Deseret alphabet translator

Type or paste English. Every word is looked up in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary and written in Deseret, one letter per sound. Capitals carry over. Any word the dictionary doesn't know, such as a rare surname or a brand new coinage, stays in English letters so you can see what was missed.

The sample is the first lesson of the Deseret First Book from 1868. The translator spells it the same way the book does.

The Deseret alphabet was made in the 1850s by the regents of the University of Deseret, in what is now Utah. Like Shavian it spells sounds, not letters. Readers and part of the Book of Mormon were printed in it, but it never replaced ordinary spelling.

It has capitals, though a capital is usually just a bigger copy of the small letter. The board approved 38 letters in 1854. Two more, oi and ew, were added later, and this translator uses them.

Deseret has no letter for schwa, the weak "uh" in about. Writers used the vowel the syllable would have if it were stressed, and 𐐲 where there wasn't one, as before r. A dictionary can't know that stressed value, so this translator always writes 𐐲.

The dictionary is American, and most Americans say "father" and "bother" with the same vowel. So words like "not" come out with 𐐪 here, where a spelling that keeps the two apart would use 𐐱.