The deseret alphabet among the hopi byu college of humanities. Volume 50 deseret alphabet classics by william shakespeare isbn. Like the law of consecration, however, the deseret alphabet never achieved widespread acceptance, despite repeated attempts by young to promote the system. The valley of fear is also notable for being one of the only two instances in the sherlockian canon professor james moriarty is mentioned.
Jul 21, 2014 you can browse the whole deseret alphabet book of mormon, 1869 edition, on the internet archive. The hours spent developing the alphabet, transliterating the scriptures, writing the primers, and promoting and teaching the new system cannot be determined. The purpose of this book this book provides all the information a student will need in order to read the classic 1869 version of the deseret alphabet properly and to. The book of mormon printed in the deseret alphabet. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. But rather than the letters of an alphabet, buildings use towers and spires, columns and buttresses, mosaics and paintings, glass and geometric figures, and statues and friezes to speak volumes. This is an alphabet book that can also be viewed as a desert biology book for young readers. In 1869, deseret university published tenthousand copies of each of two textbooks, deseret first book and deseret second book. If nothing else, it includes book 6 it took its sweet time, but its finally available via printondemand on amazon. This book is in the deseret alphabet, a phonetic alphabet for writing english developed in the mid19th century at the university of deseret now the university of utah. The phonetic deseret alphabet was developed to assist in this cause. The valley of fear deseret alphabet edition by arthur conan.
Those learning english could find few reading materials in the deseret alphabet compared to the massive amount of reading material already available in the latin alphabet. The desert alphabet book jerry pallottas alphabet books. Deseret university regents published ten thousand copies of each of two textbooks, deseret first book and deseret second book. The deseret alphabet frontier homestead state park. The desert alphabet book jerry pallottas alphabet books pallotta, jerry, astrella, mark on. Scanned images of the deseret first book, deseret second book, and the book of mormon part 1 are available here. Til that in the church created phonetic language called deseret alphabet, the book of mormon was pronounced book of marmon. Beesley has already written about that in the deseret alphabet in unicode. Beesley in rediscovering the linguistic work done among the hopi tribes using the deseret alphabet.
Orson pratt brigham young and the deseret alphabet. The alphabet was in use only between the 1850s and 1870s, fading away after youngs death in 1877. Periodic sample prints of the alphabet came in the newspaper until the first books were published in the late 1860s which sold very. The deseret alphabetbrigham youngs most expensive failed.
Published throughout the 1860s, the deseret alphabet contained thirtyeight characters. Typesetting the deseret alphabet with latexandmetafont. Since hopi had no written form beforehand, the men transcribed the sounds using the phonetic deseret alphabet. Brigham young wanted all letters to match sounds, to make reading and writing easier for immigrants. These readers were designed to help the saints transition into this new alphabet with simple sentence structures and plots. The book of mormon was transcribed into the deseret alphabet by orson pratt. The deseret alphabet, a 38letter writing system developed. Jan 02, 2020 the one would be the deseret alphabet version, and the other would be the latin script version.
Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. The valley of fear deseret alphabet edition by arthur. Second deseret alphabet reader 1868, the book of mormon 1869, and a book of mormon excerpt called first nephi omni 1869. The deseret alphabet, with examples of how to use each. Ultimately, other books were printed such as selections from the book of mormon, a christmas carol and a few other popular books. The desert alphabet book jerry pallottas alphabet books and millions of other books are available for amazon kindle. The illustrations in this book are incredibly life like, the first picture, the letter a is for an australian waterholding frogthe actual frog looks like a photo more than it does a painting. I ask, have the great and learned men completed their education. While we have been focusing on school the past weeks we thought it would be interesting to post about one of the subjects all early utah territory schoolchildren learned, the deseret alphabet. For at least a year brigham youngs account books were kept in the deseret alphabet, and a new york firm printed five hundred copies of the entire book of mormon in it. The deseret alphabeta phonetic alphabet used briefly in early utahis represented on what looks like an antique book in some foreign script.
Jun 29, 2014 the deseret alphabet was developed over the course of several years and iterations beginning before the pioneers made their way across the plains, and finally had its first printing in 1859 by the deseret news. Four volumes were published in the alphabet in 1868 two primers the deseret first book and the deseret second book, extracts from the book of mormon and a complete volume of the latter. The deseret first book, salt lake city 1868 the deseret second book, salt lake city 1868 the book of mormon, new york 1869 vollstandige. However, even though architectural symbolism existed before the written word, the message of a building is often difficult for most of us to recognize. The alphabet was created by brigham youngs direction as an attempt to make the english language less complex to learn for incoming foreign converts. Jan 04, 2017 the deseret alphabeta phonetic alphabet used briefly in early utahis represented on what looks like an antique book in some foreign script. Deseret alphabet simple english wikipedia, the free. The deseret alphabet is a phonemic englishlanguage spelling reform developed between. The deseret alphabet enjoyed a relatively small heyday.
The mormon church commissioned two typefaces and published four books using the deseret alphabet. Sir isaac pitman of shorthand fame developed several versions of a phonetic alphabet with the goal of reforming english spelling. The book of mormon, doctrine and covenants, and the perl of great price triple combination in the deseret alphabet. This book is in the deseret alphabet, a phonetic alphabet for writing english developed in the mid19th century at the it is held to be canonical by the church of jesus christ of latterday saints and related denominations. The deseret alphabet was introduced in 1854 and was created by parley p. While the deseret alphabet is usually remembered today as an. The project cost the early saints over twenty thousand dollars, a large sum in those days. For many of these new converts, english was a new language. The deseret alphabet experiment religious studies center. Our goal is to encourage the use of the deseret alphabet by making worthwhile reading material widely available. It took its sweet time, but its finally available via printondemand on amazon.
