Gabelsberger, FRANZ XAVER

Gabelsberger, FRANZ XAVER, the inventor of the system of shorthand most extensively used in German-speaking countries, was born 9th February 1789 at Munich, and entered the Bavarian civil service, acting as ministerial secretary in the statistical office of the finance department from 1826 to the date of his death, 4th January 1849. The summoning of a parliament for Bavaria in 1819 led Gabelsberger to adapt the shorthand system which he had invented for his own private use to the purpose of reporting the proceedings of the parliament. Discarding straight lines and sharp angles, he endeavoured to construct a series of signs which should conform as closely as possible to the written signs of German, and for his models went back to the majuscule forms of the so-called Tironian signs employed in Latin. His system is now used for reporting parliamentary proceedings in most of the countries in which German is the official language; and it has also been adapted to the languages of several countries outside of Germany. Gabelsberger published an account of his system in Anleitung zur Deutschen Redzeichenkunst oder Stenographie (2d ed. 1850). See Gerber, Gabelsbergers Leben und Streben (1868).