145 replies to this topic

[calmoriah]

boblloyd91, on 27 April 2012 - 02:00 PM, said:

I will mention again that Brian Stubbs did an interesting paper on some connections between Hebrew, Egyptian, and Uto-Aztecan language (I hope I said that right!)

http://www.fairlds.o...rian-Stubbs.pdf

[Tepui]

cinepro, on 27 April 2012 - 12:44 PM, said:

Did the Shoshone have written records?  Otherwise, we have to theorize that they preserved the name "Lehi" through 1400 years of oral tradition.  If this sub-chief "Lehi" is the only record we have of any Shoshone with that name, then not only do we have to theorize that it was preserved orally, but that they weren't actually using it.

Or we can theorize that the name was picked up from the contemporary Mormon culture somehow.  Without more information about his life and the origin of his name (for example, where did the original source for the story about the battle get this name?), it's hard for me to look at this as having anything to do with ancient Book of Mormon peoples.

Personally, the "contemporary culture" theory seems much more likely to me.  But I'm willing to accept that it might just be me  

Also what Brant and Benjamin McGuire said.

Give me a break....

Did the Maya have written records? Yes. Then we have to theorize that the name Lehi existed among them for 1400 years, when it didn't. If Lamanai is the only record we have among the Maya of a similar sounding Book of Mormon name, then we can theorize that the Nephites dwelt among the Maya - from contemporary Mormon culture somehow - even when Lamanai means submerged crocodile. Despite the information we have of the origin and life of the Maya where did the original Maya names come from? It's hard for me to me to look to the Maya as having anything to do with ancient Book of Mormon peoples.

Personally, the "contemporary culture" theory seems much more likely to me.  But I'm willing to accept that it might just be me.

[Brant Gardner]

Log, on 27 April 2012 - 08:35 AM, said:

Brant - do you know whether or not the name of the Shoshone sub-chief Lehi was an example of a false cognate?

With as little information as I have seen, I would have to say that it is likely. However, making certain either way would involve much more work in historical linguistics of Shoshone.

That, of course, is the answer for any apparent cognate. It isn't accepted without a lot of work to make sure that it is, or is not, a cognate.

As for the argument that Lamanai would be a play on words, that is an interesting explanation for why an otherwise false cognate might have a connection. However, it is such a strained connection that without any other solid reason to propose it, the better answer is false cognate. In this case, we would have to assume that a people identified themselves with a Nephite exonym (which had pejorative connotations), or that there was an unattested use of Lamanite as a demonym for the people that the Nephites called Lamanites. Then we have to assume that the city of Lamanai had any connection to Book of Mormon peoples. It is too far from the best geography for that to be plausible.

[mfbukowski]

Tepui
Mark Wright posts here as "Hashbaz".

mfbukowski, on 22 August 2011 - 07:39 AM, said:

It really did change my perspective on the BOM considerably- so as I understand you, you see the Nephites as perhaps a culture integrated into the larger sphere of Mayan culture perhaps almost as we LDS are integrated into our respective international cultures- the "Lamanites" being those we might see as "in the world"- kind of an "us v.s. them" perspective?

Did I get that part close to right?

Hashbaz, on 22 August 2011 - 12:12 PM, said:

Yep, that's a pretty good summary of how I see it.

Edited by mfbukowski, 27 April 2012 - 08:35 PM.

[cdowis]

Brant Gardner, on 27 April 2012 - 06:41 PM, said:

As for the argument that Lamanai would be a play on words, that is an interesting explanation for why an otherwise false cognate might have a connection. However, it is such a strained connection that without any other solid reason to propose it, the better answer is false cognate. In this case, we would have to assume that a people identified themselves with a Nephite exonym (which had pejorative connotations), or that there was an unattested use of Lamanite as a demonym for the people that the Nephites called Lamanites. Then we have to assume that the city of Lamanai had any connection to Book of Mormon peoples. It is too far from the best geography for that to be plausible.

Brant,

Your argument just doesn't make sense to me, but maybe I am too dumb to see it.  I guess you assume thate the use of highly technical terms somehow strenghtens your argument, but I am not impressed.

Anyway, the antis favorite argument is that "it is just another coincidence" and any archeological evidence for the BOM would and could fall into that category.  Sheum, for example, falls under that category.

