New Linguistic Breakthrough Revealing the Original Language of the Book of Mormon

[Nofear]

John Gee discusses how a linguistic pattern shows up in the Book of Mormon that is present in Egyptian but not a construction typically used in English or Hebrew. TLDW: You can skip to the 23:50 mark for the conclusion and summary.
 

 

[smac97]

Saw this yesterday.  Thank you for sharing.  A Grok summary (of the video's transcript) :

Quote

Main Thesis

New linguistic evidence, building on Stanford Carmack’s March 2026 research into the Book of Mormon’s Early Modern English, strongly suggests the original language of the Nephite record was Egyptian (both grammar/syntax and script), not Hebrew grammar written in Egyptian characters. This aligns with Nephi’s opening statement about writing “in the language of the Egyptians.”

Background on the Longstanding Debate

• Nephi 1:1–2 describes the record as using “the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.”
• Moroni later calls the evolved script “reformed Egyptian.”
• Past proposals split between:
  • Hebrew language/grammar + Egyptian script.
  • Egyptian language.
• Many proposed “Hebraisms” (e.g., “and it came to pass,” repeated possessive pronouns, construct phrases like “plates of brass,” parallelism, conditional “and” clauses, etc.) also exist in Egyptian.
• Some “Egyptianisms” (e.g., “stretch forth the arm,” “swell the heart” for joy) also appear in Hebrew or broader Near Eastern usage.
• This overlap made it hard to distinguish the underlying language.
• The Book of Mormon’s English is archaic Early Modern English (roughly 1500–1550), not Joseph Smith’s 19th-century style, which complicates identifying true Hebraisms vs. translation artifacts.

The New Evidence: Causative Constructions

Stanford Carmack identified an unusual causative form that is:

• Frequent in the Book of Mormon (hundreds of examples).
• Rare in Early Modern English and virtually nonexistent by Joseph Smith’s time.
• Not characteristic of Hebrew (Hebrew typically uses morphological causatives like the Hiphil stem, changing the verb itself).
• A well-attested feature of Egyptian grammar: the verb rdỉ (“to give, cause, allow”) + a conjugated finite verb (often subjunctive). Example structure: “caused that [they] [did something].”

Book of Mormon examples:

• “I caused that they should hide themselves…”
• “He can cause the earth that it shall pass away…”
• “Wilt thou make me that I may shake…”

This matches Egyptian usage from Lehi’s era (examples cited from ~686 BC and ~609 BC), including cases with two subjects/objects.

Implications

• This is the clearest linguistic marker yet favoring Egyptian language + Egyptian characters (likely Palestinian hieratic used in ancient Israel) over a Hebrew-Egyptian hybrid.
• It explains Moroni’s comment that writing in Hebrew would have allowed better expression — implying they were constrained by Egyptian grammar.
• It fits the space-saving nature of Egyptian script (one character can represent multiple consonants).
• The brass plates were also in Egyptian, which Lehi could read.
• Later “reformed Egyptian” preserved some of these older Egyptian grammatical features.
• Metal plates were used in antiquity for covenant texts, laws, genealogies, etc., supporting the practicality of lengthy records.

Drs. Gee and Thompson conclude that Nephi was speaking literally: the record was made in the Egyptian language. This finding comes from serious analysis of the text’s English translation and adds another layer of ancient authenticity to the Book of Mormon as linguistic scholarship advances.

The video positions this as “breaking news” in Book of Mormon studies, crediting Carmack’s textual work and Gee’s expertise in Egyptology and Hebrew.

So much to study these days...

Thanks,

-Smac