(, German Unified Shorthand) is a German stenography system. DEK is the official shorthand system in Germany and Austria today. It is used for word-for-word recordings of debates in the Federal Parliament of Germany. Development The original version of DEK was created by an expert committee in 1924, based on the ideas of earlier systems like those of Gabelsberger, Faulmann and Stolze-Schrey. Revised versions were introduced in 1936 and 1968. The latest reform of the Einheitskurzschrift was concluded in Vienna in 1962 after many years of work and officially introduced into the German educational system in Mainz in 1968 by the German Kultusministerkonferenz (State Conference on Education) as the (“Vienna Document”) titled . This may be considered largely the brainchild of Georg Paucker, who (as representative of the German Confederation of Trade Unions) applied himself particularly to the reform negotiations regarding the . Principles Writing system DEK is based on indirect indication of vowels. There are several graphemes for common consonant-sequences and for single consonants, too. Vowels are indicated through the positional relation of two following consonant-graphemes in the line-system. For instance is represented by one grapheme. To write the word , which is not an actual German word, one and another sch-grapheme is connected by a short line at the same height above the line. The is indicated by the short connection between them. Furthermore, not only the relation is relevant, but the line pressure, too. That is why DEK is designed for pencils. An would be indicated by a short connection and a heavier down-line of the following consonant-grapheme. Up-lines are not written with a heavy line for speed reasons. All in all, shorthand reduces words to syllables, where whole syllables are written at once. Writing DEK employs many spelling simplifications. The writing system does not know the notion of upper-case or lower-case letters. However, sometimes it is necessary to indicate capital letters. This is done by underlining the respective grapheme. Moreover, while spelling individual words the sound of a word takes precedence, unless this may cause confusion with other words that fit just as well in the given context. For example, (correct spelling) is usually written as (incorrect spelling), because ensuring proper spelling with does not convey any meaning. Beside the basic system there is a huge set of static unpaired abbreviations. For example, the German form of to be, 3rd person singular indicative present tense is