Book of Mormon: a cognate accusative that works only in Hebrew

[Olavarria]

Why not? Jerusalem,Jacob,Joseph all of these start with yod, a "Y" sound.

[krose]

Why not? Jerusalem,Jacob,Joseph all of these start with yod, a "Y" sound.

So your point is that God, as the translator, felt the need to retain orthographic consistency with other English derivations (yod represented as J) when introducing a new name?

Of course the names above were already familiar to Smith. Even so, wouldn't it have been interesting if the spelling of the names that fell from Joseph's mouth had reflected the way they would have actually been pronounced? That would be something if it said Yosef and Yakob and Yershon.

[maklelan]

Thanks.

Do you agree that an English-speaking translator who took a Hebrew name directly from an ancient document would have no reason to represent an initial Y sound with a J?

Well, in the 19th century it still would have been convention to represent it with a /j/. A single modern transliteration standard wouldn't take over for about another century.

[krose]

Well, in the 19th century it still would have been convention to represent it with a /j/. A single modern transliteration standard wouldn't take over for about another century.

I'm not following. Why would a translator who does not know the source language adhere to a convention (presumably unknown to him), rather then spell an unfamiliar name phonetically?

[maklelan]

I'm not following. Why would a translator who does not know the source language adhere to a convention (presumably unknown to him), rather then spell an unfamiliar name phonetically?

People were generally familiar with the convention. The lack of any proper nouns beginning with /y/ in the Bible is conspicuous.

[Olavarria]

So your point is that God, as the translator, felt the need to retain orthographic consistency with other English derivations (yod represented as J) when introducing a new name?

Not exactly.

1)God did not translate the BoM, Joseph did. God gave him the gift to translate but not the translation.

2)I don't think Joseph felt such a need, he probably didn't know such orthographic considerations existed.

Of course the names above were already familiar to Smith. Even so, wouldn't it have been interesting if the spelling of the names that fell from Joseph's mouth had reflected the way they would have actually been pronounced? That would be something if it said Yosef and Yakob and Yershon.

It would have been interesting, but like other biblical translaters he didn't.

[krose]

It would have been interesting, but like other biblical translaters he didn't.

What about Smith and his methods was anything at all like other biblical translators?

[Olavarria]

What about Smith and his methods was anything at all like other biblical translators?

What? Don't all translaters use a seer stone?

[krose]

Not exactly.

1)God did not translate the BoM, Joseph did. God gave him the gift to translate but not the translation.

2)I don't think Joseph felt such a need, he probably didn't know such orthographic considerations existed.

So I take it you adhere to the 'loose' translation method, rather than the method where each word appears on a stone and doesn't disappear until it has been written down correctly.

Either way, this doesn't make sense to me.

Scenario 1 - loose translation: Joseph sees or hears (however it works) a place name pronounced something like "Yershon." He decides to tell the scribe to spell it with a J instead of a Y, because he knows that's the convention for representing Hebrew names that begin with a Y sound, even though it changes the pronunciation of the newly revealed place. He does the same for Joseph, Jacob and Jerusalem, perhaps because he recognizes them as the names he already knows.

Scenario 2 - tight translation: Joseph sees the name "Jershon" displayed on the seer stone, spelled exactly like that, and relays it to the scribe with that spelling. That means God is the one who has adhered to the existing spelling convention, for some reason I can't imagine.

[Olavarria]

So I take it you adhere to the 'loose' translation method, rather than the method where each word appears on a stone and doesn't disappear until it has been written down correctly.

Either way, this doesn't make sense to me.

Scenario 1 - loose translation: Joseph sees or hears (however it works) a place name pronounced something like "Yershon." He decides to tell the scribe to spell it with a J instead of a Y, because he knows that's the convention for representing Hebrew names that begin with a Y sound, even though it changes the pronunciation of the newly revealed place. He does the same for Joseph, Jacob and Jerusalem, perhaps because he recognizes them as the names he already knows.

Scenario 2 - tight translation: Joseph sees the name "Jershon" displayed on the seer stone, spelled exactly like that, and relays it to the scribe with that spelling. That means God is the one who has adhered to the existing spelling convention, for some reason I can't imagine.

I only know 2 things about the translation: 1)Joseph did it using a gift God had given him; and 2) it looked like this:

I really dont know about the whole "loose vs tight" thing. It could have been a combination of both. I don't know how Joseph translated the BoM.

