Unicode and the Deseret Alphabet

In late 1996, John H. Jenkins of Apple proposed that the Deseret Alphabet be included in the Unicode standard. His proposal was quickly accepted and in 2001 it was incorporated into the Unicode 3.1 standard. It included the 38 characters that were used to print the 4 books in the Deseret Alphabet in the late 1860s.

Ken Beesley of Xerox proposed in a Unicode Conference in 2002 that because earlier version of the Deseret Alphabet sometimes included 40 characters, that the Deseret Alphabet in Unicode be augmented to include 2 more characters to represent the 2 extra characters that were used. It was accpeted and the 2 extra characters are present in the current Unicode 4.1 standard.

The current Unicode chart for the Deseret Alphabet, in positions 10400 to 1044F, can be found at http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10400.pdf. To see if your browser supports the Deseret Alphabet in Unicode, you can go to http://www.unicode.org/standard/translations/deseret.html. It is a transcription of the "What is Unicode?" page found at http://www.unicode.org/standard/WhatIsUnicode.html, and if your browser supports it you'll see the page in the Deseret Alphabet. Mac OS X comes with support for the Deseret Alphabet in Unicode.