Vowels and Principles 

Rules and Principles

• The order of symbols in an outline must follow steno order.

• When the base of the first consonant rests on the line, the vowel is short.

• When the first consonant is raised above the line, the vowel is long.

• When the first consonant is written through or under the line, then it is one of the five vowels in the third column above.

• Exception:  Small consonants like S are written on top of a following medium or large consonant, and it is the medium or large consonant that is written on, above, or through the line, such as the way ‘spawn’ is written above.

• Instead of repositioning the outlines, another method to mark the difference between the vowels is to write a dash over the vowels that go above the line, and to write a dash under the vowels that go through or below the line.

• You can use normal punctuation and numbers, or write them as outlines.

• Write a dot above or below the end of an outline to indicate an asterisk.  Be careful not to put your asterisk dots on the line so it’s not taken to be a period.

• When there is no vowel, right-hand only outlines start with a closed loop, and outlines with both left-hand and right-hand symbols are written with a closed loop in the middle.  Left-hand only outlines don’t need any special marker.

• In multistroke words, when an outline with right-hand symbols is followed by: 1) a word part beginning with a vowel, 2) another right hand symbol, or 3) an outline beginning with a left hand symbol and containing a vowel, they can be joined to the outline.  Be sure to add a closed loop symbol in the last two cases, and mark the added vowels with a line when necessary.

• Word parts made up of only a left-hand symbol and a vowel can be strung together.  The final syllable can end with right-hand symbols.

•  An outline that ends with a vowel can be joined to a following word part that also begins with a vowel.

• When multistroke outlines have parts that are written separately, write them close together, or put a dash between the outlines to make sure they are associated with each other, being careful not to write the dash above any vowels.

• Brief forms can be created for frequent detached prefixes and suffixes at the discretion of writer, and then superscriped and subscripted to the main outline. For instance, the prefix ‘down’ could be reduced to ‘D’.