The Deseret alphabet (; Deseret: or ) is a
phonemic
A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
English-language spelling reform
For centuries, there have been movements to reform the spelling of the English language. Such spelling reform seeks to change English orthography so that it is more consistent, matches pronunciation better, and follows the alphabetic principle. ...
developed between 1847 and 1854 by the
board of regents
In the United States, a board often governs institutions of higher education, including private universities, state universities, and community colleges. In each US state, such boards may govern either the state university system, individual co ...
of the
University of Deseret under the leadership of
Brigham Young
Brigham Young ( ; June 1, 1801August 29, 1877) was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second President of the Church (LDS Church), president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1847 until h ...
, the second
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Prรฆsident ...
of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...
(LDS Church).
George D. Watt is reported to have been the most actively involved in the development of the script's novel characters,
which were used to replace those of
Isaac Pitman's
English phonotypic alphabet. He was also the "New Alphabet's" first serious user.
The script gets its name from the word
''deseret'', a ''
hapax legomenon
In corpus linguistics, a ''hapax legomenon'' ( also or ; ''hapax legomena''; sometimes abbreviated to ''hapax'', plural ''hapaxes'') is a word or an Fixed expression, expression that occurs only once within a context: either in the written re ...
'' in the
Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, first published in 1830 by Joseph Smith as ''The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi''.
The book is one of ...
, which is said to mean "
honeybee
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the c ...
" in the only verse it is used in.
The Deseret alphabet was an outgrowth of the
Restorationist idealism
Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, Spirit (vital essence), spirit, or ...
and
utopianism
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...
of Young and the early LDS Church. Young and the
Mormon pioneers
The Mormon pioneers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), also known as Latter-day Saints, who Human migration, migrated beginning in the mid-1840s until the late-1860s across the United States from the ...
believed "all aspects of life" were in need of reform for the imminent
Millennium
A millennium () is a period of one thousand years, one hundred decades, or ten centuries, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting ...
, and the Deseret alphabet was just one of many ways in which they sought to bring about a complete "
transformation in society,"
in anticipation of the
Second Coming of Jesus. Young wrote of the reform that "it would represent every sound used in the construction of any known language; and, in fact, a step and partial return to a pure language which has been promised unto us in the latter days", which meant the pure
Adamic language spoken before the
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel is an origin myth and parable in the Book of Genesis (chapter 11) meant to explain the existence of different languages and cultures.
According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language migrates to Shin ...
.
In public statements, Young claimed the alphabet would replace the traditional
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splittingโi.e. from , and from ๏ฟฝ ...
with an alternative, more
phonetically accurate alphabet for the
English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
. This would offer immigrants an opportunity to learn to read and write English, the
orthography
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis.
Most national ...
of which, he said, is often less phonetically consistent than those of many other languages.
Young also proposed teaching the alphabet in the school system, stating "It will be the means of introducing uniformity in our orthography, and the years that are now required to learn to read and spell can be devoted to other studies."
Between 1854 and 1869, the alphabet was used in scriptural newspaper passages, selected church records, a few diaries, and some correspondence. Occasional street signs and posters used the new letters. In 1860 a $5 gold coin was embossed ๐๐ฌ๐๐จ๐๐ฎ๐
๐ป๐ญ ๐ ๐ข๐ซ๐๐ผ (Holiness to the Lord). In 1868โ9, after much difficulty creating suitable fonts,
four books were printed: two school primers, the full
Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, first published in 1830 by Joseph Smith as ''The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi''.
The book is one of ...
, and a first portion of it, intended as a third school reader.
Despite repeated and costly promotion by the early LDS Church, the alphabet never enjoyed widespread use, and it has been regarded by historians as a failure.
However, in recent years, aided by
digital typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spac ...
, the Deseret alphabet has been revived as a cultural
heirloom
In popular usage, an heirloom is something that has been passed down for generations through family members. Examples are a family bible, antiques, weapons or jewellery.
The term originated with the historical principle of an heirloom in ...
.
Similar
neographies have been attempted, the most well-known of which for English is the
Shavian alphabet
The Shavian alphabet ( ; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is a Constructed writing system, constructed alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the inefficiencies and difficultie ...
.
History
Creation (1847โ1854)
The Deseret alphabet was a project of the
Mormon pioneers
The Mormon pioneers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), also known as Latter-day Saints, who Human migration, migrated beginning in the mid-1840s until the late-1860s across the United States from the ...
, a group of early followers of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...
