secretary in 63 B.C. He is history's first recorded shorthand recorder. His first recording was of a speech by Cato. Tiro used a variety of abbreviations for often-used words. He omitted words that he could easily remember or know by their context. He also devised a pattern of shorthand where a single sign stood for an entire sentence. This primitive system was the stenography two thousand years ago. The ampersand (&) is the only sign of Tiro that is still in use today; it is used in several hundred languages.

A monk named John of Tilbury created the first system of abbreviated writing for English speaking people in the year 1180. In 1588, Dr. Timothie Bright invented the first practical system of shorthand for the English language. His system had no alphabet and was made up of more than 500 characters that had to be memorized.

It was not until 1772, that shorthand was officially recognized in England when Thomas Gurney was named shorthand writer for the government and his system was used widely in both Houses of Parliament.

The shorthand machine ended the Gregg system's popularity in the United States. In 1879, Miles Bartholomew, an official court reporter, received a patent for his typewriting machine that used a letter for each stroke. As the shorthand machine was refined, it became apparent that the conversion of shorthand to final transcript needed to speed up. In the 1950's, the military and IBM worked to develop a computerized system that could translate foreign languages into English. This project led IBM to create software to translate shorthand symbols into English. In the 1970's, CAT, computer aided transcription, was born. The drawing to the right shows the layout of the stenograph machine's keys.

This system was the premier system of shorthand for decades. Although his system was replaced by Gregg Shorthand in the United States, it is still the system of shorthand in England. John Robert Gregg invented shorthand that used symbols and cursive for words.