Dutton Speedwords, transcribed in Speedwords as ," is the plural of = speedword, listed in the 1951 Dictionary as augment of = word. By Speedword Dutton meant a word in his constructed language." is an international auxiliary language as well as an abbreviated writing system using the English alphabet for all the languages of the world. It was devised by Reginald J. G. Dutton (1886–1970) who initially ran a shorthand college promoting Dutton Shorthand (a geometric script), then offered a mail order (correspondence) self-education course in Speedwords while still supporting the Dutton Shorthand. The business was continued by his daughter Elizabeth after his death.
Requirements for communication Any transcription, note taking or correspondence system must fulfill six requirements:Oliver, 2019, Micro-intellectual capital: A case study of Dutton Speedwords)
Rules for ensuring an agreed vocabulary, how additions are included, and, how technical terms are expressed Systematic method for representing the vocabulary including abbreviations or contractions or truncations, particularly where literal transcription is necessary A pronunciation system that makes the vocalisation meaningful A meaningful word order Rule for designating or rejecting parts of speech A method for learning the new system of communication
Ideally, these requirements should not be wholly biased toward English but consider European, Asian and Middle East languages.
The system of Speedwords created over 50 years by Dutton addresses all these requirements. Other systems have copied the solutions devised by Dutton without greatly improving his approach. One major advantage of Dutton's Speedwords is that it is readily available to everyone. Its current competitors either require pre-payment for materials before revealing the full details of their system or have a system that is a subset of the words necessary for a complete system.
Objectives of Speedwords Over time, three objectives were claimed by Dutton for Speedwords:
Initially, Dutton proposed Speedwords as an International Auxiliary Language (often abbreviated IAL) to encourage people to communicate internationally. Dutton wanted to provide a system that a sender could use which did not require them to learn the (foreign) language used by the recipient before establishing communication. Speedwords achieves this by relying on a deliberately small vocabulary. For international communication, the writer and reader are different, so, it is important that communication is unambiguous.
Then Dutton promoted Speedwords for high-speed writing. This used ideas and experience based on Dutton Shorthand. Dutton developed this stenographic method between 1919 and 1926. This approach also assumed that the writer and reader were different.
Up to this time, Speedwords avoided synonyms. Synonyms are variants of the same English word and treated them as equivalent. There are two possibilities: One Speedword for different parts of speech. For example, refers to sincere, sincerely, sincerity. The same Speedword covers several different English words (e.g., means class, kind, or sort. There are also derivatives of Speedwords (e.g., means life but there is also lively, vital, creature, welfare, spirit, death, fatal, kill, murder.
Later, realising that some writing required literal transcription, Dutton expanded the vocabulary to allow words which are synonyms that were required to precisely distinguish shades of meaning. Dutton offered two methods to distinguish these synonyms which were required for literal transcription. The first was to use an initial capital letter. The capital letter indicates the Speedword is being used to denote a specific word not the range of words covered by a Speedword. These were officially recognised by being listed in the Speedwords Dictionary. The second method was to underline the Speedword. Dutton does not detail how this would work so it is assumed that this was left to the discretion of the Speedwords user.
Finally, Dutton promoted Speedwords for individual (personal) note writing and note reading. This approach assumed that the writer and reader were mostly the same person. Dutton encouraged this group of users to adopt some personal conventions to adapt it to their personal needs (e.g., underlining). The widely available "Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords"Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords (original 1951 edition and revised 1971 edition, but paragraph 4 in both editions) was focused on the note-taking and note-making objective although Dutton still claimed it could also be used to fulfill the other objectives.
See below for how these objectives were used to construct Speedwords.
Usage
There are three possible uses: writing, speaking including dictation, and note taking.
Writing This was the original use intended by Dutton. Speedwords would allow peoples with different national languages to communicate using Speedwords as the medium. This would be accomplished because it had a compact vocabulary and rigid meanings to avoid ambiguity. All versions of Speedwords were customised for writing and minimising the number of letters that had to be written.
Speaking including dictation Criticisms in 1935-6 of the predecessor of Speedwords (called International 2 Letter Script which had many combinations of consonants) were focused on the difficulty in pronouncing strings of consonants. Speedwords overcame this deficiency.
Note taking "Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords" adapted Speedwords to note taking. It modified the standard Speedwords from written correspondence without any time pressure to allow taking notes at high speed.
Competitors to Speedwords There are three competitors to Speedwords. They are (1) shorthand as simplified letterforms, (2) shorthand as picture symbols, and (3) shorthand using non-stenographic systems (that is, alphabetic characters).
