Tironian

Tironian refers to Tironian shorthand, a system of abbreviations and symbols developed by Quintus Tiro, a freedman of Cicero, in the late Roman Republic. The method was designed to speed scribal practice and to condense Latin texts. It consists of a collection of sigla—simple strokes, curves, and marks—that stand for letters, syllables, or common words, which could be combined to form phrases more quickly than longhand spelling.

The best-known element is the Tironian sign for et, written as the Tironian et (⁊). This symbol represents the Latin conjunction et, meaning “and.” In medieval manuscripts, especially in Gaelic writing, the same or similar signs came to symbolize the conjunction agus, meaning “and.” The Tironian et is commonly described as a 7-like mark and remains one of the most recognizable surviving symbols of the system. In modern encoding, the Tironian et is represented in Unicode as U+204A.

Historical use and legacy: Tironian shorthand was widely used across late antiquity and into the medieval period, primarily for Latin texts. In the Gaelic-speaking medieval lands, Tironian signs persisted in manuscripts and early print, reinforcing their role as practical scribal tools. Over time, as more fully developed alphabets and modern shorthand emerged, many Tironian signs fell out of general use, though the Tironian et and a number of related signs are still of interest to paleographers and historians of writing. The term “Tironian” thus designates both the broader shorthand tradition and its most enduring symbol used to signify “and.”