(LDS Church) who, motivated by
revelation
Revelation, or divine revelation, is the disclosing of some form of Religious views on truth, truth or Knowledge#Religion, knowledge through communication with a deity (god) or other supernatural entity or entities in the view of religion and t ...
s of a unique
premillennial eschatology
Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of Contemporary era, present age, human history, or the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic and non-Abrah ...
, had set about building a unique
theocracy
Theocracy is a form of autocracy or oligarchy in which one or more deity, deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries, with executive and legislative power, who manage the government's ...
in the Utah desert, which was then still claimed by
Mexico
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
, after the death of the church's founder, the
prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious and political leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thou ...
. They were to build a "city of Zion" where converts would gather in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ. As part of that
Gathering, in 1848, Church leaders urged converts in Europe to "emigrate as speedily as possible" to the Great Basin. There, in the
"Kingdom of God," under fused
theo-democratic leadership, they would be safe from the fall of the
apostate
Apostasy (; ) is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous religious beliefs. One who ...
world of so-called "Babylon."
March 6, 1849, Church authorities organized the "free and independent government" called the
State of Deseret
The State of Deseret (modern pronunciation , contemporaneously , as recorded in the Deseret alphabet spelling ๐๐ฏ๐
๐จ๐๐ฏ๐ป) was a proposed U.S. state, state of the United States promoted by leaders of the Church of Jesus Chri ...
, while retaining the
Council of Fifty
"The Council of Fifty" (also known as "the Living Constitution", "the Kingdom of God", or its name by revelation, "The Kingdom of God and His Laws with the Keys and Power thereof, and Judgment in the Hands of His Servants, Ahman Christ") was a Lat ...
. In that historical context, which has been called "The Forgotten Kingdom,"
there was a "compete identity of religious and temporal purpose throughout the history of the Alphabet."
This theo-linguistic fusion has been noted by multiple historians.
The "New Alphabet" was intended to correct "the corruptions and perversions of language which was originally pure", and to meet the urgent need for a language to "answer the demands of a constant intercommunication between several thousand languages". One "fitted to meet the great emergency of the great gathering and great work of teaching the law of the Lord to all people." This reformation of English orthography was a first step to the ultimate restoration of
Adamic language for use in the anticipated millennial
dispensation of the fulness of times.
The Deseret Typographical Association called the alphabet "a forerunner in that series of developments which shall prepare mankind for the reception of pure language". Brigham Young, Church President and Prophet, the "driving force" for the reform, looked forward to the time "when a man is full of light of eternity", and stated, "I shall yet see the time that I can converse with this people without opening my mouth."
The Deseret alphabet was developed primarily by a committee made up of the board of regents of the
University of Deseret, members of which included LDS Church leaders Brigham Young,
Parley P. Pratt,
Heber C. Kimball, and several of the other
Apostles. According to
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...
professor Richard G. Moore, most scholars believe that
George D. Watt's contribution to the actual form the alphabet took, its unique
glyph
A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...
s, was the greatest;
he furthermore "plant
dthe idea of
spelling reform
A spelling reform is a deliberate, often authoritatively sanctioned or mandated change to spelling rules. Proposals for such reform are fairly common, and over the years, many languages have undergone such reforms. Recent high-profile examples a ...
in Brigham Young's mind" through a
phonography class he gave after the
death of Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois, United States, on June 27, 1844, while awaiting trial in the town jail on charges of treason.
The ...
which Young attended.
William W. Phelps helped "work out the letters" along with Pratt.

Before they decided on the Deseret alphabet, the attention of the board of regents was mostly focused on
Pitman style alphabets, and in April 1847 Brigham Young nearly purchased of
lead type to print books using Pitman's orthography.
The University of Deseret was incorporated on 28 February 1850; less than three weeks later, on 20 March, the new board of regents began to discuss spelling reform.
On 29 November 1853, the committee was ready to approve a slightly modified version of the Pitman orthography, when
Apostle
An apostle (), in its literal sense, is an emissary. The word is derived from Ancient Greek แผฯฯฯฯฮฟฮปฮฟฯ (''apรณstolos''), literally "one who is sent off", itself derived from the verb แผฯฮฟฯฯฮญฮปฮปฮตฮนฮฝ (''apostรฉllein''), "to se ...
Willard Richards,
Second Counselor to Young, who had been deathly ill and missed the debate before the vote, saw the proposed alphabet, which spelled the word "phonetic" as "fษทnetic".
Richards was quick to condemn it, saying to the committee: "We want a new kind of alphabet...those characters...seem like putting
new wine into old bottles...I am inclined to think...we shall...throw away all characters that bear much resemblance to the English characters, and introduce an alphabet that is original...an alphabet entirely different from any alphabet in use."
