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The Issues of Nephite Language & Strategies to Create It By A. Chris Eccel, Ph.D.

The Brass Plates of Laban: Establishing the Language Base For our analysis, the Brass Plates of Laban raise the question: To what extent does one expect to find Hebrew in the Book of Mormon, and to what extent Egyptian? Nephi states that his father had lived all his days in Jerusalem, while at the same time referring to Egyptian as the language of his (Nephi's) father. It is hard to imagine that these two statements are not at odds. He claimed to be descended from Joseph. This implies that he would have hailed from the tribe of Joseph. When the tribe of Levi was made into a priestly cast and scattered among the other tribes, their territory was reallocated, along with that of Joseph, making tribes of each of Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. These tribes were located in the north, in what had become the northern kingdom, after the conflict between Solomon's sons, Jeroboam and Rehoboam, which had divided the tribes into two Kingdoms, Judah in the south, and Israel in the North. When Nephi says that he went to the land of his inheritance to get the silver, gold and other precious things (left there by his father) to buy the Brass Plates, he might have gone to the north, to the land of Israel. Lehi was of the tribe of Manasseh (Alma 10:3), perhaps from the capital city Shechem. It would appear that one or some of Lehi's forebears had moved from this land of their inheritance to Jerusalem, possibly during the time of the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in the north, but certainly before his birth. Nephi and his siblings too must have been reared in Jerusalem, with their father. Surely their first language must have been Hebrew. Even so, Nephi made plates with his own hands (1 Nephi 1:17) and wrote his history in Egyptian. (1 Nephi 1:2) This must have been the Egyptian of the period of the plates, Late Egyptian or early Demotic, rather than reformed Egyptian. Nephi states (1 Nephi1 3:19 "And behold, it is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers." That Egyptian was an acquired language even for Lehi is clear. Even so, Nephi made plates with his own hands (1 Nephi 1:17) and wrote his history in Egyptian. (1 Nephi 1:2) This must have been the Egyptian of the period of the plates, Late Egyptian or early Demotic, rather than reformed Egyptian. Nephi states (1 Nephi1 3:19 "And behold, it is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers." That Egyptian was an acquired language even for Lehi is clear. "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, that thereby they could teach them to their children, and so fulfilling the commandments of God, even down to this present time." (Mosiah 1:4) So he spoke Hebrew, but was taught Egyptian. Even though the first language of the people must have been Hebrew, and in spite of the sacred stamp of the Hebrew language, and its symbolic value for ethnic and religious pride, inexplicably he chose to write in Egyptian. (1 Nephi 1:2) When Alma passed the records to his son Helaman, he said (Alma 37): "2. And I also command you that ye keep a record of this people, according as I have done, upon the plates of Nephi, and keep all these things sacred which I have kept, even as I have kept them... "3. And these plates of brass, which contain these engravings, which have the records of the holy scriptures upon them, which have the genealogy of our forefathers, even from the beginning." Each member in this line of succession taught the Egyptian language to his sons, to pass on the ability to read and continue the record. The fact that this instruction was necessary shows that Egyptian was not their spoken language, but rather a scriptural, literary, liturgical but otherwise dead language. The Book of Mormon claim is, therefore, that an elite among the people were bilingual, speaking Hebrew, but using Egyptian largely as a scriptural and possibly liturgical language, a bit like Latin in Italy, confined to the Vatican. This is reflected in the statement of Mormon, when speaking of his production of the text on the gold plates, saying that he wrote in reformed Egyptian which had been "handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech," due to a shortage of gold, apparently implying Egyptian was a more compact language. Notably he added, "if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record." This indicates that he was able to write in Hebrew better than in Egyptian. Clearly, the first language of the Nephites was Hebrew, although among them there was an elite who handed down sufficient knowledge of the Egyptian needed to read the Brass Plates in Late Egyptian or early Demotic. The assertion that both Egyptian and Hebrew had been altered over the course of a millennium in the New World is not unusual. Language always changes. Even so, the Semitic languages display remarkable resistance to change, largely due to their triconsonantal structure and the forms used to generate vocabulary. Even Coptic resembles ancient Egyptian to such an extent that Champollion, who knew Coptic, was able to use it to decipher the Rosetta Stone text, once he had identified enough of the phonological characters. Two of the principal factors that promote language change are the adoption of a language by a substrate population that speaks some other language, and influences from neighboring languages, especially languages with considerable cultural dominance. Egyptian and Hebrew among the Nephites would have suffered neither of these influences, since the land is claimed to have been devoid of human beings prior to Lehi's arrival. Especially Egyptian, existing in splendid isolation, and used mostly as a written scriptural language, should have remained largely intact. For example, the transformation from classical Latin to church Latin did not produce a major change in the language, and almost no change in script. Modern Hebrew is written in virtually the same script as the Great Isaiah Scroll. Even the nature of change that had befallen Egyptian among the Nephites seems to have affected mostly the system of writing. In Mormon 9:32, Moroni says, "we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian..." Even so, there would also have been some change in the language itself, similar to the shift from classical to church Latin. Many other records existed. In Helaman 3:15 we read "But behold, there are many books and many records of every kind, and they have been kept chiefly by the Nephites." By the time of Mosiah, there is a Lamanite language and Nephite languages (Mosiah 9:1: "all the language of the Nephites"). The latter may have included the late Egyptian or early Demotic of the Brass Plates, and already a modified Egyptian in their record-keeping, as well as some regional dialects of Hebrew. Apparently early (classical) Nephite was preferred, the "language of Nephi." Steps are taken to make Nephite the linguistic coin of the realm (Mosiah 24): "4. 