Deseret Unicode Block

The Deseret Unicode block is a fascinating and unique collection within the Unicode Standard, primarily designed to encode the characters of the Deseret alphabet. This alphabet was originally developed in the 19th century under the guidance of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, specifically by church leaders like Brigham Young. The purpose of the creation of the Deseret alphabet was to reform English spelling in a way that would make it more phonetic. Though the alphabet was never widely adopted, its historical and cultural significance has been preserved through its inclusion in Unicode. Spanning from U+10400 to U+1044F, the Deseret block comprises 80 characters, covering both uppercase and lowercase forms of its characters. Each symbol within the block corresponds to a specific phoneme of the English language, providing a comprehensive phonetic representation.

This particular Unicode block not only serves as a tool for those interested in the history of writing systems but also plays a pivotal role in facilitating digital humanities research. Scholars studying 19th-century American history or the evolution of writing systems often find the Deseret block to be an invaluable resource. Additionally, its inclusion in Unicode demonstrates the standard's commitment to preserving diverse writing systems from a wide array of cultural and historical contexts. The encodement of the Deseret alphabet allows for its continued use and study in modern digital communications, helping to keep alive a unique piece of linguistic history.

View a range of fonts that support the Deseret block.

Below you will find all the characters that are in the Deseret unicode block. Currently there are 80 characters in this block.