New Course KeyNew Course Key New EraNEW ERA: Pitman New Era ShorthandShorthand is the art of representing spoken sounds by written signs. Pitman Shorthand provides a way of representing every sound heard in English words. Issac Pitman devised this system after a profound and epoch-making study of the phonetic structure of the English language. The system is a result of his scientific analysis. In Pitman Shorthand, speed and facility of writing and safety of reading are achieved by following a coherent and comprehensive scheme: each individual sound has its sign and sounds of the same family have signs with an appropriate family likeness.