Edited by cdowis, 28 April 2012 - 08:02 AM.

[Brant Gardner]

cdowis, on 28 April 2012 - 07:57 AM, said:

Your argument just doesn't make sense to me

Understood. If it did make sense, we might agree.

Quote

Anyway, the antis favorite argument is that "it is just another coincidence"

Thank you for placing me in the same category as an anti. Actually, I don't like that association.

I prefer to be in the category of people who prefer solid evidence rather than any thin strand.

Quote

and any archeological evidence for the BOM would and could fall into that category.

Archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon that comes from the same quick and incomplete comparison certainly falls into that category. That doesn't mean that all of it does. However, there is certainly a lot that is more coincidence than connection. Izapa stela 5 comes to mind immediately.

Quote

Sheum, for example, falls under that category.

Perhaps unsurpisingly, I am not fond of this one either. I have a difficult time understanding why Akkadian would cross the ocean and persist as a name for a New World grain that would have already had a different name. Maybe Hebrew, maybe Egyptian. I can see possible arguments for either of those. But Akkadian?

Feels like coincidence to me. I certainly couldn't defend it as anything more.

[Brant Gardner]

Further to the problem of coincidences. Several years ago, Chinese scholar Mike Xu announced that he had found archaeo-Chinese characters on the back of an Olmec celt. That was big news. He knew his stuff, and the characters he showed really looked like representations he gave of what the characters would have been.

Then it was found that the celt had been separated from a larger stone and made into three separate celts. There had been a large engraved picture on the back of the original, and Xu was interpreting the left over pieces of a larger picture.

The evidence really looked good, but was simply a remarkable coincidence and it was obvious with the discovery of the larger picture that the scratches were not Chinese characters at all. A truly remarkable coincidence, but only that.

[CA Steve]

I am a little unclear about all this. We are dealing with current English translations of Indian names from their language that sound similar in English to the English translations of names in the Book Of Mormon which was written in refromed Egyptian on the plates Joseph Smith had. Without knowing what reformed Egyptian sounded like how do know the current Indain language sounds are acutally similar to reformed Egyptian sounds?

[altersteve]

CA Steve, on 28 April 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

I am a little unclear about all this. We are dealing with current English translations of Indian names from their language that sound similar in English to the English translations of names in the Book Of Mormon which was written in refromed Egyptian on the plates Joseph Smith had. Without knowing what reformed Egyptian sounded like how do know the current Indain language sounds are acutally similar to reformed Egyptian sounds?

From what I understand, reformed Egyptian was only a written language, not a spoken one.

[CA Steve]

altersteve, on 28 April 2012 - 01:41 PM, said:

From what I understand, reformed Egyptian was only a written language, not a spoken one.

Well it would have to represent a sound in another language then (Hebrew?). So we start with Hebrew--->Reformed Egyptian-->English  to English-->Shoshone. So the fact the the two Englsh names that meet in the middle sound similar is evidence of something?

[Robert F. Smith]

Brant Gardner, on 28 April 2012 - 08:12 AM, said:

I prefer to be in the category of people who prefer solid evidence rather than any thin strand.

Archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon that comes from the same quick and incomplete comparison certainly falls into that category. That doesn't mean that all of it does. However, there is certainly a lot that is more coincidence than connection. Izapa stela 5 comes to mind immediately.

Perhaps unsurpisingly, I am not fond of this one either [sheum]. I have a difficult time understanding why Akkadian would cross the ocean and persist as a name for a New World grain that would have already had a different name. Maybe Hebrew, maybe Egyptian. I can see possible arguments for either of those. But Akkadian?

Feels like coincidence to me. I certainly couldn't defend it as anything more.