Simplified letterforms are also called stenographic shorthand systems. One type of letterform geometric is based on circles, parts of circles, and straight lines placed strictly horizontally, vertically or diagonally. The most popular example is Pitman shorthand released 1837, and many lesser-known systems such as Boyd's syllabic shorthand originally published 1903, as well as predecessor systems such as Duployan Shorthand. These use symbols which do not represent letters, but rather sounds so the words are written more or less as they are spoken. Contrasted with geometric are script shorthands that are oriented around the movement of the hand when writing. The original is Gabelsberger shorthand which began in Germany and spread through Europe. Script-geometric, or semi-script, shorthands are a hybrid of geometric systems and the script systems. The notable example is Gregg shorthand first published in 1888. Other examples include Superwrite, Easyscript, Keyscript, Speedwriting, Quickscript, Breviogrph, Stenoscript ABC, and Teeline.
Picture symbols were proposed by Austrian Charles K. Bliss (1897–1985) who created Blissymbolics in 1949 as a universal written language for speakers of any language to learn and communicate. It avoided the problems of constructed quasi-European language like Esperanto, or, natural languages such as English. Blissymbolics was conceived as a purely visual, speech-less language but provided a basic vocabulary that could be spoken.
Non-stenographic systems or alphabetic systems may also supplement the alphabetic characters by using punctuation marks as additional characters, give different meanings when letters are capitalised, or add non-alphabetic symbols. The most popular of these is Esperanto. Dutton contrasted Speedwords with its major rival Esperanto by claiming correctly that Speedwords had a smaller vocabulary and did not require the extensive study that was required to converse or write Esperanto. Another rapid writing system with a similar name, Speedwriting (also called Brief English Systems), was invented by Emma Dearborn at Simmons College, Columbia University and published in 1925. Her method used letters of the alphabet and some punctuation marks to represent the sounds of English which could be reproduced on the typewriter. Dearborn initially franchised teaching and then sold the rights which passed between various companies who made further changes and marketed it throughout the US and in various languages (e.g., Spanish). Other methods included Personal Shorthand also known as Briefscript, and Keyscript. Forkner Shorthand was promoted as an alternative to Pitman shorthand from 1955–1995 but is no longer taught.
The benchmark for pronunciation is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) produced by the International Phonetic Association. It is easily printable by hand or keyboard although its conventions are often not used to depict pronunciation in dictionaries and other reference materials.
The major reason that Dutton Speedwords continues to receive attention is its strict alphabetical constraint that allows it to be used on a keyboard, and the breadth of practical application which Dutton embodied in his system.
Design of Speedwords The design of Speedwords has four features:
Unlike other shorthand methods, (e.g., Pitman, Gregg) which use new symbols, strokes or geometric shapes, Speedwords method uses the 26 letters of the English alphabet (upper and lower case) plus the ampersand symbol ('&'). Unlike most other shorthand and rapid writing methods, Speedwords has its roots in a shorthand system that Dutton found cumbersome and which he believed he overcame by using alphabetic characters. Unlike other shorthand and rapid writing systems, Dutton emphasised the speed of learning. Like other shorthand systems, Dutton sought to maximise speed and minimise the amount of writing.
Principles of Speedwords In all publications, Dutton describes various principles of Speedwords but there is no consolidated list of principles. They can be summarised as:
Select its vocabulary from the entire Indo-European language family, particularly maximising the internationality of words, that is, selecting a word that is common between languages.Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords, 1951, page 90 Abbreviate those words guided by a 1925 analysis by Horn on the frequency of words. The most frequently used words were allocated the shortest abbreviation. So the most frequent words have just one letter.Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords, 1951, page 5 Structure the vocabulary around high frequency words. A 1,000 word vocabulary handles 85% of daily conversation while a 3,000 word vocabulary handles 98% of daily conversation so Speedwords only needs a simple rule for 2% of its vocabulary. Dutton seems to suggest that the solution is to write out the word in full. Make one Speedword have only one meaning which results in a basic vocabulary which Dutton calls 'keywords'.Speedwords Dictionary, 1945, page 7 Avoid grammatical differences, so a keyword can also refer to noun, verb, adjective, adverb.Speedwords Dictionary, 1945, page 5 Create other meanings by adding suffixes to show relationships or create antonyms.Speedwords Dictionary, 1945, page 3
While this approach is sound, it has both advantages and a few disadvantages discussed below.
Speedwords was meant to be written and spoken, so Dutton provided some guidelines on pronunciation which is included below.
Advantages In Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords, Dutton claims at least eight benefits from Speedwords:
Knowing just a few Speedwords (he means the one letter Speedwords) allows immediate savings in time and effort.Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords 1951, page 7 The words can be substituted for the English equivalents as the Speedwords vocabulary is learnt. This contrasts with geometric shorthand shapes that require the entire system to be mastered. It uses the English alphabet. This means it Speedwords can be written or typed.TYDS, page 8