Rychlopis

Rychlopis is a term found in Czech and some other Slavic languages for rapid writing, typically shorthand or stenographic systems designed to capture speech quickly. Such systems use abbreviated forms, symbols, or simplified letter sequences to represent common words, sounds, or phrases, enabling much faster transcription than ordinary longhand writing. Rychlopis writing requires study and practice; users learn a set of rules or a character set and develop speed and legibility through experience. The aim is to produce a readable transcript at high speeds, often for journalism, court reporting, business notes, or academic fieldwork. Because of the reliance on conventions, different regions developed their own variants and manuals of rychlopis in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with schools and associations teaching the technique.

In modern times, rychlopis as a formal method has largely been supplanted by typed transcription and computer-aided stenography. Nevertheless, the term survives in historical contexts and can refer to local shorthand alphabets or to the general concept of fast writing. In comparative terms, rychlopis is part of the broader family of shorthand systems worldwide, alongside English Pitman or Gregg shorthand and other phonetic or stroke-based systems.