STENOGRAPHIC TRANSLATION SYSTEM

A steno transtator system for translating stenographic keystrokes to language format according to a predefined keystroking methodology includes a steno writer to generate a sequence of stroke symbols each having associated therewith language parts consisting of suffixes, prefixes, word parts, punctuation and language symbols. A processor is coupled for receiving the stroke symbols and includes memory for storing a list of stroke entries, each represented by at least one stroke symbol, and an associated language part defining the translation for that stroke entry. The stroke entries are arranged in the memory in accordance with the predefined stroke entry order. The processor also includes a translator for segmenting the sequence of stroke symbols into a plurality of consecutive subsequences where each of the subsequences includes at least one stroke symbol and has a corresponding matching stroke entry in the memory. The translator matches selected stroke symbols generated by the steno writer in a particular known position in a subsequence against correspondingly positioned stroke symbols of the stroke entries in the memory. A subsequence is formed so that it includes the maximum number of stroke symbols for which there is a matching stroke entry in the processor memory. The language part corresponding to the stroke entry matching the subsequence is thereupon defined as the language part translation for that subsequence.