NooJ Morphological Grammars for Stenotype Writing

Especially in the USA where stenotyping is a legally defined profession. In order to pass the United States Registered Professional Reporter test, a trained court reporter or closed captioner must write speeds of approximately 180, 200, and 225 words per minute (wpm). Some stenographers can reach 300 wpm.

In 1980, Professor Marcello Melani, a scholar and teacher of shorthand and computer analysis, conceived the Melani-Stenotype method for the Italian language, directly compatible with electronic processing. The widespread use in the American courts and the forthcoming reform of the Criminal Procedure Code (…) pushed prof. Melani to design a “method in view of the application to the computer for automatic transcription… without the need for subsequent interventions in terms of additions, changes, corrections, except for any errors committed by the operator during registration”. In the preface to his manual of 1994, Melani states that “… developments in computer technology had enabled shorthand machine to take advantage of electronic processing for a stenotype automatic transcription, and can therefore realize the mirage of real-time writing, which has now become a reality, not theoretical but practical.” The Melani system was born “taking into account the compatibility with the stiffness and potential offered by computers, especially in terms of real-time support. In this respect, the computer input, which is also essential to provide a modern, efficient and automatic stenotyping, is relatively simple: there is no need for sophisticated algorithms or particularly large dictionaries of abbreviations; the computer simply recognizes some shortened codes, conceived from the beginning so as not to yield to ambiguities, and managing a dictionary of acronyms.” The main feature of Melani’s technical system is a not-abbreviated writing of the text, i.e. the real-time production of verbatim computer-assisted reports. The “Metodo Melani” had a great success, and in the ‘90s, its author adapted it to Spanish and Portuguese.

Some languages, as French, English and American English, use modified types of keyboards.

For example, “americanizzare” (to americanize) has the same meaning model of verbs in which the derivative suffix –izz adds the sense of “making something equal to”. Together with the sequence of morphemes americ + an, it acquires the meaning of “making someone or something American”. The same formation and structure is present in “finlandizzare” (to finlanidize), “latinizzare” (to latinize), or “talebanizzare” (to talibanize).