It might be well to recall that sheum appears in a list of food plants iin Mosiah 9:9.  I was quite surprised to see it in a cuneiform list of words and signs in Jerusalem in 1969.  I suppose that it could be sheer coincidence, but my systematic comparison runs as follows:

Old Akkadian šeʼum “barley; grain; cereal; pine nut (pignolia); grain-measure.”  Akkadian šeʼu “grain” can appear in parallel with uṭṭatu “barley.”  Based on the nominative singular case-ending in -um, and the fact that še’u was often read as uṭṭatu, unṭatu (= Hebrew ḥiṭṭâ), or ú /u₂ (u-um) in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times, and with the mimated ending disappearing in the 2^nd millennium B.C. (so possibly with Book of Mormon Zeram as Akkadian zērum “seed”), we are likely dealing with transmission of a Jaredite word frozen in an early form, i.e., Egyptian scribes writing in Akkadian cuneiform for example, employed “habitual spellings” with mimation as well as “frozen” ideograms in late times, so this should prove to be no problem for use by Israelite scribes writing in Egyptian (including Lehi & Nephi).

If such a Sumero-Akkadian cultural background applies to the Jaredites, then we should not be surprised to find other linguistic hints such as the following suggested etymologies of Jaredite names:
Amnigaddah – hypothetical Sumerian *AM-NA-GADA “who-is-a-herdsman”; from Sumerian AM₃ “who is, which is; as/like”; NA-GADA “herdsman”(Akkadian nāqidu = Hebrew nōqēd).
Coriantumr – hypothetical Sumerian *KUR.I.AN.TIMER “Heavenly-mountain-god” (with Sumerian KUR “great; mountain; land” [as in KUR.GAL “great-mountain; Land; name of pilot of Ark (in Flood Story)],” and northern Emesal dialect of DINGIR “god,”i.e., the theophoric epithet (name) ending in AN.DINGER / AN.DIMMER “Great-Heaven-God” which appears in many theophoric personal names and titles, as in Sumerian LUGAL.DIM(M)ER.AN.KIA “King of the gods of heaven and earth.”
Corom – Possibly same as Sumerian name KURUM, 4^th dynasty king of Uruk (Erech), ca. 2145 B.C., likely from KÚRUM₇, GÚ-RU-UM, KUR₇, KURU₇  “judge; inspect; decide, pass sentence; lookout, spy” = Akkadian pa-qá-du-um.  Compare also Akkadian kurum III “Ein Stück vom Stamm, tree trunk.”
Emer – possibly same source as cuneiform toponym Emār, Imār (modern Meskene), e-ma-ri-tum, kār ^urue-mar^ki, ì-mar^ki, 3^rd & 2^nd millennium B.C. city on the great westward bend of the Euphrates in Syria, northeast of Tuttul & Mari.
Gilgah – Possibly Sumerian GIL-GA “father,” as in name of the epic hero Gilgamesh “The-old-man-is-a-young-man, The father is a young man”?  Or hypothetical Sumerian *GIL.ĜA “slay many”?
Shim – Sumerian šim, šem “herb; wood; resin; spice; perfume.”
Shule – perhaps Sumerian šul “youth, young man; be manly,” as in the Ur III name šul-gi.  Note that Orson Pratt considered the final -e to be silent in his 1869 Deseret Alphabet edition spelling, ʃɪul = šĭûl.
Shurr – Akkadian šur, šarru “king.”

[altersteve]

CA Steve, on 28 April 2012 - 02:03 PM, said:

Well it would have to represent a sound in another language then (Hebrew?).

I don't think so. I would only have to represent the meaning, not the sound.

I'm not an expert on this topic, though, so if I'm just spouting off a bunch of crap, feel free to ignore me.

[Brant Gardner]

Robert F. Smith, on 28 April 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

. . .  I suppose that it could be sheer coincidence, but my systematic comparison runs as follows:

And that kind of context makes all the difference. A single word correspondence can be random. Sets of them that relate to the same culture create a better case. I hadn't seen your other possibilities before. Very interesting.

[Robert F. Smith]

Olavarria, on 26 April 2012 - 09:13 PM, said:

I'm more impressed by:

Nephi

Jershon

Zarahemla

Those are nice suggestions, but some of the best are actually etymologized in the text of the Book of Mormon:

Rabbanah – title of king, “which is, being interpreted, ‘powerful’ or ‘great king’” (Alma 18:13).  In very late Jewish antiquity, Rabbana became an honorific title for the heads of the central academy, or of the Sanhedrin after Hillel, including Simeon ben Gamliel III (Encyclopedia Judaica, IV:1163).  It was the title of Rab Ashi, the most celebrated amora of his day and head of the Sura Academy, living ca. 335 - 427/428 C.E. (EJ, III:709).  The exilarchs and scholars of their families were called “Mar” or “Rabbana” (EJ, II:873).  John Tvedtnes points out that RABBANAH here corresponds to Rabunu “Our-Master/Great-One,” in Medieval Hebrew in Bet ha-Midrasch, ¶ 29,[1] and to Rabonni in John 20:16 (Greek transliteration Rabbouni).  From the same Semitic root as Akkadian rabu “great.”[2]  Hirsch Miller’s Hebrew translation of the Book of Mormon renders it simply as Rabbēnû.