These words persuaded Brigham Young and the rest of the committee, and Watt then endeavored to create an original alphabet. Less than two months later, on 19 January 1854, the board of regents finally approved the first 38-letter Deseret alphabet.
One legacy of Pitman's orthography survived, though: the idea that
one letter should equal one sound.
Use by the Mormon pioneers (1854โ1869)
Upon the alphabet's acceptance, its first user was its principal architect, George D. Watt, who began writing the meeting minutes of the early
Bishops
A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...
in a cursive form of it in 1854.
Almost immediately after its publication, church members began experimenting with it, and by 1855 travel writers Jules Remy and
Julius Brenchley published a chart of the new alphabet which differed heavily from the 1854 version. Some early Mormons, such as
Thales Hastings Haskell, began writing their personal journals in the new alphabet.
Remy further reported that during his time in
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
, he saw signs on the street and above shops using the new alphabet.
After its approval by the board of regents, Brigham Young testified before the
Utah territorial legislature that the new alphabet should "be thoroughly and extensively taught in all the schools". Some teaching in Utah schools did take place: John B. Milner taught the alphabet in
Provo,
Lehi,
American Fork, and
Pleasant Grove, while evening classes were taught in Salt Lake City and
Farmington.
After several months' practice writing with the new alphabet, Watt wrote to Brigham Young that he was unhappy with it, and proposed a complete overhaul, which was never followed up on.
Word of the new alphabet soon spread outside Utah, and most press reports in non-Mormon papers were critical.
Other writers, however, acquainted with other phonotypic and stenographic alphabets, ranged from neutral descriptions of the new alphabet to praise.
Until this point, all the printed material (mostly just charts of the alphabet and its standard orthography equivalents) had been produced with large
wooden type, which was not suitable for printing at small sizes. Because the alphabet was wholly unique, no font existed, so in 1857 the board of regents appointed
Erastus Snow to procure metal type from
St. Louis
St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...
-based
font foundry Ladew & Peer. However, in May 1857 the
Utah War
The Utah War (1857โ1858), also known as the Utah Expedition, the Utah Campaign, Buchanan's Blunder, the Mormon War, or the Mormon Rebellion, was an armed confrontation between Mormon settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the ...
began, and Snow left St. Louis to support the Mormon pioneers. During the war, Ladew & Peer kept working on the type, and the
punches and
matrices
Matrix (: matrices or matrixes) or MATRIX may refer to:
Science and mathematics
* Matrix (mathematics), a rectangular array of numbers, symbols or expressions
* Matrix (logic), part of a formula in prenex normal form
* Matrix (biology), the ...
were delivered in the winter of 1858. The first use of the new type was to make a business card for
George A. Smith, an early
Mormon historian.

In 1859, with the new type in hand, the ''Deseret News'' began printing with it. It would print one piece per issue in the new alphabet, usually a quotation from ''
The Book of Mormon'' or the
New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
. However, this only lasted for one year, after which the practice stopped; it would start again in May 1864 and stop permanently at the end of that year.
Benn Pitman, the brother of Isaac Pitman, was also interested in spelling reform, and by 1864 had published his own orthography, which the board of regents considered adopting. However, they ultimately decided not to and used the opportunity to re-affirm their commitment to the Deseret alphabet.
Brigham Young blamed the failure of this first attempt at reform on the ugliness of the type developed by Ladew & Peer, and so he commissioned Russell's American Steam Printing House, a
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
based font foundry, to design more pleasing type. The result was the
Bodoni
Bodoni (, ) is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740โ1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since. Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone (typography), Didone or modern. Bo ...
-esque font (below) that was used to print all of the books in this period.
In an 1868 article, the ''Deseret News'' wrote that "the characters, to a person unaccustomed to them, may look strange,
utto the eye to which they are familiar they are beautiful."
At least four books were published in the new alphabet, all transcribed by
Orson Pratt and all using the Russell's House font: ''The First Deseret Alphabet Reader'' (1868), ''The Second Deseret Alphabet Reader'' (1868), ''The Book of Mormon'' (1869), and a ''Book of Mormon'' excerpt called ''
First Nephi
The First Book of Nephi: His Reign and Ministry (), usually referred to as First Nephi or 1 Nephi, is the first book of the Book of Mormon, the sacred text of churches within the Latter Day Saint Movement, and one of four books with the name Neph ...
โ
Omni'' (1869).
Considerable non-printed material in the Deseret alphabet was made, including a replica headstone in
Cedar City, Utah
Cedar City is the largest city in Iron County, Utah, United States. Located south of Salt Lake City, it is north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15 in Utah, Interstate 15. Southern Utah University is located in Cedar City. It is the home of the Ut ...