Scenario 1: I doubt seriously doubt Joseph knew about the convention. He didn't know a lick of Hebrew untill the Kirtland years.

Scenario 2: Ya I dunno either. How does this not work?

The whole point in the OP is that:

1) if Y turns to J in Judah and Jerusalem, then the same would have happened to Jershon.

2)It is a cognate accusative in Hebrew but not in English.

How,why,what? Thats another issue.

[Scottie]

Interesting that JS knew all about Hebrew and the nuances enough to know to replace Y with J... as long as it suits the apologetic arguments.

If a critic were to suggest this, there would be all kinds of mocking about the secret library in his barn.

[maklelan]

Interesting that JS knew all about Hebrew and the nuances enough to know to replace Y with J... as long as it suits the apologetic arguments.

It wasn't particularly esoteric knowledge. Every kid who saw Indian Jones and the Last Crusade knows in Latin Jehovah is spelled with an /i/. It's not illogical to assume that a young farm family actively and fully participating in the Second Great Awakening would know the reason no names begin in /y/ in the KJV is because the Hebrew /y/ is written with a /j/.

[Joseph Antley]

It wasn't particularly esoteric knowledge. Every kid who saw Indian Jones and the Last Crusade knows in Latin Jehovah is spelled with an /i/. It's not illogical to assume that a young farm family actively and fully participating in the Second Great Awakening would know the reason no names begin in /y/ in the KJV is because the Hebrew /y/ is written with a /j/.

I think it's a stretch that Joseph would have known that /j/ was written as <j> in the Bible. I consider it extremely unlikely. At best, maybe Joseph's familiarity with the Bible led to him unconsciously avoiding <y> in the Book of Mormon.

And, there's always the whole dictation thing. Was "Jershon" one of the words that Joseph had to spell out or was he reading it? I would guess the latter. If he just read it to the scribe, did he pronounce it as [dZ@r.\San], like we do, or did he pronounce it with a /j/? I would guess he pronounced it like we do.

[Olavarria]

Interesting that JS knew all about Hebrew and the nuances enough to know to replace Y with J... as long as it suits the apologetic arguments.

If a critic were to suggest this, there would be all kinds of mocking about the secret library in his barn.

I dont think Joseph knew about any of the stuff mentioned in the OP

[LeSellers]

I'm not following. Why would a translator who does not know the source language adhere to a convention (presumably unknown to him), rather then spell an unfamiliar name phonetically?

CFR that there was a "convention" for spelling. The blue-backed speller had not effected its majick at the thyme, noar waz thear a nashunal spelling bea in 1825.

However, Joseph was familiar with the Authorized Version of the Bible and it spelled initial yod as "J" in nearly all cases. (It copied this from the Vulgate, as I recall, since, in the XVII, English had not distinguished between /j/ and /y/, much as Spanish does not differentiate between /b/ and /v/ or "B" and "V".)

George Washington pronounced "July" as "youlee". That was only a half century before Joseph translated the Book of Mormon. It seems reasonable that "J" could have represented either /j/ or /y/, or both. English orthography was decidedly idiosyncratic, despite printers' best efforts to standardize it. It remains so even today regardless of there being a century and a half od government-ruin, tax-funded schools' trying to force standardization down our throats. This forum is enough to verify the fact: we see "seperate" and "separate", "it's" "its" (no matter the function of the word in the sentence), and flying apostrophes along with missing apostrophes in the same message, not to mention favorite and unique misspellings for individual posters.

Lehi

[Olavarria]

An evidence for his "following the convention" is that Jerusalem is Jerusalem, Jacob is Jacob etc.If I was going to redo the OP it would look like this:

A cognate accusative is made when the object of a verb has the same root as the verb. For example: â??dreamed a dreamâ? and â??judged a righteous judgmentâ? are both examples of the cognate accusative. In the Book of Mormon, Jershon is used in this construction at least twice.The yod (יִ) in Hebrew is often rendered as "j" in English; for example:Judah (יהוּדָה) and Joseph (יוֹסֵף). Following that convention, Jershon could well be rendered as Yershon. In Hebrew, the verb יִרְשׁוּ(yrshu) can be translated as "inherit"(Psalms 37:9). It can also be translated as "possess"(Obediah 1:20). We should also remember that waw(וַ), when placed before a verb, makes the future tense into past tense and vis versa. With waw(וַ), possess(יִרְשׁוּ) is turned into and possessed(וַיִּרְשׁוּ)(Joshua 19:47). When we keep these Hebrew items in mind, we see a cognate accusative that is visible in Hebrew, but not in English. Alma 27:2424) And now behold, this will we do unto our brethren, that they may inherit(יִרְשׁוּ) the land Jershon;....Alma 27:2626)And it came to pass that it did cause great joy among them. And they went down into the land of Jershon, and took possession(וַיִּרְשׁוּ) of the land of Jershon; and they were called by the Nephites the people of Ammon; therefore they were distinguished by that name ever after.

