“Characters Which Are Called Among Us the Reformed Egyptian”

Bryan Richards

When we think of the language of the ancient Egypt, we immediately think of their hieroglyphic style of writing. In this style, pictures are used to tell the story (see Facsimile No. 2 & 3). Was the language of the Book of Mormon a modification of a hieroglyphic language? Certainly not. There was another type of Egyptian writing which was used among the merchants of Lehi’s day. This was called the demotic form. Sidney B. Sperry noted, “This was a very rapid or shortened form of hieratic used in the books and the documents written from about 700 B.C. to A. D. 470. During much of this period demotic was the ordinary writing of daily life, but is occasionally found chiseled even upon stone. From the dates given, it will be apparent that if Lehi and Nephi knew Egyptian they may have been familiar with this very shortened form of Egyptian.” (Milton R. Hunter, Pearl of Great Price Commentary, p. 21) Hugh Nibley stated that this form of “Egyptian could be written in less space than Hebrew because in Lehi’s day demotic was actually a shorthand, extremely cramped and abbreviated; and it was…peculiarly adapted to the sounds and thought processes of one language…Egyptian.” (Lehi in the Desert and The World of the Jaredites, p. 14,16) A modification of this “demotic” style is likely the language of the Book of Mormon.

Hugh Nibley

"The world has always cast a superior and mocking eye on the inordinate concern of the Book of Mormon for things Egyptian. With surprise and incredulity it is now learning that Egyptian culture counted for far more in Palestine in 600 B.C. than anyone had ever supposed. It is significant that the Book of Mormon concern with Egypt is strictly cultural—it never mentions Pharaoh or speaks of Egyptian government, but only of Egyptian culture and especially language. It makes it perfectly clear, however, that Egyptian was for Lehi a second language, ’for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children’ (Mosiah 1:4). We have seen that Egyptian was taught to ’Ethiopians, Syrians, and all other foreigners‘ in Lehi’s day. Moroni tells us (Mormon 9:32-33) that the language of Lehi’s descendants was not Hebrew or Egyptian but a mixture of both, both being corrupted in the process, so that ’none other people knoweth our language,’ which would certainly not have been the case had they spoken only Hebrew.
“…Did the wealthy Lehi…command his sons to learn Egyptian so they could save space when they kept records? Of course not: when they learned the language, neither Lehi nor his sons had any idea that some day it would be useful to keepers of records on metal plates. They had no other reason for learning Egyptian characters than to read and write Egyptian. It was only later when historians became cramped for space that they saw the advantage of continuing to write in Egyptian. And the Egyptian characters can only have been preserved for their use because the language was also preserved.” (Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert and The World of the Jaredites, pp. 16-17)

GospelDoctrine.Com

References