, some coinage, letters, diaries, and meeting minutes. One of the more curious items found in the Deseret alphabet is an English-
Hopi
The Hopi are Native Americans who primarily live in northeastern Arizona. The majority are enrolled in the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; however, some Hopi people are enrolled in the Colorado ...
dictionary prepared by two Mormon missionaries. The handwritten document sat in the
LDS Church Archives, largely ignored until 2014 when
writing system
A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...
researcher and computer scientist Kenneth R. Beesley re-discovered it and transcribed it into standard written English.
Decline (1869โ1877)
Despite years of heavy promotion, the Deseret alphabet was never widely adopted. This reluctance was partly due to prohibitive costs; the project had already cost the early church $20,000,
with $6,000 going to Pratt as remuneration for his transcription effort
and most of the rest going to cutting metal type featuring the new alphabet and printing costs.
In 1859, Orson Pratt estimated that the cost of supplying all
Utah Territory
The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah, the 45th st ...
schoolchildren with suitable textbooks would be over $5,000,000.
According to Beesley, many have written that interest in the Deseret alphabet died with Brigham Young. This, however, is not true; the alphabet was already regarded as a failure during Young's time.
Only 500 copies of the full ''Book of Mormon'' translated into the Deseret alphabet sold for $2 each, and even Young realized that the venture was too expensive and even the most devout Mormons could not be convinced to purchase and study the Deseret edition books over the books in the traditional orthography.
In the winter of 1870, just one year after their publication, advertisements for the Deseret alphabet books were quietly removed from the ''Deseret News''.
Contemporary writers noted that thousands of copies of the 15ยข and 20ยข Deseret primers went unsold,
and historian Roby Wentz speculated that the LDS Church at that time had a "cache" of the primers in mint condition, which it was slowly selling off; according to him, one such primer sold for $250 in 1978.
The Mormons had planned to use the profits from sale of the earlier books to fund printing of more books, and in anticipation Orson Pratt had already transcribed the complete
Bible
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
, ''
Doctrine and Covenants
The Doctrine and Covenants (sometimes abbreviated and cited as D&C or D. and C.) is a part of the open scriptural canon of several denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement. Originally published in 1835 as Doctrine and Covenants of the Chur ...
'', and
John Jaques's ''Catechism for Children''.
Pratt had also prepared an apparent sequel to the primers, the ''Deseret Phonetic Speller''. After the sales failure, however, none of these books were ever published and were thought lost until being rediscovered in a storage area of the LDS Church Archives in Salt Lake City in May 1967.
Ralph Vigoda, a reporter for ''
The Philadelphia Inquirer
''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', often referred to simply as ''The Inquirer'', is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded on June 1, 1829, ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is the third-longest continuously operating da ...
'', has speculated that the completion of the
Transcontinental railroad
A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous rail transport, railroad trackage that crosses a continent, continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks may be via the Ra ...
may have contributed to the alphabet's downfall: non-Mormons, not loyal to Brigham Young, became a large part of the city, and without the religious motivation it would be difficult indeed to get them to learn a new alphabet. In a retrospective piece, historian A. J. Simmonds claims that the new railroad doomed the alphabet. According to him, easy access to "the whole literature of the English speaking world" rendered the alphabet useless.
In July 1877, Young tried one more time at a spelling reform, ordering lead type designed for the orthography of
Benn Pitman (Isaac's brother) with the intention of printing an edition of the ''Book of Mormon'' and ''Doctrine and Covenants'' using it. Most of the type had arrived by August, but with Young's death, the translation was never undertaken and the type never used. Young's death thus marked the end of the Mormon experimentation with English spelling reforms.
Rediscovery in the computer era

Modern
digital typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spac ...
has reduced the costs of typesetting substantially, especially for small print runs.
Freely licensed
Free content, libre content, libre information, or free information is any kind of creative work, such as a work of art, a book, a software, software program, or any other creative Media (communication), content for which there are very minimal ...
Deseret alphabet fonts can be used at no additional cost.
Film director
A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...
Trent Harris used the Deseret alphabet in his 1994 satire of Mormon theology, ''
Plan 10 from Outer Space
''Plan 10 from Outer Space'' is a 1994 low budget science fiction film starring Karen Black as Nehor and written and directed by Trent Harris. The film is a surreal satire of Mormon theology. The film has no connection to '' Plan 9 from Outer ...
'', where it features as an alien language used on a mysterious "Plaque of
Kolob
Kolob ( ) is a star described in the Book of Abraham, a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement, where it is described as the heavenly body nearest to the throne of God. Several List of denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement, La ...