[krose]

George Washington pronounced "July" as "youlee". That was only a half century before Joseph translated the Book of Mormon. It seems reasonable that "J" could have represented either /j/ or /y/, or both.

Lehi,

You have made this statement before. I'm wondering how you know that Washington pronounced "July" as a German would?

Also, your suggestion is that Smith might have called himself "Yoseph Yunior" when speaking?

[volgadon]

Was hallelujah pronounced halleluDGa?

No, it was pronounced as if with a y.

[LeSellers]

You have made this statement before. I'm wondering how you know that Washington pronounced "July" as a German would?

I wrote a long response to this, but Firefox crashed while I was doing some research on it.

When I studied the history of the English language, one of my source texts made this point. There is little or no chance I can find the exact citation. However, the fact is that English phonology has shifted dramatically over the past centuries, and that the letter "J" did represent both its modern sound and the "Y" sound.

Also, your suggestion is that Smith might have called himself "Yoseph Yunior" when speaking?

I did not suggest any such thing.

Lehi

[krose]

I wrote a long response to this, but Firefox crashed while I was doing some research on it.

When I studied the history of the English language, one of my source texts made this point. There is little or no chance I can find the exact citation. However, the fact is that English phonology has shifted dramatically over the past centuries, and that the letter "J" did represent both its modern sound and the "Y" sound.

That's too bad. Of course I know the pronunciation shifted, but my understanding is that this shift took place at least a century or two before that. I tried to access a "pronouncing dictionary" from 1813, but was unsuccessful.

I did not suggest any such thing.

Okay. But you said it "seems reasonable" that J could have been pronounced either way in Smith's day, did you not?

[LeSellers]

you said it "seems reasonable" that J could have been pronounced either way in Smith's day, did you not?

We do the same thing today, albeit not as frequently with "J" as /y/.

We have "hallelujah" as a prime example. In Britain, the country was "Jugoslavia". We wrote it "Yugoslavia".

Lehi

[krose]

We do the same thing today, albeit not as frequently with "J" as /y/.

We have "hallelujah" as a prime example. In Britain, the country was "Jugoslavia". We wrote it "Yugoslavia".

Okay... now you're talking about certain borrowed words where the original pronunciation was easy to retain. Sometimes we keep it and sometimes we don't. It reminds me of how everyone gets one Spanish golfer's name right because that's how they learned it initially (Olazabal = Olathabal), yet they blow it on other Spaniards in sports (golfer Garcia isn't Garthia, and basketball's Lopez isn't Lopeth).

Don't forget, we also have "jalape

[Natasha]

Wait... didn't Mormon abridge Alma's words? Do you believe Mormon knew the nuances of Hebrew hundreds of years after they were cut off??

Indeed he dee diddly did, neighbor! Or, not. Who knows? Maybe Homer S. knows.

[Natasha]

That's too bad. Of course I know the pronunciation shifted, but my understanding is that this shift took place at least a century or two before that. I tried to access a "pronouncing dictionary" from 1813, but was unsuccessful.

Okay. But you said it "seems reasonable" that J could have been pronounced either way in Smith's day, did you not?

I am going to take a Boris Badinov stab at this one, dahling.

The English language is greatly infused with the echo of Latin, in its metaphorical veins. I think it is the Latin that even has "Iesu" and "Jesu" being pronounced the same way: it seems that, originally, the capital "J" was just a capital "I" with a long tail, on it. (And, with no change in pronunciation).

But, I would also echo the concern of another poster who didn't quite see how a Hebraic cognate accusative would have fit within a Reformed Egyptian language context.

[Natasha]

Was hallelujah pronounced halleluDGa?

No, it was pronounced as if with a y.

Perhaps, if the person were from Lodz, Poland, if would indeed sound like "Hall-lay-lude-Ga" (with the "g" sound of "go"). Good Polish, to me!