Rameumptom – "Holy-Stand; a place of standing which was high above the head" (Alma 31:13,21,23).  Probably from Hebrew rām “high,” and ‛omed “stand” with 3^rd plural pronominal suffix -am “them, their” attached, making hypothetical Hebrew *rame-‘omedam "Their-high-standing-place" (cf. II Ne 20:33 ǁIsa 10:33; Neh 8:7, 9:3, 13:11) very attractive.  What makes it even more convincing is that the prayer said by the Zoramites standing on the rameumptom is the equivalent of the Jewish 'Amida "Standing" prayer.  Moreover, Muslims on Hajj, "pilgrimage," likewise stand on the Plain of Arafat with arms raised praying for repentance (Arabic ʿumdan “standing”).

[1] A. Jellinek, ed., “The Story of Abraham Our Father from What Happened to Him with Nimrod,” and “A Study (Midrash) of Abraham Our Father,” in Bet ha-Midrasch, I:25-34, V:40-41, English translation in Tvedtnes, Hauglid & Gee, eds., Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham, 173 (n. 15), and 179 (n. 9).

[2] W. von Soden, AHw, 483.63.

Edited by Robert F. Smith, 28 April 2012 - 04:00 PM.

[volgadon]

Quote

John Tvedtnes points out that RABBANAH here corresponds to Rabunu “Our-Master/Great-One,” in Medieval Hebrew in Bet ha-Midrasch, ¶ 29,[1]

Perhaps I missed it, but I was only able to find Ribono shel Olam.

[cinepro]

CA Steve, on 28 April 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

I am a little unclear about all this. We are dealing with current English translations of Indian names from their language that sound similar in English to the English translations of names in the Book Of Mormon which was written in refromed Egyptian on the plates Joseph Smith had. Without knowing what reformed Egyptian sounded like how do know the current Indain language sounds are acutally similar to reformed Egyptian sounds?

I believe this was included on the last set of plates.

[Robert F. Smith]

volgadon, on 28 April 2012 - 04:55 PM, said:

Perhaps I missed it, but I was only able to find Ribono shel Olam.

Quite right, volgadon,
With all the years he spent in Jerusalem, Tvedtnes should have known that, and I should have caught it in any case.  Thanks, buddy.

[cinepro]

And as I always say in conversations like this, while it's interesting to find connections between old world languages and the Book of Mormon, it seems logical to me that sometime in the 1,000 year history of the Nephites and Lamanites we might start seeing an infusion of new world names and words.

Just saying it would be awesome to see someone named"Ixzaluoh" pop up by Alma or Helaman.

[Robert F. Smith]

cinepro, on 28 April 2012 - 05:20 PM, said:

And as I always say in conversations like this, while it's interesting to find connections between old world languages and the Book of Mormon, it seems logical to me that sometime in the 1,000 year history of the Nephites and Lamanites we might start seeing an infusion of new world names and words.

Just saying it would be awesome to see someone named"Ixzaluoh" pop up by Alma or Helaman.

The only problem with that is that the Nahuatl peoples (Uto-Aztecans) did not arrive in Mexico until the post-Classic, after the end of the Book of Mormon period.  In addition, the region in which Book of Mormon peoples lived was in the Isthmus and highland Guatemala area, although there was some outmigration northward and there must have been a good deal of trade contact.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

And of course there's also the fact that names are among the most conservative parts of cultures -- yes, spanning thousands of years. I was born in Hawaii, but I've got José Orbe in my name because none of my relatives were descended from the culture which gave people names such as Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole.

Edited by JeremyOrbe-Smith, 28 April 2012 - 05:39 PM.