".
During the 1996 Utah Centennial celebration, an
activity book for children was distributed, within which one of the activities was for a child to write their own name in the alphabet. The book says that a child who does this will be "the first kid in 100 years to write
heir
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
name in the Deseret alphabet!"
Also in 1996, ''Buffalo River Press'' published a reprint of the ''Deseret First Book'', of which only 10,000 were originally printed.
The entire ''Book of Mormon'' in the Deseret alphabet has been likewise reprinted, as only 500 copies from the original print run exist, and they can sell on eBay for โ$7,500 (as of 2004).
In 1997, John Jenkins
uploaded a free three part
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
of the so-called "triple combination", that is, a combined ''Book of Mormon'', ''Doctrine and Covenants'' and ''
Pearl of Great Price''.
John Jenkins has gone on to publish many classic pieces of
English literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...
in the Deseret alphabet, such as ''
Alice in Wonderland
''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...
,'' ''
Pride and Prejudice
''Pride and Prejudice'' is the second published novel (but third to be written) by English author Jane Austen, written when she was age 20-21, and later published in 1813.
A novel of manners, it follows the character development of Elizabe ...
'',
and ''
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' is a 1900 children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the ma ...
.''
Owing to the character set's inclusion in Unicode, most of the original books and many of the original manuscripts have been transcribed into
plain text
In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects ( floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a lim ...
,
and, when this is not possible due to discrepancies between the Unicode reference glyphs and the documents,
LaTeX
Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well.
In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...
.
Fonts

The first digital font for the Deseret alphabet, called "Deseret", was designed by Greg Kearney as part of work he was doing for the
LDS Church History Department in 1991; the font was used in an
exhibit that year.
In August 1995, a cleaned up, digitized version of the font in use in the ''Deseret Second Book'' was created by Salt Lake City graphic designer Edward Bateman, who made the font in
Fontographer
Fontographer is a font editor for Windows and macOS; it is used to create digital fonts. It was originally developed by Altsys but is now owned by FontLab Ltd.
History Altsys Corporation
In December 1984, James R. Von Ehr II founded the Alt ...
while working on ''
Plan 10 from Outer Space
''Plan 10 from Outer Space'' is a 1994 low budget science fiction film starring Karen Black as Nehor and written and directed by Trent Harris. The film is a surreal satire of Mormon theology. The film has no connection to '' Plan 9 from Outer ...
''.
Kenneth R. Beesley created a
Metafont
Metafont is a page description language, description language used to define raster fonts. It is also the name of the interpreter (computer software), interpreter that executes Metafont code, generating the bitmap fonts that can be embedded into ...
(and thus, LaTeX-compatible) font called in 2002.
All computers running
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
's
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
operating system or newer can display the entire Deseret alphabet Unicode range as the glyphs are included in the
Segoe UI Symbol font.
Besides maintaining a Deseret
input method
An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse oper ...
for Windows, Joshua Erickson, a
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
alumnus, also maintains a large collection of
freeware
Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...
Unicode fonts for the alphabet, which he collectively terms the "Bee Fonts."
There also exist
free software
Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...
fonts for the Deseret alphabet.
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
, through its
Noto Sans project, the aim of which is "to support all languages with a harmonious look and feel", has also released a Deseret font under the name "Noto Sans Deseret". George Douros maintains a
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
font called "Analecta" as part of his
Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts project, which supports the
Coptic,
Gothic, and Deseret scripts. Deseret glyphs are also available in the popular pan-Unicode fonts
Code2001
Code2000 is a serif font, serif and pan-Unicode typefaces, Unicode digital font, which includes Grapheme, characters and symbols from a very large range of writing systems. As of the current version 1.176 released in 2023, Code2000 is designed ...
and
Everson Mono (as of version 5.1.5).
Alphabet
Although the Deseret alphabet has
letter case
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing system ...
, usually the only difference between the minuscule and majuscule forms is that the majuscule forms are larger.
A degree of free spelling is allowed to accommodate dialectal differences in English. For example, in the Deseret edition of ''The Book of Mormon'', the word "wherefore" is written as
wineโwhine merger. Those who do exhibit the merger might instead prefer the spelling dialect
A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
The alphabet was designed to be able to write all of the vowels used in the dialect spoken in 19th century Utah. The vowel inventory has also been attributed to the fact that, unlike other
.
in the modern era: they are no longer distinguished in some dialects of English, particularly dialects of US English, though are still present in others, such as many varieties of British English.
Speakers who exhibit the