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Isn’t it great to believe in magic?
Heidrun Seyring, Germany (October 1999) published in "Newscache," the Eclipse User Group newsletter |
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Have you ever thought about shorthand reporting in non-English speaking countries? -- Let’s chat a little about reporters in a part of Europe, German reporters, who stumble over a lot of obstacles, but relentlessly try to follow your successful steps.
In Germany, pen shorthand has a long tradition, and so it is no wonder that many of the pen stenographers have tried everything to “keep clean“ their market. I think it’s not necessary to describe how easy it was for the traditionalists to prevent the seed of machine shorthand from finding fertile soil. Because of the many difficulties and the pen stenographers’ oracle that the German language can never be pressed into a suitable computer shorthand system, nearly everyone who started learning machine shorthand soon gave up.
Thanks to the chief of the steno service in the parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, a little group could take root. There was a lot of developing work to do. When it was shown that it is possible to manage the high speed of 475 syllables per minute, a second little group bravely started to learn machine shorthand while the first one proved successful in using this technology for parliamentary reports.
Accordingly, the demand for a realtime reporter service was increasing very fast. Outside traditional shorthand writing in the German parliament, a lot of doors had been opened slightly. Unfortunately, it was soon shown that the first German shorthand theory was too difficult and was fixed too much on parliament. The rate of untranslates was very small in the field of parliamentary reporting; but as computer shorthand writing came to be used in other fields, the rate of translation mistakes was too great.
What could be done about it? How to handle a language in which there is a constant change between upper and lower case letters, a language which includes a large number of irregular grammar forms, a language which makes it possible to connect nearly every noun with one, two, three, four or more others in every conceivable order so that such long chain words as “Gemeindeverkehrsfinanzierungsgesetz“ can be created?
The first German shorthand theory made it necessary to define an endless number of entries. Although the reporters tried everything to adapt the old theory to the demands outside parliament and defined an unimaginable number of entries in the main dictionary, they were not able to remove the obstacles. More and more, the then used CAT software was breaking down under the enormous burden of entries in the dictionaries.
First the reporters found themselves in fierce confrontation “only“ with pen stenographers; but then, because of the many problems caused by the software, they felt as though in front of a big dragon with many heads and large claws. Whenever one of the heads was chopped off, another one came out. Surely the reporters would have given up the dream of realtime reporting if it hadn’t been for one man, Dan Glassman, who, as in a fairy tale, came to the rescue.
However, it’s not quite like an ordinary fairy tale, where all problems vanish as soon as the rescuer appears. Whoever has fought hard for something, but in the end had to realize his failure, will certainly understand how good it is to have someone around who honestly tries and even helps. It’s really amazing how much energy you can get from a person who fills you with new optimism and shares your visions, even though you are separated from each other by thousands of miles.
The teacher, who has worked for many years as a freelance reporter in parliament, found that the only real solution was an absolutely new beginning. There was no other way to achieve the high aim of sufficient realtime abilities outside parliament. You will probably agree: Realtime is much easier said than done.
Using the new theory means about 95 percent of the words are written in a different manner than before. The students were still learners, but they were already able to manage high speeds using the old theory. It's understandable that they fought against their teacher’s demand that they should start from scratch again.
For a teacher, nothing is more frustrating than seeing students lose their motivation. Certainly the teacher would have given up, too, if it hadn’t been for him again: Dan. He put in her hand a new weapon -- a new software. The magic sword called ‘EclipseNT’. This miraculous means has a lot of wonderful features. But the best thing about that weapon is that whenever there is a German-specific question, Dan and the folks from Advantage Software are ready to help.
Thanks to Dan, and thanks to Greg, Jeremy, David, Bob and all the others at ASI, the dragon has now been tamed. With the help of the Eclipse features, a new dictionary containing about a half million entries was created. These entries, the new theory, and the Eclipse features enabled German stenographers to write realtime in many fields at a mistake rate of less than 1 percent.
Fortunately, teacher and students are forging ahead now hand in hand, working together very hard to increase their speed abilities again, not without having success and fun.
And there is something else to be happy about: Pen stenographers and machine shorthand stenographers work more and more together without the previous problems and conflicts.
But I should stop rambling on like this. If you’re patient enough, though, I would like to tell you about a dream of mine.
You have to know that the English language has broken over Germany like a hurricane. There is hardly a German speech without English phrases in it. In some of the German computer articles, you can even be happy if you find as many German words as English ones. Some German business schools hold their lectures in English, and the biggest German companies prefer bilingual meetings.
Because of this trend, a German RT-reporter should be able to handle at least the 10,000 most frequently used English words. At the moment I’m working on an English shorthand theory, which on one hand is close enough to the German phonetic rules, and on the other hand, different enough from the German steno strokes so that unnecessary conflicts between English and German entries can be avoided. Creating an English dictionary will not be a big problem for us. But I think a German reporter will never be able to create English transcripts fast and well enough without the help of a native speaker.
Could it not be thinkable that the transcripts of such bilingual conferences are written by an American/German team so that high travel expenses will no longer be necessary? We Germans could write the German part, and one German on the spot could be responsible for the English part, which means he writes the names, calls from hecklers, and the main content in English. Simultaneously there will be a sound file made which will be sent together with those provisional notes to the American colleagues who are connected with the German team via modem.
Okay, okay. The time isn’t ripe for this, yet, and I know we must take into consideration a lot of facts. It’s only a long-term vision of mine. But why should only such big companies as Daimler and Chrysler merge? Why not try to build up step by step some sort of cooperation between American and German reporters?
Of course, we still have to remove a lot of obstacles blocking the more ordinary applications. On one hand, there are many people who so far have been rather conservative and decline everything that has to do with computers and smacks of change. On the other hand, there are the more progressive and open businesses which demand an awful lot: realtime nearly without mistakes and techniques which suit each of their wishes. With shaky hands and knees we cannot but jump into the ice-cold, deep water. There will not be a phase of toughening up, but maybe some magic again ...
Hey, isn’t it great to believe in magic? I’m quite sure that one day, not too far in the future, our German fairy tale will have a happy ending.
Remark: Two years after writing this article, the vision is reality.