CMS adopts Lepsius Standard Alphabet for the Yoruba language

Johnson records that Professor Lepsius of Berlin was entrusted with establishing "a complete form of alphabetic system to which all hitherto unwritten languages could be adapted." The resulting Standard Alphabet "was adopted by the C.M.S. in 1856." Earlier translations then had to be transliterated under its fixed rules. Johnson notes that the system was not "faithfully followed by all," provoking controversy between English and German missionaries of the Yoruba Mission.