Searching for Reformed Egyptian

Language Information in the Book of Mormon

			The search for reformed Egyptian must begin in the Book of Mormon as that is where the term is used. What does it mean? What might it have meant when the phrase was written? Those questions necessarily require us to begin an analysis with the Book of Mormon text itself. We begin with 1 Nephi 1:2:"2 Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians." We have two elements, the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. Sorenson considers the "learning of the Jews" to mean the cultural contexts, and would be inclusive of the language itself (Sorenson, 1985, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, p. 74.). He then follows with an analysis of "language of the Egyptians". This is based heavily on the following text from Mormon. Mormon 9:32 "32 And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech." According to Sorenson, this would mean that Mormon used Egyptian signs to depict Hebrew (Sorenson 1985, p. 76). This might be bolstered by the next text: Mormon 9:33 "33 And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record." The conceptual problem with this linkage is the time passage between the arrival in Americas and the time in which Mormon is writing the plates. Somewhere around 1,000 years separate Nephi's statement from Mormon's. Mormon clearly indicates that both the Hebrew and the Egyptian characters have been altered. The alterations is sufficient that the "language" is unknown to any other people, as indicated in the following verse. Mormon 9:34 "But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof." (A similar claim is made for the unintelligibility of the Jaredite language, Ether 3:22-24). While it is unclear which aspects of "language" are involved in this verse, the message is that their language is unique. That should leave out a simplistic interpretation of "language" as Hebrew, as that language is still known. By the time Mormon writes, there has been a shift in the two components of written language. First, we know that whatever the text represents, it is not Hebrew, by explicit statement (Mormon 9:33). We also know that whatever the orthography, it was not "pure" Egyptian, but rather "Mormon 9:32 "in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian". In other words, by the time of Mormon, who is writing the vast majority of the text, Hebrew is no longer Hebrew and Egyptian is no longer Egyptian. It is important to remember that the term "reformed Egyptian" only occurs nearly 1,000 years after Lehi left Jerusalem, so finding reformed Egyptian in the old world is a futile, non-Book-of-Mormon-text issue. We are left with two time periods, with similar words, but a possibility of different meanings. Surely during the time of Lehi, there were no significant changes in Hebrew. It is unclear why a change would have occurred in the Egyptian characters during Nephi's lifetime. Assuming Nephi knew them, he had little reason to change them. Nevertheless, the same terms appear 1,000 years later with the caveat that they no longer describe what they once did. What might they have once described? In the holographic small plates of Nephi there is another very specific reference to Egyptian writing. Mosiah 1:4 "4 For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children, ... " However, this refers to the plates of Brass! At this point we do have a chance of finding a mixed representation of languages, with the meaning of one written in the characters of another. In fact, this process does have historical justification. William Hamblin notes one quite remarkably parallel mixture of Semitic and Egyptian: "The earliest known example of mixing a Semitic Language with modified Egyptian hieroglyphic characters is the Byblos Syllabic inscriptions (eighteenth century B.C.), from the city of Byblos on the Phoenician coast.[6] This script is described as a "syllabary [that] is clearly inspired by the Egyptian hieroglyphic system, and in fact is the most important link known between the hieroglyphs and the Canaanite alphabet."[7] Interestingly enough, most Byblos Syllabic texts were written on copper plates. Thus, it would not be unreasonable to describe the Byblos Syllabic texts as a Semitic language written on metal plates in "reformed Egyptian characters,"[8]which is precisely what the Book of Mormon describes" (William J. Hamblin, Reformed Egyptian. FARMS electronic publication, 1995). At the beginning of the Book of Mormon, it appears to be reasonable to require the brass plates to be a conflation of learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians similar to that demonstrated by the Byblos Syllabic inscriptions, which significantly predate Book of Mormon times. It is also reasonable, and internally documented, that this original conflation of language and writing system (assuming that we interpret the verse to indicate this particular idea) changed overtime and became something quite different from the way it began. Since Mormon never tells us whether the "reform" was slight or massive, we are left with the possibility, at least, that there would be precious little of the Egyptian remaining a thousand years later. Tracing Language in the Book