Deseret alphabet classics the deseret alphabet classics series provides deseret alphabet editions of some of the great works of english literature and lds theology. Brigham young saw the need for a way to help them learn to speak english. The primers were used in some schools in utah, but the alphabet was never widely adopted. The letters were usually a person, a name for christ, or a principle of the gospel. This further relates the history of how the book of mormon was translated into the deseret alphabet by orson pratt in the spring of 1869 and published later that year by russell bros. The new alphabet was taught in a few schools, deseret characters were used on occasional shop signage, and the phrase holiness to the lord was printed in deseret alphabet on a gold coin dated 1860. Deseret alphabet book of mormon in the mid1800s the salt lake valley was being populated by european immigrants, many speaking nothing but their native languages. The advantages of this alphabet will soon be realized, especially by foreigners. In the deseret alphabet, capital letters majuscule or upper case look the same as the lower case minuscule letters, except the capital letters are larger.
Sep 24, 2015 for many of these new converts, english was a new language. With that information, and the picture of the salt lake temple on the cover, i deduced that it was a mormon publication. The series was ed in 1990, but was not completed until 1993. Til that in the church created phonetic language called. This book is in the deseret alphabet, a phonetic alphabet for writing english developed in the mid19th century at the university of deseret now the university of deseret. The one would be the deseret alphabet version, and the other would be the latin script version. Nakanishis book, i found almost no correspondence between the two. In 1860 holiness to the lord was inscribed in the deseret alphabet on deseret gold pieces.
In the chart below, the glyph is the letter shape, and next to it is the letters name, which is how it soun. The deseret alphabet among the hopi byu college of. A bit of research led me to a strange footnote to mormon history. The deseret alphabet was an experiment used to teach mormon converts a new phonetic spelling system. Jun 21, 2017 the deseret alphabet, a 38letter writing system developed by mormons copy link facebook twitter reddit flipboard pocket the opening pages of an 1869 copy of the book of mormon, printed in deseret. The purpose of this book this book provides all the information a student will need in order to read the classic 1869 version of the deseret alphabet properly and to write with it today. The deseret alphabet experiment lasted roughly from 1853 to 1877.
Jul 28, 2009 susan easton black talks about brigham youngs experiment with the deseret alphabet. It would be years before i learned that the scripts true name was the deseret alphabet. Susan easton black is a professor of church history at brigham young university. The deseret alphabet, a 38letter writing system developed by. Those learning english could find few reading materials in the deseret alphabet compared to the massive amount of reading material already available in the latin. Watt, under the supervision of a university of deseret committee, that acted under brigham youngs direction.
This is a very comprehensive study of the history of the deseret alphabet. The following year, the book of mormon was published in the deseret alphabet. For anyone wanting to learn to read and write in the deseret alphabet, a complete guide to reading and writing the deseret alphabet, by neil alexander walker is a good place to start. Four books were published in the late 1860s using the deseret alphabet, deseret first. Made up of thirtyeight characters apparently it was partially based on pitman shorthand to correlate with basic sounds in the english language, the deseret alphabet was intended to be used to help simplify the principles of. It is a mormon story that needs to be seen and studied. Those already literate had little incentive to learn the deseret alphabet, while illiterates would have had very little to read. You can browse the whole deseret alphabet book of mormon, 1869 edition, on the internet archive. Their task was to learn the language and develop a writing system so that the book of mormon could be translated to hopi with an eye to converting and baptizing the hopis into the church, said dirk elzinga, associate professor of. A group of leaders called the board of regents created it. The deseret alphabet was developed over the course of several years and iterations beginning before the pioneers made their way across the plains, and finally had its first printing in 1859 by the deseret news.
Our goal is to encourage the use of the deseret alphabet by making. The purpose of this new alphabet was intended to ease the burden for students learning to read and write english, which with its many inconsistencies proved difficult to learn. I was excited for this book which is an alphabet book of bible heroes. The deseret alphabet lesson 1 amaronian broadcasting. Jun 24, 2017 four volumes were published in the alphabet in 1868 two primers the deseret first book and the deseret second book, extracts from the book of mormon and a complete volume of the latter. Enter your mobile number or email address below and well send you a link to download the free kindle app.
A complete guide to reading and writing the deseret alphabet. Til that in the church created phonetic language called deseret alphabet, the book of mormon was pronounced book of marmon close. Teachers taught the alphabet in the school system at. Young also prescribed the learning of deseret to the school system, stating it will be the. Just to add a little spice to the whole process, the deseret alphabet text is slightly longer than the latin script one. Deseret alphabet homestead telegraph frontier homestead. 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. Brigham young had the idea to create an alphabet that would help simplify the spelling of the english lan. The deseret alphabet, a 38letter writing system developed by mormons copy link facebook twitter reddit flipboard pocket the opening pages of an 1869 copy of the book of mormon, printed in deseret. The book of mormon printed in the deseret alphabet by. Susan easton black talks about brigham youngs experiment with the deseret alphabet. It is not a reproduction of the 1869 deseret alphabet edition of the book of mormon but a completely new transliteration based on the modern text and modern chapterverse. The deseret alphabet is now used mostly by hobbyists and studied by historians.
The mormon alphabet experiment newyork historical society. The deseret news published a column printed in the new alphabet, and there are still diaries, letters, meeting minutes, coinage and one headstone in cedar. It was fun to learn to read again and all while doing it with the book of mormon. The pitman orthographies were based on the traditional roman alphabet, with modified characters added to fill out the range. However, i will not be the one to write such a book, as my skills are in.