Melin Shorthand


The Melin system of shorthand is the dominant shorthand system used in Sweden. It was created by Olof Melin, an officer in the Swedish Army. He was a teacher of the Gabelsberger shorthand system in the Swedish army, but he was dissatisfied with it so he created an alternate system, that today is known as the Melin System.

Basic forms

The basic forms of the Melin System are the consonants, vowels, and combinations. In addition there are a large number of ending forms as well as abbreviations. The basic forms are shown below:
Some of the vowels and consonants have the same shapes, but they are distinguishable from their context, as vowels are always written from the bottom up and consonants from the top down.
Here follows a longer text from the 1917 edition of the Swedish encyclopedia Nordisk familjebok:
In clear text this corresponds to:
In English translation: