**Brachygraphy**
While Characterie is the first published system, soon others followed. Peter Bales' *Brachygraphy* is notable for us as it is, in essence, the same system fundamentally. I'll provide here an introduction that basically matches the original text, just with a small change to the presentation, and a couple of tiny modifications based on what I believe the intention was for some common words which are otherwise not covered.
# The Characters of Brachygraphy
The characters of Brachygraphy are the normal letters of the Latin alphabet. These letters may be augmented with various marks to denote different meanings. For any letter, there are twelve different positions a mark may be made, which are: to the left above the letter, to the right above the letter, to the left at the top of the letter, to the right at the top of the letter, to the left at the middle of the letter, to the right at the middle of the letter, to the left at the bottom of the letter, to the right at the bottom of the letter, to the left under the latter, to the right under the letter, above the letter, and below the letter.
In addition, there are five different kinds of marks, which are: a dot, a comma, a left apostrophie, a right apostrophie, and a lowercase *c*.
Such characters may also be augmented with letter written small and in superscript either before or after, or written with a short down-right facing line.
To avoid extra confusion, the letter *i* will be written without any dot.
!!!
**The letter *j*.**
The letter *j* did not exist at this time in the english language, so for example the word *judge* was spelled *iudge*, and *enjoy* was spelled *inioy*. I am sure if the letter *j* existed, then it would have been written without a dot.
**Historical Deviation.**
This last line does not occur, but without it the word *I* would need to be written as a homophone of *eye*, and the word *a* would need to be written as some sort of obscure combination, like as a synonym for *one* that starts with *a*. These both greatly enlarge what must be written, and at a cost of clarity.
I am going to the church.
You should instead write:
I be go to the church.
These can then be rendered into their brachygraphy equivalents.
This is true for number, tense, and comparisons as well, so you should write *man* instead of *men*, *be* instead of *was*, and *good* instead of *better*.
## Meaning of accompanied symbols
If the word you are writing is not derived from a word on the list, then you must use either similarity or dissimilarity to represent the word. First, try to identify a word from the table of brachygraphic symbols which has the same or similar meaning. If you only want to record the meaning of the statement, and not the exact words, then write just this symbol. You may optionally mark this symbol with a short down-right line after it if you wish to record that the word is not being written exactly, but instead is a synonym.
If you wish to record the exact word, write the symbol from the table of brachygraphic symbols for the similar word, but then mark the first letter of the original word after it. For instance, if you want to write the word *saint*, this can be represented by the relationship with the word *holy*, which is Brachygraphic, and can thus be written as:
If the word does not have a similar word on the table, then try to find a word of the opposite meaning, and write it instead, marking the first letter of the original word to the left of the dissimilar word. For instance, *devil* has opposite meaning to *holy* and thus can be written as:
## Homonyms
All words with the same sound are written the same way, so to write *hear*, you can write *here* instead.
## Numbers and Proper Nouns
All numbers are written by their standard numerals. Proper nouns are written by providing the first two letters of the name, and then committing the rest to memory for when it needs to be read back later.
## Repetition
To avoid writing repetitions, you may instead write *r(* before the first repeated word or phrase, and then close the parenthesis with *)* after the end of the repeated word or phrases.
## Reducing Phrases
When you encounter phrases that take up many words such as "he took his journey", write instead single words like "he went" as long as you are not trying to take verbatim dictation.
# Sample Text
Just to give one example, let me write here the "we few, we happy few" monologue.
# Table of Brachygraphic Symbols
## Brachygraphic Words
### A
     
     
     
     
### B
     
     
     
     
     
     
   
### C
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
### D
     
     
     
     
     
 
### E
     
     
    
### F
     
     
     
     
     
     
  
### G
     
     
     
    
### H
     
     
     
     
     
### I
     
     
 
### L
     
     
     
### M
     
     
     
     
     
### N
     
     
### O
     
     
     
    
### P
     
     
     
     
     
     
 
### R
     
     
     
     
     
### S
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
### T
     
     
     
     
     
### W
     
     
     
     
     
