Mormon History
New Mormon Alphabet - 1854
The Dixon Telegraph – April 27, 1854
From Utah -- New Alphabet.
The Mormons have set about
reforming the English language. The Deseret News appears to regard the new
Alphabet as a great improvement. We quote a portion of the article in the News
explaining the invention:
The Board of Regents, in company with the Governor and heads of departments,
have adopted a new Alphabet, consisting of 38 characters. The Board have held
frequent sittings this winter, with the sanguine hope of simplifying the English
language, and especially its orthography. After many fruitless attempts to
render the common alphabet of the day subservient to their purpose, they found
it expedient to invent an entirely new and original set of characters.
These characters are much more simple in their structure than the usual
alphabetical characters; every superfluous mark supposable is wholly excluded
from them. The written and printed hand are substantially merged in one.
We may derive a hint of the advantage of orthography, from spelling the word
eight, which in the new alphabet only requires two letters instead of five
to spell it, viz.: AT. There will be great saving of time and paper by the use
of the new characters, and but a very small part of the time and expense will be
requisite in obtaining a knowledge of the language.
The orthography will be so abridged that an ordinary writer can probably write
one hundred words a minute with ease, and consequently report the speech of a
common speaker without much difficulty.
As soon as this alphabet can be set in type, it will probably be furnished to
the schools of the Territory for their use and benefit, not however with a view
to immediately supercede the use of the common alphabet -- which though it does
not make the comers thereunto perfect, still it is a vehicle that has become
venerable for age and much hard service.
In the new alphabet every letter has a fixed and unalterable sound; and every
word is spelt with reference to given sounds. By this means strangers cannot
only acquire a knowledge of our language much more readily, but a practised
reporter can also report a strange tongue so that the strange language when
spoken can be legible by one conversant with the tongue.
Note: The creation and promotion of the Deseret Alphabet well demonstrates both
the self-assured abilities of Mormonism and its irremediable arrogance. The
Utahans' acceptance of the new symbols opened the way for the creation in the
Great Basin of a perfectly closed society whose members would become immune to
all communication and criticism from the outside the world. At the same time,
their planned adoption of the new symbols would have rendered the Utah Mormons
so disconnected from the rest of the country as to hinder the inflow of useful
information as well as the outflow of missionaries capable of functioning in
societies where the new writing system was not in use. Given their continuing
belief that a Mormon-centered millennium was about to dawn upon the whole
planet, it is possible that the Utahns temporarily deluded themselves to the
point where some believed that the new alphabet would quickly become a world
standard. It did not, and it disappeared altogether at the end of the 1860s.
The Quincy Daily Whig - Aug 25, 1857, page 2
Liberty Weekly Tribune – July 10, 1857
HECTOR H. MCLEAN, THE MAN
WHO KILLED THE SEDUCER OF HIS WIFE. --
This gentleman, whose heroic and persevering efforts to rescue his children from
the loathsome embraces of Mormonism have made his name familiar to the public,
yesterday paid us a visit. He showed us a number of letters written to his wife
by P. P Pratt, in the characters which the Mormons have invented to carry on
correspondence and conceal their meaning, should their letters ever happen to
fall into the hands of "Gentiles." The letter thus written are as perfectly
incomprehensible to us as they would be if written in Chinese. -- Strange as it
may appear, Mr. McLean translated these letters correctly, as circumstances
subsequently showed, without any previous knowledge of the characters used.
The only key he had was furnished in the first letter, wherein the writer
informed his victim that certain alterations had been made to the Mormon
alphabet, and explained what they were, so that she might understand them. The
alterations were only two, and from this slight clue to the meaning of these
hieroglyphics, Mr. M'Lean succeeded, after giving up in despair several times,
in deciphering the whole, thus enabling him to thwart the efforts of the
impostor to rob him of his children. -- It was extraordinary, and shows itself
veritably that necessity is the mother of invention. Mr. M'Lean narrated to us a
number of circumstances which almost seemed to indicate the direct interposition
of Providence in his behalf in causing him to secure his children.
We advise Mormon spies here, as elsewhere, to give Mr. M'Lean as wide a berth as
possible. His company to them will prove extremely disagreeable to say the
least.
If Mr. Buchanan would confer upon him the Governorship of Utah, and he would
accept it, we are inclined to think that the old Brigand would have a sudden
weakness in his knees. -- New Orleans Bulletin.