Corpus-Optimized Deseret Keyboard | Illinois Deseret Consortium

Deseret Alphabet Keyboard | 𐐔𐐯𐑅𐐨𐑉𐐯𐐻 𐐈𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻 𐐗𐐨𐐺𐐬𐑉𐐼

Typing numbers and punctuation

The physical keys 1–0, -, and = are assigned to Deseret letters in the corpus layout.
Hold Alt or Option while pressing one of those keys to type its ordinary number or punctuation mark.
Hold Alt/Option + Shift for !, @, #, $, %, ^, &, *, (, ), _, and +.
Comma, period, slash, semicolon, apostrophe, brackets, backslash, and grave accent are not overridden and type normally.
On the on-screen keyboard, activate Numbers / symbols to show the ordinary number-row characters. Activate Majuscule at the same time for shifted symbols.
On Android, the page uses a dedicated immediate-input channel so each key appears in Deseret as soon as it is typed. The phone keyboard should be set to English. Because predictive composition is bypassed, swipe typing and word suggestions may be unavailable while the Deseret mapping is active.

Research Note | 𐐡𐐨𐑅𐐲𐑉𐐽 𐐤𐐬𐐻

This experimental keyboard was derived from frequency tables generated from the Illinois Deseret Consortium’s Unicode transcription of the 1869 Deseret Alphabet Book of Mormon. Majuscule and minuscule forms were collapsed.

The optimization used three kinds of corpus evidence:

individual Deseret-letter frequencies;
same-word bigram frequencies; and
same-word trigram frequencies.

We used the 38-letter book alphabet, which excludes 𐐦 and 𐐧. The layout places high-frequency letters on the home row and stronger fingers while minimizing same-finger sequences, row travel, hand imbalance, and awkward three-letter patterns. A secondary criterion preserved some similarity to familiar QWERTY sound positions.

In the selected heuristic layout, approximately 47.0% of corpus letters fall on the home row, estimated workload is about 52.0% on the left hand and 48.0% on the right, and approximately 0.35% of same-word bigrams use the same finger.

The layout was found with simulated annealing followed by greedy pair-swap refinement. It is a corpus-derived heuristic result rather than a proof of the global optimum. Different ergonomic weights, keyboard geometries, or corpora may produce different layouts.

Download the BoM69 Deseret Keyboard for Windows, based on the 1869 Deseret Alphabet Book of Mormon.

BoM69 Deseret Keyboard

𐐒𐐱𐐣69 𐐔𐐯𐑅𐐨𐑉𐐯𐐻 𐐗𐐨𐐺𐐬𐑉𐐼

Deseret Alphabet Keyboard | 𐐔𐐯𐑅𐐨𐑉𐐯𐐻 𐐈𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻 𐐗𐐨𐐺𐐬𐑉𐐼

Typing numbers and punctuation

Research Note | 𐐡𐐨𐑅𐐲𐑉𐐽 𐐤𐐬𐐻