of Mormon The above analysis rests heavily upon the presumption that "language of the Egyptians" refers to their writing system. While the Mosiah text; Mosiah 1:4 "4 For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children, ... " underlines this hypothesis (as the language of the Egyptians was required to read the plates) it is not the only place where "language" is used. The use of the word "language" in other texts indicates that it had multiple meanings when Joseph Smith used it. This is particularly important because of the phrasing of 1 Nephi 1:2:"Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians." The prevalent assumption is that "language of my father" refers to Hebrew and that "language of the Egyptian" refers to the written form (though it might easily be extended to the language itself. As we examine the use of the word "language" in the Book of Mormon, we frequently find it in contexts which do not easily allow for the interpretation of a spoken or written language: Enos 1:1 "1 Behold, it came to pass that I, Enos, knowing my father that he was a just man--for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord--and blessed be the name of my God for it--" While it is certainly possible that Enos means that he learned the same language his father spoke, that is such an unremarkable thing that there is no reason to state it. When Enos says that he was taught in his father's language, he may mean something more than just the way of speaking. Similarly: Mosiah 1:2 "2 And it came to pass that he had three sons; and he called their names Mosiah, and Helorum, and Helaman. And he caused that they should be taught in all the language of his fathers, that thereby they might become men of understanding; and that they might know concerning the prophecies which had been spoken by the mouths of their fathers, which were delivered them by the hand of the Lord." (See also Mosiah 9:1 Mosiah 9:1 and Alma 5:61) Neither of these passages make sense if we assume that they are to be taken with a literal meaning to "language". It is surely not unusual that a child learns the "language" of the father. In these cases, "language" seems to follow the concept Nephi used when he was taught in the "learning of the Jews". Thus one of the cautions we have in interpreting Book of Mormon passages about language is that the text may have a different meaning for the word than the one which would tell us about vocabulary or syntax. This possible meaning of culture which is attached to the word "language" makes it difficult to know how to interpret the following verse: Mosiah 24:4 "And he appointed teachers of the brethren of Amulon in every land which was possessed by his people; and thus the language of Nephi began to be taught among all the people of the Lamanites." It is not really obvious whether it was the culture or the language itself which was being taught. The word is similarly ambiguous in Omni: Omni 1:17 "And at the time that Mosiah discovered them, they had become exceedingly numerous. Nevertheless, they had had many wars and serious contentions, and had fallen by the sword from time to time; and their language had become corrupted; and they had brought no records with them; and they denied the being of their Creator; and Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah, could understand them." Even though the phrase "language had become corrupted" is followed with the probable explanatory clause "and they had brought no records" those records could just as easily have preserved culture as speech. It cannot be determined with certainty which meaning should be applied here. The most obvious passage for the discussion of language as speech comes in the description of the merging of the peoples of Nephi and Mulek in Zarahemla: Omni 1:18 "18 But it came to pass that Mosiah caused that they should be taught in his language. And it came to pass that after they were taught in the language of Mosiah, Zarahemla gave a genealogy of his fathers, according to his memory; and they are written, but not in these plates." In this case we have the highest likelihood that there were two peoples speaking different languages (or at least variant dialects) hence the teaching of speech would be an important preliminary task of bringing the peoples together. It is also significant that Zarahemla gives his genealogy after he learns the language of the Nephites. It does appear that the instruction in "language" caused an improvement in the ability to communicate. The migration of the Nephites to Zarahemla is a watershed event in examining linguistic possibilities for the Book of Mormon peoples. Citing Sorenson on the issue of the continuation of Hebrew after this point: "That the more numerous "Mulekite" subjects had all leaned the language Mosiah brought among them a generation earlier seems highly unlikely. Judging by the history of most contacts of this sort, the less numerous nobility would have mad the change, at least in the long run.... A knowledge of spoken Hebrew possibly continued among the Nephite rulers for a time, but that such special elite knowledge lasted down to the time of Cumorah is harder to believe" (Sorenson, 1985, p. 76).
			by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998