In Old Roman Cursive the ampersand was the ligature between the letters “e” and “t” (“et” means “and” in Latin). Even after he was made a freeman, Tiro continued to transcribe Cicero’s texts, and by 63 BC he had developed a system of shorthand to speed up the writing process, known as the Tironian Notes. History and evolution Transcription of various Tironian notesĪlthough it was brought into common use by the British, the ampersand was first created in the first century BC by the Roman slave Marcus Tullius Tiro, who was Cicero’s personal secretary. & was the final letter in the English alphabet until the early twentieth century the alphabet ended “X, Y, Z and per-se and”, and the contraction of and-per-se-and gave rise to its current name. The character has different names in different languages: in Italian it is known as an e commerciale, in French it is an esperluette, in German it is Et-Zeichen, and it entered the English dictionary as ampersand in 1837. This symbol, widely used and appreciated by many type designers for its great creative potential, has ancient origins that few people are aware of. The ampersand (&) is one of the most unique and interesting typographic characters.
