[3] George D. Watt is reported to have been the most actively involved in the development of the script's novel characters,[3][4][5]: 159  which were used to replace those of Isaac Pitman's English phonotypic alphabet.

Young and the Mormon pioneers believed "all aspects of life" were in need of reform for the imminent millennium,[9][10] and the Deseret alphabet was just one of many ways in which they sought to bring about a complete "transformation in society,"[5]: 142  in anticipation of the Second Coming of Jesus.

[3]: 65–66  Young also proposed teaching the alphabet in the school system, stating "It will be the means of introducing uniformity in our orthography, and the years that are now required to learn to read and spell can be devoted to other studies.

March 6, 1849, Church authorities organized the "free and independent government" called the State of Deseret,[28] while retaining the Council of Fifty.

"[36] This reformation of English orthography was a first step to the ultimate restoration of Adamic language for use in the anticipated millennial dispensation of the fulness of times.

[13] The Deseret Typographical Association called the alphabet "a forerunner in that series of developments which shall prepare mankind for the reception of pure language".

[3] On 29 November 1853, the committee was ready to approve a slightly modified version of the Pitman orthography, when Apostle Willard Richards, Second Counselor to Young, who had been deathly ill and missed the debate before the vote, saw the proposed alphabet, which spelled the word "phonetic" as "fɷnetic".

[5]: 150–152 Upon the alphabet's acceptance, its first user was its principal architect, George D. Watt, who began writing the meeting minutes of the early Bishops in a cursive form of it in 1854.

[7]: 12  Almost immediately after its publication, church members began experimenting with it, and by 1855 travel writers Jules Remy and Julius Brenchley published a chart of the new alphabet which differed heavily from the 1854 version.

[4] After its approval by the board of regents, Brigham Young testified before the Utah territorial legislature that the new alphabet should "be thoroughly and extensively taught in all the schools".

[3][40] After several months' practice writing with the new alphabet, Watt wrote to Brigham Young that he was unhappy with it, and proposed a complete overhaul, which was never followed up on.

[3]: 69–70 Considerable non-printed material in the Deseret alphabet was made, including a replica headstone in Cedar City, Utah,[46] some coinage, letters, diaries, and meeting minutes.

The handwritten document sat in the LDS Church Archives, largely ignored until 2014 when writing system researcher and computer scientist Kenneth R. Beesley re-discovered it and transcribed it into standard written English.

After the sales failure, however, none of these books were ever published and were thought lost until being rediscovered in a storage area of the LDS Church Archives in Salt Lake City in May 1967.

[18] In July 1877, Young tried one more time at a spelling reform, ordering lead type designed for the orthography of Benn Pitman (Isaac's brother) with the intention of printing an edition of the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants using it.

Film director Trent Harris used the Deseret alphabet in his 1994 satire of Mormon theology, Plan 10 from Outer Space, where it features as an alien language used on a mysterious "Plaque of Kolob".

[50][51] The entire Book of Mormon in the Deseret alphabet has been likewise reprinted,[52] as only 500 copies from the original print run exist, and they can sell on eBay for ≈$7,500 (as of 2004).

[53] John Jenkins has gone on to publish many classic pieces of English literature in the Deseret alphabet, such as Alice in Wonderland,[54] Pride and Prejudice,[55] and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

[7]: 37–38 [57] All computers running Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system or newer can display the entire Deseret alphabet Unicode range as the glyphs are included in the Segoe UI Symbol font.

[65]: 32–33 Marion Jackson Shelton,[69] an early Mormon missionary, proposed the addition of a new glyph to represent the schwa, a simple vertical line of the same height as other Deseret characters with a similar appearance to the Turkish dotless i (ı).

The consonants with syllabic values are 𐐶 (woo), 𐐷 (yee), 𐐸 (ha), 𐐹 (pee), 𐐺 (be/bee), 𐐻 (tee/tea), 𐐽 (qi), 𐐾 (jee), 𐑀 (gay), and 𐑄 (the/thee).

[...] I am now thoroughly convinced that it is not the most expeditious method of writing and printing, but on the contrary it retards the hand in its onward course.His new alphabet closely resembled an 1853 publication of Isaac Pitman, containing only 33 letters.

[41]: 21  Marion J. Shelton, an early Mormon missionary who wrote a dictionary of the Hopi language in the alphabet, was a "typical" 40-letter Deseret writer,[7]: 19  and his style of writing is shown below.

[18][17] The Mormon pioneers were apparently aware of the problems caused by its monotony:[3]: 76 President Young has decided that [the letters] are not so well adapted for the purpose designed as it was hoped they would be.

In an 18 December 1857 editorial in the Boston Globe, the alphabet was described as being "so arranged and named as to cause the greatest possible annoyance to outsiders" and the design of the letters as "incomprehensible as [...] the hieroglyphics of the [...] Egyptians.

Indeed, in an article about the benefits of the alphabet, the Deseret News proudly wrote:[77]If our community were situated as others are, it might be Quixotic to attempt the introduction of this reform among us with the hope of carrying it into practical operation.

[...] The greatest evils which now flourish and under which Christendom groans are directly traceable to the licentiousness of the press.In another article, the Deseret News cited an example of the kind of literature Mormons would benefit from not being able to read: The Police Gazette.

[41]: 35  Historians A. J. Simmonds and Roby Wentz contend that while this may have been a tertiary goal of the alphabet, a sort of "happy accident", the main purpose of it was simple orthographic reform.

[18][19] Simmonds notes that the teaching of English to foreigners was not a mere hypothetical to mask isolationist tendencies: 35% of the Utah Territory's population at the time was Scandinavian, with German, Italian and Welsh speaking people also making up a considerable percentage of inhabitants; therefore, communication between the recently baptized and the community was a real problem.

[78] According to Kenneth R. Beesley, who submitted the proposal to expand the encoding,[66] "Unicode fonts based on the current heterogeneous collection of glyphs will be useless for any practical typesetting of 40-letter Deseret Alphabet documents.