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Old murderous Brigham, the bed hopping fool came up with his own Alphabet once the 'aints were in Utah Territory. The Deseret Alphabet.

Since Brig was the head of what was to become lds-inc and l-ds in the future, was this alphabet a revelation? Was it inspired? Or was it just another wild hair up the backside like joe the coxman and this bank con job?

Joseph, please try not to be so offensive. This is way over the top. It's like we Mormons have accidentally stumbled into some noxious and unresolved private anger issue.

The Nehor wrote:

Nehor, are you responding to the topic, or simply the tone in which the question was asked (which I'd have to agree is down right offensive).

I haven't heard anything about the Deseret Alphabet for maybe 40 years. It could be an interesting topic. Can this thread be saved, or maybe it could be reworded in a way that would invite discussion?

Lucretia MacEvil wrote:
I haven't heard anything about the Deseret Alphabet for maybe 40 years. It could be an interesting topic. Can this thread be saved, or maybe it could be reworded in a way that would invite discussion?

What a great and classy way to say that, Ms MacEvil. I bow to you.

I heartily agree with Lucretia, Joseph. I'd like to discuss, read, and learn, not just bait and belittle opponents. Would you edit and reword your question?

moksha wrote:Joseph, please try not to be so offensive. This is way over the top. It's like we Mormons have accidentally stumbled into some noxious and unresolved private anger issue.

Thank you, Moksha. I agree, completely.

Lucretia, there was a marvelous documentary about the Deseret Alphabet. It is out on video and clips can be seen on YouTube. Look for Plan 10 from Outer Space.

moksha wrote:Lucretia, there was a marvelous documentary about the Deseret Alphabet. It is out on video and clips can be seen on YouTube. Look for Plan 10 from Outer Space.

Lol! But I, too, add my vote to reworking/starting over a thread on the Deseret Alphabet.

You can find a True Type Deseret Alphabet font called Hunneybee here. (Scroll down).



If you're in Salt Lake, Ken Sanders has some beautiful old Deseret Alphabet publications among his rare book offerings. They are really interesting to see.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was always told that this was also called the Adamic language. In other words's, the language spoken by the gods to Adam. So what's the actual story behind it?

The books are pretty rare stuff for the collector of all things Mormon, no?

Inconceivable wrote:Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was always told that this was also called the Adamic language. In other words's, the language spoken by the gods to Adam. So what's the actual story behind it?

The books are pretty rare stuff for the collector of all things Mormon, no?

So far as I am aware, the Deseret Alphabet was never more than that - a means of writing down the sounds of English, supposedly easier to use than standard English orthography in the Roman alphabet, that never came into widespread use despite the fact that Brigham Young put his prestige behind it. An alphabet is not a language.

The motive for this attempt was supposedly to make it easier for immigrants to learn to read and write English. But I wonder whether this was all there was to it?

After 1949 the Chinese communists introduced a new set of simplified Chinese characters that supposedly made it easier to learn to read and write, in place of the older forms that had been in use for thousands of years. They may well have made literacy somewhat easier, but they also had the advantage that a child brought up to use them could not easily access pre-communist literature without learning the old forms. As a result, something of a cultural gap with the past was opened up - which was not entirely unwelcome to the new rulers.

Could anything like that have been behind the Deseret Alphabet? Brigham Young certainly did not see it as a major aim to integrate his flock with the wider cultures of the US of his day, and the prospect of creating a literature that was 'safe' and to which children would be confined by their education may have been attractive.

Of course it was a major failure and waste of resources - but certainly caused less suffering than Joseph Smith's equally ill-judged venture into banking did.