Stenohand 

First I want to thank Kevin Knox (codepoke) for the inspiration to make a shorthand that would correspond to machine steno.  He has made a very original shorthand called Pen Steno[1], and his method is much more simple than mine is here. That’s because his symbols are completely consistent on both sides of the machine, and are logically related to the keys and their positions.  Kevin has also been working on a project called Qwertigraph[2], which is an alternate way of doing steno by keying in Gregg shorthand through an NK-rollover keyboard.  Recently I’ve been reading through the Anniversary Gregg Functional Manuals, so when I considered what I would do if I were to make a shorthand from steno, both my Gregg reading and Kevin’s Gregg-steno project made me think to use Gregg as a basis.  What I wanted to do differently than Kevin has done is to create a shorthand that relates more directly to the phonetic values of the different keys and key combinations.  An extensive manual isn’t necessary because each person’s steno theory will provide all the briefs, phrasing, and dictionaries that are needed to use the shorthand for fun, study, and personal notetaking.  I’m already using Stenohand for making flash cards to memorize steno briefs, and I’m sure I’ll soon be keeping notes in it and writing samples for some of the shorthand social media forums I participate in.

I didn’t only use Gregg as inspiration for the symbols, but also Mosher shorthand.  Mosher was a teacher of Gregg for many years, but he felt he could add some improvements to Gregg to make it faster, so he introduced some new symbols that go outside of the cursive slant that Gregg adhers to.  Because I needed a good number of symbols to represent frequent key combinations and to make the writing more brief, adding in Mosher’s innovations seemed like a logical choice.  But despite the addition of new symbols, anyone who already knows some Gregg should be able to read most of the outlines written in Stenohand without much trouble.

I tried my best to make the symbols phonetically consistent between the left and the right hands, but it wasn't completely possible to do that, as the beginnings and the endings of words have their own phonetic requirements.  So although most symbols will be the same phonetically on the left and the right hand sides, there will be a number of symbols whose phonetic value will be different on each hand, so some extra attention will be needed to memorize those.

I looked over many steno theories and dictionaries so I could make my method as complete as possible.  However, some of what I've included here may conflict with your theory.  For that reason, it is important that you use what corresponds your theory, and disregard or modify anything else.  For instance, the Z is written very differently in most of the theories I've looked at.  Plover uses S*, Magnum theory (the one I’m about to learn) uses STKPWHR, and there are many other theories in between such as the Easy Theory, which uses SWR, and the NCRA A-Z Program which uses the STKPW as the Z.  Use whatever key combination your theory has for any particular phonetic value in the manual.  You can also reassign the phonetic values of the symbols to fit the requirements of your theory.

The symbols primarily represent the key combinations over and above the phonetic value.  For instance in Magnum theory, ‘and’ is SKP, and when I write that word in Stenohand, I use the S and KP symbols.  But the phonetic value of those symbols don’t reflect the pronunciation of the word ‘and’ at all, and that’s just fine. The symbols are meant to equate to the key combinations first, then the phonetic value next if that’s applicable.  Should you have any problem when reading back, write out the letters that correspond to the symbols, and that should help you identify the word.  But if you’re still confused, you can always consult your dictionary.

The words I’ve used in the examples to demonstrate the rules and principles, as well as the written samples at the end of the manual are all written using Plover theory.  There are two reasons for this.  First and foremost, Plover’s theory is freely available to everyone, so anyone can have easy access to the Plover learning methods and the dictionary.  Secondly, Plover’s theory is based on StenEd, and StenEd is a conventional theory method, which means that it reflects many other very similar theories that most students will be taught in the majority of steno schools.  People using unconventional theories may have some adjustments to make when using this system.

Although Stenohand is as well constructed as I can make it, it still needs quite a bit of testing.  So the current state of Stenohand represents a proposal more than a fully worked out system.  Changes may need to be made after using it extensively, so please be forgiving if you decide to try it out and find some problem issues that need ironing out.  Email me at sean@stenophile.com if you find any such problems, or if you have constructive suggestions for improvement.

[1] http://plover.stenoknight.com/2018/12/using-machine-stenography-in-pen.html?m=1

[2] https://github.com/codepoke-kk/qwertigraphy/blob/master/HowQwertigraph.md#words-about-gregg-theory