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. "6. they taught them that they should keep their record, and that they might write one to another." Perhaps what are termed languages are more properly dialects, since Alma says "I attempt to address you in my language." (Alma 7:1) At this point, the Lamanites "began to increase in riches, and began to trade one with another, and wax great, and began to be a cunning and a wise people, as to the wisdom of the world" (Mosiah 24:7). This trade would require written documents. Communications by sending epistles was very common (Moroni 8:1; Alma 54:14-15; 56:1; 57:1-3; 59:3-4; 60:1; 60:25; 61:1 & 9; 61:19; 3 Nephi 3:1; 3:10; Mormon 3:4; 6:2; Ether 15:4-5; 15:18; and Moroni 8:6). Messages were often sent, and though some may have been delivered orally, others may have been written (Alma 15:4; 43:24; 47:12; & 47:33). Decrees were issued (Alma 23:2). Proclamations were "published throughout all the land" (Alma 22:27; 23:1; 30:57; 47:1; 61:6; Helaman 9:9; 3 Nephi 3:22 Mosiah 2:1; 7:17; & 27:2). The scriptures were sent out to teach the people: "Now behold, all those engravings which were in the possession of Helaman were written and sent forth among the children of men throughout all the land, save it were those parts which had been commanded by Alma should not go forth." (Alma 63:12) A case of book burning (burning of the scriptures) shows that a burnable material was used for copies of sacred writings: "they also brought forth their records which contained the Holy Scriptures, and cast them into the fire also, that they might be burned and destroyed by fire." (Alma 14:8) The Nephite/Lamanite civilization is described as being very advanced, with numerous cities, many of them fortified, kingship, coinage, advanced metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, large armies and a written tradition in two languages. Writing must have been essential to keep inventories, write contracts and conduct business. Indeed, in parts of the ancient Middle East, these mundane applications were the earliest and most common use of writing. Since the account of the Nephites and Lamanites spans a period of over 1,000 years, certainly they would have left written material, in both languages, monumental inscriptions, commemorative inscriptions, signet rings, seal stamps and bullae, texts on jars used in votive offerings, royal and business correspondence, documents (contracts, inventories, marriage and divorce writs, and scriptures), tomb inscriptions and inscribed bone boxes. Some principal cities would have had a royal archive. Apparently, metal plates were a common medium for records in the Book of Mormon. Even if the Hebrew writing system was altered, the alphabet has only twenty-two characters. Its form at the end of the seventh century BCE is known to scholars from inscriptions. If a text in altered Hebrew were to be found, a specialist would readily identify the alphabet, and basic translation would be possible in probably no more than a year. Subtle shifts in the meaning of some words, and neologisms, would provide grist for the scholars' publication mills for many years. It is even now so with Biblical Hebrew, as well as the Qumran corpus and extra-Biblical classical Hebrew inscriptions. The unsealed plates were at least 30% in Old Egyptian (Nephi plus Lehi). Today's egyptologists are quite familiar with it. Even if reformed Egyptian were dug up, in time these texts would be readily recognized as a later form of Egyptian, although its decipherment would be more complex and take longer than reformed Hebrew. Possibly the character set would be larger, and logograms would exist alongside phonological characters. Even so, there is no reason to assume that this challenge would be greater than that faced by Champollion. Above all, minimally, archaeologists should be digging up textual material that is unidentified, i.e. neither Mayan nor Olmec, nor part of the Zapotec/Oaxacan/Aztec systems. In spite of massive archaeological exploration and excavation in the New World, no unidentified writing has been found that could be a candidate for a Nephite or Lamanite text. Some Conclusions When King Benjamin passed the plates to his son Mosiah, he said: 1. The claim is extremely unlikely that the Hebrew scriptures had been collected as a sort of Bible, and translated into Egyptian, by the end of the seventh century BCE. 2. The Book of Mormon shows that Hebrew was the first language of the Nephites, and Egyptian was a written scriptural language. 3. The Book of Mormon states that there were many records of every kind, and correspondence. 4. If the Nephite/Lamanite civilization existed in the Americas without a substrate population and language, or neighbors using other languages, then their Hebrew and Egyptian would have persisted in ideal circumstances to resist change. 5. Such a large and advanced civilization, existing for over 1,000 years in the Americas should have left written artifacts that can be deciphered, or at the very least, there should be unidentified texts that are candidates for ancient Nephite texts. No Nephite or Lamanite written material has ever been found, or any unidentified text that could be a candidate for it. Approaches to the Study of BoM Language Issues Distribution of BOM Personal Names The fact that BoM names consist of some taken from the Bible, and others that are decidedly non-Biblical, provides us with our first approach, without even dealing with the analysis of any individual non-Biblical name. As we shall see later, the first part of the Book of Mormon was initially written with considerable detail, and the rewrite of that important section omitted much of the detail. Thus the events that took place in the portion that dealt with the Middle East are written in a social, cultural and political vacuum, thereby reducing the chance of errors that could be checked. The authors were much more comfortable giving their imaginations greater reign once they had gotten their little band established in the New World, and more so after King Benjamin. The history and cultures there, so long ago, could never be known well enough to prove them wrong, or so they thought. This is reflected in the roster of personal names that populated their narrative. The band of Israelites arriving from Jerusalem obviously had to have Hebrew names. This was best done by drawing heavily from the Bible. As soon as the founding generation had died, they switched to made-up names, to give an exotic expression to a world that is uncharted and unknowable, apart from what one learns in their new bible. Even so, they felt that using such names exclusively for the disciples of Jesus would be just too strange for devout readers. To give a sacred cachet to the story of Jesus in the New World, they used some of the most illustrious names in the Bible associated with their period: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonas, Timothy and Zedekiah. These are joined by the name of their founding hero and prophet, Nephi. The two Christian centuries were followed by apostasy, a reemergence of the Nephite/Lamanite division, and the annihilation of the Nephites. This period is once again dominated by made-up names.