Acronyms and initialisms in history

Factual Questions
1

When and why did they start? And why not earlier? Of course they require literacy, but I don’t see why ancient scribes and educated nobles couldn’t have been using TLAs since Babylonian times.

SPQR is the oldest I’ve heard of, but I’m unclear to what extent it was actually used in ancient Rome. I’ve heard most instances seen in Rome today date to the Fascist era. There’s the text on the Pantheon, but that is more like abbreviations, I think, than acronyms.

Muslims today say (PBUH) when referring to Mohammad, but I don’t know how long they’ve done that. The ampersand (&) and various English name abbreviations (like Wm, Jno. and Jos.) are the closest thing I can think of in the early modern era. But of course they’re abbreviations, not acronyms.

Then you have to wait until around the 20th Century, when acronyms suddenly exploded in popularity, especially around WWII. ASAP, FUBAR, MGM, FBI, ASCAP, NAACP, AFL-CIO, etc.

To be honest, I’m a little unclear when “USA” became common. My impression is that, prior to the 20th Century, it was usually spelled out in words. But “US” by itself was common earlier (though I believe it’s a myth that that is where the dollar sign $ came from?), on military uniform insignia and buttons I think.

Can the teeming millions help me map out this historical development a little better? And help explain why it happened when it did, but not earlier or later? Does it depend on language and culture, or was it due more to technological development? Seems to have exploded around the time paper and paper-based information technology became cheap and mature. And of course kept right on steamrolling once computers took over.

2

INRI was used to abbreviate Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum.

3

Acronyms were used in Rome before the Christian era

So-called nomina sacra (‘sacred names’) were used in many Greek biblical manuscripts. The common words God (Θεός), Jesus (Ιησούς), Christ (Χριστός), and some others, would be abbreviated by their first and last letters, marked with an overline.

The early Christians in Rome, most of whom were Greek rather than Latin speakers, used the image of a fish as a symbol for Jesus in part because of an acronym (or backronym): ‘fish’ in Greek is ichthys (ΙΧΘΥΣ)

The Hebrew language has a centuries-long history of acronyms pronounced as words

4

Don’t overlook the fad for abbreviations before 1850:

https://www.straightdope.com/21341673/what-does-ok-stand-for

5

With a quick search, I can find instances in middle ages crucifixion art from the 1300’s and later.

The monks in the middle ages loved abbreviations since it made things faster when copying manuscripts by hand. I suppose acronyms are the ultimate abbreviations.

6

Are you sure that phrase is ever abbreviated? There is even a special character code ﷺ

7

I’ve seen it used online, in English discussions, from time to time. I have no knowledge of Arabic and very little of Islam. I was just tossing it out there as another (potentially older) possibility.

Okay, so acronyms existed in ancient times. But I’m not totally crazy, right? Their usage was minimal until the 20th Century?

Or is it just a matter of fewer ancient texts surviving, and my own ignorance of the ones that have, creating a major bias?

I consider myself fairly well versed in history, compared to the average layman, but I haven’t delved into many primary texts at all.

8

Apparently, the army needed to have inspectors verify that gunpowder met standards, and it stamped “U.S.A.” on the casks as a mark, starting in August 1776,

9

In an English-language newspaper, when a Muslim editorial writer is trying to explain things to non-Muslim readers, the abbreviation will be used a lot.

10

That Wikipedia article cited by @Joey_P is a good history; some inferences can be made from the facts cited.

Who needed acronyms? The same people who wanted to lessen the repetition in or magnitude of their work. In the early days those were usually scribes. Another article talks about scribal abbreviation, a convenience that was probably reinvented independently in many languages and times. Scribes were literate people communicating with other literate people; they could assume their audience would understand the shortened words.

Not many acronyms as we understand today arose from scribal abbreviation, but we can apply the same logic. Who needed shorthand because of mass and repetition? As Wiki mentions, corporations in the 19th century and the military in the 20th century used acronyms because they functioned at a scale many times larger than previous norms. I would add newspapers, who needed short but familiar labels in their headlines. The New Deal, as mentioned, generated multiple agencies: the newspapers were the ones to make acronyms of their names familiar to the general public. Once these words were disseminated to a mass, general public, they became part of the language, a useful innovation that quickly spread, again, to many languages and cultures.

11

OK, but that is not ancient, does not reflect contemporary usage in Arabic [unless it is abbreviated in Arabic somewhere; please let me know if you know of such a thing], and while a Muslim would know what it meant, or could work it out, how could a non-Muslim guess what it means?

I do know of a bunch of acronyms in Hebrew, like RMBM = Maimonides, but that is not ancient either (Maimonides was born in the 12th century)

12

Not in Hebrew, where they are quite old.

Many medieval or older rabbis have acronym names.

13

Rashbi?

14

First time it is used in the article, you use the full words. Afterwards, you use the initials.

15

I do not know enough to comment about this subject, but this blog post

argues that

…acronyms were first developed by ancient Greek and Latin stenographers and, though known to the rabbis of the Talmud, adopted by Hebrew only in a subsequent age.

thus not ancient in Hebrew.

16

Rambam without the vowels?

17

It’s an acronym (no vowels at all):
רבי
משה
בן
מימון
but people do stick some in when they say it as a word; it’s not a JFK type of acronym.

18

Rabbi
Shimon
Bar
Yochai

Is a 2nd century rabbi.

However, I have no idea when he started being referred to by that acronym. Older sources just call him “Rabbi Shimon”.

So, it perhaps is a medieval custom.

19

The ancient Romans certainly used abbreviations commonly, presumably because carving a message in stone is difficult, so the shorter the better.

One common one on funerary memorials was DM - Dis Manibus (to the spirits of the departed). Another was F - Filius (son of)

20

Not acronyms, but abbreviations were very common in the Middle ages (by monks copying manuscripts – You try writing the Old Testament by hand with a quill pen and see how long it takes before you start using abbreviations) and later (Classical Roman coins and Renaissance coins often abbreviated things too long and complex to be squeezed in around the border)

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/abb.html

Incidentally – this answers a question asked above – “SPQR” showed up on coins. It also appeared on Roman standards and the carrying posts.