Not a breath escapes them. They are the impartial eyes of history. They walk into the room with their little 21-key machine and they write down everything that happens in trials, the Congress of Deputies, or any act that requires someone to write down everything that is said and happens in court so that it is kept neutralwithout even a comma escaping.
We talk about the stenotypists, or stenographers in their handwritten form, a profession as old as civilization itself. Neither video recording, nor sound, nor the appearance of other technologies have taken over.
Today we will explain this peculiar profession to you, how this curious machine that they use as stenotype works, and all with the help of Gloria Canencia, chief stenographer of the Congress of Deputies, with 35 years of experience behind her.
This is how you write with 21 keys
Source: Congress of Deputies – Parliament Channel
It is about reflecting everything, not only the speech itself, but the intonation, the pauses, everything that entails showing the form and substance of what is pronounced.
“After the work in the office, to truly understand what the speaker has said, to correctly convey his idea. Data is checked: doctors, quantities, articles, acronyms… That is a documentation job that is also to check to make it true. If they quote a minister from Sweden, surely it is a “rare” surname, that’s where we have to check to write it correctly. In the end, there must be a serious and coherent document”.
The Journal of Sessions on the one hand has an immediate value, the written session has to come out as soon as possible. On the other hand, it has a historical value, it is a writing that must be understood both now and in a hundred yearsas it will be recorded in the annals forever.
“Parliamentary debate is something alive. It’s not just broadcasting a speech, because otherwise they would write the speech and publish it without further ado. It’s not that. It’s trying to reflect in the Journal of Sessions all the reactions that that speech is producing. Sometimes they are laughter, or protests, or comments. So we are there in the middle, as if we weren’t there, trying to notice everything and then reflect it and transmit the atmosphere, everything that has happened. “
Fragment of the Journal of Sessions of the Congress of Deputies, Plenary and Permanent Delegation. I Legislature, nº146, of February 23, 1981, p. 9276.
It’s not an easy job. Certain skills are required to be able to succeed in each session. “You must have many reflexes, intuitive capacity, reaction and even photographic memory”, when it is the case that a deputy speaks, try to remember his face to indicate the name of the deputy who has spoken, since there are many. A high level of command of the language and general knowledge is also required at all levels.
“During the commissions, sometimes very complex issues are dealt with, as now, for example, in the pandemic. It is managing the names of medicines, studies and other terminologies. If they talk about mining, they also have another slang, or wind energy. It is essential for us understand what they are talking about, then we develop a great cultural background to be able to correctly transmit their speech”.
Entrance to the office of the stenotypists and stenographers in the Congress of Deputies in Madrid.
Another curious detail is that in the profession there is an overwhelming majority of womenalthough it has not always been so. Since the creation of the Corps in 1810, it was composed of men. Clara Campoamor, in fact, was a stenography teacher and she took an exam for the Corps of Stenographers in 1918, but she failed to pass. Even so, she has always been a great defender of this profession.
It was not until 1933 that a woman won the position of parliamentary stenographer for the first time, Mª de los Ángeles Soler, but after the Civil War she could not join in application of the Law of Political Responsibilities, of February 1939.
In 1963 the then Spanish Courts again accepted the applications of women to oppose; until then one of the requirements was “to be male”. In 1967 the second woman entered the Corps.
The introduction of stenotype in 1970 was what started the change. The first stenotypists who approved the opposition were considered “assistants”, with the consequent decrease in salary. Only after three years could they apply to be integrated into the Corps of Stenographers of the Bulletin, following a favorable report from the Editor-in-Chief and the Senior Official, at which time economic equality with the rest of the stenographers was achieved. This discriminatory act continued until 1978.
From 1978 to 2013, date of the last opposition, all the places have been occupied by womenwith a couple of exceptions.
Live witnesses of History
Although it is hard work, Gloria and her colleagues consider themselves privileged. Live important historical moments such as motions of censure, investiture of presidents or the proclamation of Felipe VI. “All of this is going to remain in the history books and we are lucky to say that we were there, it is a true luxury for all of us who are in this body.”
Not only that, but they witness all the changes that are taking place over time, and reflecting it in the Journal of Sessions, which has not lost its essence since the Cortes of Cádiz in 1810 (the year in which the first DS).
Photo of the team of stenographers and stenotypists (January 2012), in Commemoration of the bicentennial of the Cortes de Cádiz.
“Language is a reflection of the times in which we live and we are direct witnesses of its evolution. There has been a whole socio-cultural change. On the one hand, the RAE says that it is not necessary to say “citizens”, but they do the deputies is because they have a political intention, because they want to do it and we have to reflect it.”
“We observed a series of changes in the way of speaking. Before they were more bombastic speeches and now it is a much fresher language, from the street. That must also be reflected. We also point out words that do not yet exist, or at least are not in the RAE, and we indicate them in italics”.
They have also witnessed the evolution of our increasingly visual society. The deputies use graphics, tweets, photos, press clippings, tablets… All kinds of visual resources to be more effective during their speech. This complicates the work of the stenotypists, since at the same time that the speaker is speaking, they must reflect the visual element that they are using: “Now the deputies, the five or seven minutes they have on the platform, they have to make the most of it and are helped by these elements, and we must add annotations explaining what it is showing”.
This responds to a much more mediatic society in which the striking image is a powerful tool to attract attention and at the same time transmit information. The Journal of Sessions is no stranger to this and includes these new ways of expressing oneselfcomplementary to the spoken word.
The patron saint of notaries, notaries and secretaries, hung in the department of the Body of Stenographers and Stenotypists of the Courts in Madrid.
Gloria tells us her work with passion and pride. The office of the stenographers and stenographers is full of photos of teams from other decades, sepia photos, some with families that have passed the profession from father to son, from generation to generation. Safeguarding, from the Cortes of Cádiz, impartiality in the face of historywriting the facts as they have been and will remain recorded forever.
They even have their own patron saint, Ginés de Arlés, military notary and stenographer of the judicial archives, under the emperors Maximian and Diocletian, and he was called “a handwriter faster than words” (Inscription in the church of San Ginés, Madrid ), “the patron saint of stenographers”.
We began the report attracted by its curious stenotype machine, but we ended it discovering that behind it there is a profession full of honor, imperturbable and necessary since the day that civilization is civilization.
