ORIGINS
SPELLING OUT THE FUTURE
The first group of Latter-day Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley during the summer of 1847, and establishing an education system quickly became a priority for the growing community. In early 1850, the General Assembly of the State of Deseret created a Board of Regents to oversee education in the territory. Led by Brigham Young and twelve other prominent men, the Board opened the University of Deseret, today’s University of Utah, on November 11 of that same year.
ACTS, RESOLUTIONS, AND MEMORIALS PASSED...
Utah Territory, Issuing body
Great Salt Lake City: Joseph Cain, public printer, 1855
KFU25 A215 1855
Printed in 1855, this volume records legislative acts heard and passed by the Utah Territorial Legislative Assembly to that date. Among them is the February 28, 1850, act establishing the Board of Regents and the University of Deseret. Additionally, the volume bears the signature of Brigham Young.
The school’s first iteration lasted only three academic quarters before temporarily closing in 1852, a casualty of the economic hardships facing the young pioneer settlement. Even so, the Board of Regents continued imagining new possibilities for education in the territory. Among them was an initiative that came at the urging of Brigham Young—an entirely new writing system. The result was one of the boldest spelling reforms ever attempted in the American West: the 38-letter Deseret Alphabet.
Brigham Young was the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the founding governor of Utah Territory, overseeing the migration and settlement of Latter-day Saints in the Great Basin. A strong advocate for education and communication reform, he sponsored the creation of the Deseret Alphabet. His broader vision linked religious leadership, governance, and cultural innovation in early Utah society.
JOURNALS OF THE THIRD ANNUAL SESSION OF…UTAH
Utah Territory Legislative Assembly
Great Salt Lake City: Arieh C. Brower, 1854
J87 U8a 1853/54
This volume, printer in 1853, records proceedings of the Utah Territorial Legislative Assembly, including the House, Council (later the Senate), joint sessions, and enacted laws. In a governor's message delivered December 13, 1853, Brigham Young announced the regency's effort to create a new alphabet for Deseret, urging continued legislative support for the project.
After Brigham Young’s initial request for a new orthographic system and the closure of the initial iteration of the University of Deseret, the Board of Regents largely devoted themselves to the development and implementation of a new orthographic system. The decisions made by the group, along with the circumstances that led to those decisions, were all documented in the meeting minutes kept by the Board of Regents.
THE PITMAN PROTOTYPE
The idea of spelling reform did not originate with Brigham Young. Since the founding of the United States, many influential thinkers including Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, Mark Twain, and others, had considered ways to simplify spelling. As the English language became more standardized and education reform gained momentum, many recognized that the traditional alphabet was far more complex and difficult to learn than necessary.
One of the most prominent advocates for spelling reform was Isaac Pitman, a British publisher and educator. In 1837, Pitman published Stenographic Sound Hand, a pamphlet that introduced his system of phonographic shorthand, which later proved to be a huge success. Pitman’s phonographic system, similar to the Deseret Alphabet, gave each sound in the English language a corresponding symbol. The resulting system was composed of 24 consonant strokes alongside various dots, dashes, and other marks that were plotted in specific positions to represent the nine basic vowel sounds.
THE PHONOGRAPHIC READER
Benn Pitman (1822–1910)
Cincinnati, Ohio: Phonographic Institute, 1860–1869
Z56 P63 P68 1860z
Brother of Isaac Pitman, Benn Pitman brought Pitman shorthand to the United States, founding The Phonographic Institute in Ohio. Ben wrote many of the institute's publications, like this one, and later championed the Isaac's original phonographic system that was revised in 1857, which would become the American standard.
While known for his phonographic system, Isaac Pitman’s broader interest, lay in phonotypy—a forty-letter phonetic alphabet he designed to simplify English by assigning a single symbol to each sound. It was this alphabet that would ultimately serve as the foundation for Brigham Young’s orthographic experiment.
AMERICAN MANUAL OF PHONOGRAPHY
Elias Longley (1823–1899)
Cincinnati: Longley, 1865
Z56 L66 1857
This manual taught Isaac Pitman's phonographic shorthand system, in which each sound is represented by a symbol.
WORDS ACCORDING TO WATT
One of the many people who adopted Pitman’s shorthand was George Darling Watt, a convert from England who was baptized by Heber Chase Kimball in 1837 and is considered the first British member of the LDS Church.
ENGLAND'S FIRST "MORMON" CONVERT
Ida Watt Stringham
Salt Lake City: 1958
BX8695 W33 1958
Written by Ida Watt Stringham, George Watt's daughter, and Dora Dutson Flack, LDS author, in the late 1950s, this biography traces the life of George Darling Watt—from his childhood and conversion to Mormonism to his church service and decade-long effort to create a new alphabet for Zion.
After moving to Nauvoo, Watt frequently used Pitman’s shorthand while recording meeting minutes for the growing LDS church. Brigham Young and others likely learned of phonography from Watt, further inspiring Young’s 1853 request that the Board of Regents develop a new phonetic alphabet.
THE MORMON PASSAGE OF GEORGE D. WATT
Ronald G. Watt
Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2009
BX8695 W38 W38 2009
Following in his great aunt's footsteps, Ronald G. Watt published this biography of his great-grandfather, George Darling Watt, in 2009. Drawing on letters, journals, and family papers, he assembled a comprehensive portrait of the Deseret Alphabet's chief designer.
On October 27, 1853, the Board appointed Parley P. Pratt, Heber C. Kimball, and George Watt to develop a new orthographic system. The committee initially presented Pitman’s phonotypy which the board accepted. However, Willard Richards, a prominent church member and confidant of Brigham Young, urged the creation of a distinct alphabet to avoid any confusion. The board agreed, and Watt designed the 38-letter Deseret Alphabet, likely drawing inspiration from Pitman’s phonography as well as Greek, Hebrew, and Phoenician letterforms.