     
## Common Words
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
# Comparison to Characterie
I think many of the comparisons to Characterie are obvious. Let's start with the similarities:
1. **The vocabulary is nearly identical.** Most, if not all, of the modification are either to: 1. correct inconsistancies that were present in the original publication, 2. to extend the number of common words (particles for Timothy Bright), or 3. to redefine terms that became redundant after words were added to the list of common words.
2. **The rules are founded on the same principles of synonyms and antonyms.** Words drawn for the list of brachygraphic words (or characterical words in the case of Characterie) are used to represent core concepts with everything else represented in relation to them.
There are additionally a number of differences:
1. **The symbols are based on the Latin alphabet.** While Timothy Bright opted for bespoke characters that could be written quickly, Peter Bales instead went for annotated characters that are easier to learn.
2. **The rules are signifianctly simplified.** Many of the more elaborate rules of Characterie, such as the rules dealing with repetition or the rules for derived forms, have been reduced or completely removed.
3. **The common terms have been significantly expanded.** Characterie only had a handful of particles, whereas Brachygraphy explicitly expands on these to include all common words. Most notably, Characterie seems to have no natural way to express *who*, *what*, and *how*.
The resulting system of Brachygraphy is a delightfully simple method of shorthand which, while heavy on what needs to be memorized, is only a handful of rules. Cetainly, if you are looking to learn Characterie, you should spend a couple of days getting to know Brachygraphy as well, as they are, in many ways, two representations of the same underlying system.
!!!
**Historical Complexities.**
I allow myself a bit more latitude as an author in these side boxes than I do in the main text, and I am certainly going to indulge myself here. It seems the common narrative is the following:
1. Timothy Bright invents Characterie somewhere prior to 1586, and applies for exclusive publication rights on the idea to Queen Elizabeth.
2. In 1588, he is granted these rights for a 15 year duration, and he publishes *Characterie*.
3. In 1590, Peter Bales essentially duplicates the system as Brachygraphy, and publishes it. For reasons unknown, Timothy Bright does not, or can not take suit against it.
4. Timothy Bright moves on to other things, and never publishes a second edition of *Characterie*. Peter Bales goes on to publish two more editions of *Brachygraphy* in 1597 and 1600 (although the last edition was essentially a different system sharing the same name [TK]).
This narrative seems to me to not make any sense, and this has been noted by some historians [TK]. First, after Timothy Bright sought exclusive publication rights (not the norm at the time), why would he not seek to enforce it against such obvious infringement? Second, in the course of trying to reconstruct Characterie as best I could, I stumbled upon [TK] which makes the case that Peter Bales had a form of secret shorthand called the *Lineal Alphabet* where letters were surrounded by dots and dashes, "like a swarm of fireflies". This system was in use as early as 1575.
This allows for an alternative historical interpretation:
1. In 1575, Peter Bales creates his *Lineal Alphabet*, which is at the core similar to later systems, at least in so far as it uses a similar organizing principle. It is used as a secret writing system in the courts, and is thus unpublished [TK]. The primary purpose is *secret* writing.
2. Timothy Bright learns the system, at least the fundamentals, and see that it can be used as a basis for not only secret writing, but *fast* writing. He modifies the symbols used, adds extra rules for shortening and creates Characterie, seeks to obtain rights in 1586, and publishing in 1588 after obtaining the rights. Since the focus was on speed and not on the vocabulary many errors were introduced into the vocab.
3. Peter Bales, seeing his secret system used without his permission, quickly publishes his Brachygraphy in 1590, getting around Timothy Bright's exclusive rights by citing established prior art. This is sucessful, and Peter Bales goes on to publish additional editions, and teaches the system in courses. Timothy Bright stops working on shorthand systems.
I will say that this narrative is not completely supported by existing historical accounts either, as the *Lineal Alphabet* is believed to be distinct from *Brachygraphy*, despite none persisting to this day.
The best way to view this exercise is simply as me stating the opinion that, after carefully studying both the work of Timothy Bright, and Peter Bales that there is more complexity in their interaction than the nominal narrative admits, and that, as was already stated in [TK], Peter Bales likely deserves more credit than he is usually granted. It would take serious historical analysis to fully disentangle what passed, if it is possible at all.