Writing by Soundโor by Spelling?
The 1869 Book of Mormon (BoM69) and the First and Second Deseret Alphabet readers of 1868 follow closely related spelling conventions. The historical record shows, and our own research confirms, that Dr. Websterโs Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1864) was consulted extensively, though by no means universally, in making spelling decisions for the Deseret publications of 1868โ1869.
The result is important for modern readers: these printed Deseret texts should not be treated as narrow phonetic transcriptions of ordinary speech prima facie. Their spellings reflect a mixture of pronunciation, nineteenth-century dictionary analysis, editorial convention, and, in some cases, the influence of conventional Roman-alphabet spelling. An alphabet intended to make sound explicit could therefore preserve some of the very ambiguity that it was designed to overcome.
This does not mean that the historical spellings are arbitrary. On the contrary, many apparently surprising forms become intelligible when read through the pronunciation categories and spelling practices available to nineteenth-century editors. The difficulty is that those categories do not always coincide with the way present-day speakers analyze or pronounce the same words.
There has never been complete agreement about how every English word should be represented in the Deseret Alphabet. Modern writers therefore face a choice between reproducing historical forms and spelling according to their own pronunciation. Both are legitimate activities, but they are different activities. Because this website generally models the printed spellings of 1868โ1869, we explain some of their recurring patterns here.
For a much fuller discussion of these questions, see Shosted and Davis (2026).
Vowel Reduction
One of the most noticeable differences between nineteenth-century Deseret spelling and present-day expectations concerns unstressed vowels. A modern writer might use ๐ฒ, the STRUT vowel, broadly for reduced unstressed vowels, treating it as the closest available equivalent to schwa. Standard nineteenth-century versions of the Deseret Alphabet, however, had no separate symbol specifically assigned to schwa.
BoM69 prints mother as ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฏ๐ (p. 3), father as ๐๐ช๐๐ฏ๐ (p. 1), and brother as ๐บ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฏ๐ (p. 6). In each case, the final syllable contains ๐ฏ, the DRESS vowel. A present-day reader who gives that vowel its full citation-form value may therefore produce a pronunciation more deliberate than ordinary speech would suggest.
The contrast with monosyllabic her, ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ (p. 8), is especially revealing. The printed texts do not simply use one Deseret sequence wherever modern spelling contains er. Yet the repeated ๐ฏ๐ in mother, father, and brother suggests that the conventional spelling of the unstressed ending, together with contemporary dictionary analysis, influenced the Deseret forms.
The word wilderness, ๐ถ๐ฎ๐๐ผ๐ฏ๐๐๐ฏ๐ (BoM69, p. 1), provides another example. Both -der- and -ness contain ๐ฏ. Many present-day speakers reduce one or both of these vowels in ordinary speech. The Deseret spelling therefore preserves a fuller vowel analysis than many modern readers might expect.
Categories and Analysis
Some Deseret spellings are easier to understand when we remember that nineteenth-century editors were not working from modern phonological categories. Websterโs 1864 dictionary offered its own system for describing English vowels, and the Deseret publications often reflect that system. The relationship between spelling and sound was therefore mediated by a dictionary tradition as well as by what a writer or editor heard.
The word revelation, ๐๐ฏ๐๐จ๐๐ฉ๐๐ฒ๐ (p. i), is instructive. Its second vowel is ๐จ, the FLEECE vowel, where many speakers today have a reduced vowel. That spelling may reflect a fuller historical pronunciation, a dictionary-based analysis, or some combination of the two.
The ending, ๐๐ฒ๐, shows at the same time that nineteenth-century writers did not simply avoid ๐ฒ in unstressed syllables. They regularly used it where conventional spelling contained an unstressed o or a. In the terminology of the period, the vowel represented by ๐ฒ was generally treated as the โshortโ counterpart of the GOAT vowel.
The point is not that every surprising Deseret vowel can be mechanically predicted from Webster. Rather, Webster helps explain why nineteenth-century editors sometimes divided the English vowel system differently from modern readers and why a printed Deseret spelling may preserve a historical analysis rather than a transparent record of casual pronunciation.
When Roman Spelling Shows Through
Other forms suggest that conventional English spelling itself sometimes influenced Deseret transcription. This is particularly clear when words that appear similar in pronunciation receive different Deseret spellings that correspond closely to differences in their Roman-alphabet forms.
Moriancumer, ๐ฃ๐ฌ๐๐ฎ๐ฐ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ญ๐๐ฏ๐ (p. xi), ends in the now-familiar ๐ฏ๐. Coriantumr, ๐๐ซ๐๐ฎ๐ฐ๐๐ป๐ฒ๐๐ (p. vi), does not. The difference corresponds strikingly to the Roman spellings -er and -r. In a system based solely on pronunciation, such a contrast would require an independent phonetic explanation. In context, influence from the conventional spelling is the likelier explanation.
The same possibility helps explain the treatment of unstressed -er in mother, father, and brother. The Deseret texts were created by writers who were already fully literate in conventional English orthography. They did not approach spoken English as if Roman spelling did not exist.
This is one of the central lessons of the historical corpus: even a phonetic or phonemic spelling reform does not begin from sound alone. Writers hear speech through categories they already know, including the categories supplied by traditional spelling and dictionaries.
Difficult Cases
Some spellings remain difficult to explain with confidence. In such cases, several possibilities may overlap: historical pronunciation, dictionary convention, editorial habit, and influence from Roman spelling. The surviving printed forms do not always tell us which factor mattered most.
The formidable continually, ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐ป๐ฎ๐๐ท๐ฎ๐ญ๐ฒ๐๐ฎ (p. 3), uses ๐ฒ for both unstressed o and unstressed a. It also contains the striking sequence ๐ท๐ฎ๐ญ, which a modern writer might simplify to ๐ท๐ญ. The final syllable uses the KIT vowel where many present-day speakers would expect FLEECE.
The word genealogy, ๐พ๐ฏ๐๐จ๐ฐ๐๐ฌ๐พ๐ฎ (p. 4), likewise presents a form that may surprise modern readers: ๐ฐ, the TRAP vowel, appears where some present-day pronunciations might suggest another vowel category.
Such forms should not automatically be normalized to match modern expectations. They are historical evidence. Even where the reasoning behind them is uncertain, they show how nineteenth-century editors actually applied the alphabet. Websterโs dictionary and the surviving correspondence among Orson Pratt and his collaborators often provide clues, but not every form admits of a single explanation.
Three Different Tasks
The historical evidence is easiest to use if three different activities are kept separate:
Reading a historical Deseret text. When reading historical documents, allow a vowel letter to correspond to a reduced or otherwise different vowel in familiar modern speech. The printed letter does not always require an exaggeratedly full pronunciation.
Reproducing a historical Deseret spelling. When practicing or quoting the spellings of historical documents, reproduce the printed form even when you would spell the word differently yourself. The purpose is to represent the historical source accurately.
Writing your own pronunciation. When using the Deseret Alphabet independently, you may choose spellings that better represent your own speech. Those forms need not agree with every nineteenth-century printed spelling. Indeed, many modern Deseret Alphabet publications employ modern standards.
These are complementary skills, not competing ones. Historical spelling and personal/modern phonetic spelling ask and answer different questions. Published Deseret texts become much easier to decipher when that distinction is kept in view.
For a fuller discussion, see Ryan K. Shosted and N. E. Davis (2026), The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed and Unalterable Sound (University of Illinois Press).
Continue with lessons on reading or writing, or explore nineteenth-century publications like the 1869 Book of Mormon and the First and Second readers. You can even try our typing game, which incorporates spellings from BoM69.