"A Christmas Carol" in Deseret

 
Identifier
BOK.NAM.AD2013
Title
"A Christmas Carol" in Deseret
Description
A copy of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens translated into the Deseret language in an effort to encourage the learning and use of the Deseret language.

The Deseret language was an effort made by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who settled in the Salt Lake Valley to "alleviate the problem of non-communication... created by the great influx of foreign speaking Saints" who immigrated there. The general idea was to create a hieroglyphic alphabet based on English grammar where each character represented an unchanging sound. It was "developed and encouraged by the Prophet Brigham Young and a few followers," but failed to achieve permanence in the community. It eventually died off "with Brigham Young in 1877," but is still used today by some scholars of Church history (Wintersteen).
* * *
Wintersteen, Larry Ray. A History of the Deseret Alphabet. Electronic version. Brigham Young University, 1970.
Date Created
2012 AD
Creator
John H. Jenkins
Temporal Coverage
19th Century
21st Century
Format
Print
Collecting Areas
The Deseret Alphabet Classics
History of Writing Collection
Language
Deseret
Subject
Type
Novel
Bibliographic Citation
Jenkins, John H. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens written in Deseret. Lexington: 2013.

Item sets