Sounds As Ciphers, Or As Double Ciphers?

[Zeta-Flux]

Wade suggested I move this question to a new thread, to avoid cluttering another one. So here is my post (concerning the "sounds" given to characters in the EA and GAEL):

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Will and Wade,

Thank you for your replies. These were some things I hadn't thought about.

To answer Wade's question about specifics: Admittedly, this is not a well thought out line of thought, and I don't have ready access to the documents (as I am an armchair apologist, at least regarding the Egyptian stuff), so please bear that in mind. So here goes. I like William's theory about the Egyptian papers being attempts at the formation of a code. (I'm also a mathematician after all.) But I was wondering if there might be some aspects of the documents which are a further revelation on some of the Abrahamic text. For example, there are certain words given to figures in the Facsimiles (like Kli-flos-is-es) which might be expanded in the GAEL or EA. I was wondering if these words ever correspond to the sounds given, or are they always part of "meanings" but never "sounds"?

Also, are there times when the pattern that Will mentioned is not clearly followed? If so, how often, and do either of you see a reason for this departure? Straightforward progressions, as the ones presented by Will, are indeed a facet of some ciphers. But if there is something they (meaning the creators of the ciphers) would really want to keep secret, they might depart from the usual pattern.

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For some context, here is William's post (which he later clarified, to say that these were the only examples of such a phenomenon he was aware of):

Here is an example of how the sounds have been produced using a completely arbitrary method. The method consists of taking a base sound, and then using the English vowels, in the order you learn them in grammar school (a,e,i,o,u), to produce a series of sounds:

Albeth (represents the “base” sound of the group)

Alkabeth (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “a’)

Alkebeth (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “e’)

Alkibeth (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “i’)

Alkobeth (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “o’)

Alkubeth (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “u’)

Baeth (represents the “base” sound of the group)

Baethka (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “a’)

Baethkee (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “e’)

Baethki (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “i’)

Baethko (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “o’)

Baethku (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “u’)

Beth (the “base” sound of the group)

Bethka (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “a’)

Bethke (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “e’)

Bethki (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “i’)

Bethko (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “o’)

Bethku (a syllable is added to the base sound of the group, using “u’)

I thought you might find that interesting.

ETA: These sounds all appear in order in the EA documents, assigned to characters that are not Egyptian and that cannot be found on the papyri (although some of the characters are basic enough in terms of their shape that I'm sure "George Miller" will succeed in slicing and dicing some unsuspecting bona fide Egyptian character in order to manufacture them and then claim that they are Egyptian after all. This remains to be seen, since "George" refuses to produce his "evidence" at this time.

The first group above (not counting the "base" sound) is assigned to the characters that Phelps used in his letter to his wife in May 1835--although these are not the same sounds he used in the letter to his wife, just the same characters.

Edited October 30, 2011 by Zeta-Flux

[William Schryver]

Zeta,

I replied a little in the other thread, but I will also add in this thread that the more I examine the EAGAEL, the less inclined I am to describe what they were doing as "encoding" something. Indeed, I never suggested that, if you examine the text of my 2010 presentation.The thing has characteristics consistent with our conception of a substitution cipher. But they regard what they are doing as "translating." So that must, to some extent, factor into our thinking about what they were doing.

I think the presence of the sounds reinforces our sense of what direction the EAGAEL is taking us--from a pre-existing text of the Book of Abraham to something else. I am, however, not certain yet exactly how to look at that "something else."

I honestly hope that others will begin to bring their minds to bear upon that question.

Edited October 30, 2011 by William Schryver

[William Schryver]

I have mentioned frequently that I believe the so-called "cipher portion" of my 2010 presentation has been widely misunderstood. In the first place, my primary thesis, my "essential elements of understanding" was always that the EA/GAEL was based on a pre-existing text of the Book of Abraham, as well as others of Joseph Smith's previously received revelations, as I demonstrated (D&C 76 and 88 in particular).

I want to quote from my 2010 presentation:

Again, the evidence strongly suggests that the Alphabet and Grammar was never intended nor designed to “decipher” anything! Quite to the contrary, it was a short-lived attempt to construct an ideographic cipher and lexicon whereby those who produced it took selections of Joseph Smith’s body of revelatory texts, written in English, and assigned to them simple character values. In their minds, the capacity of a single character to represent a word, or a sentence, or even an entire paragraph of over a hundred words, was typical of what they believed to have been the “pure language” of the ancients.

Don’t misunderstand, I have encountered no evidence to date that they believed they were actually restoring the language of Adam, although it is possible they believed that some of the characters they produced had come to them through inspiration. No, it appears they were merely producing their own rendition of what they believed “pure language” would be like.

The point is that deciphering Egyptian scrolls was not their purpose. The kind of translation they were attempting ran in the other direction.

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Simply put, the evidence strongly suggests that these documents were never designed as a tool to translate the Book of Abraham. Joseph Smith did that by revelation. Rather, the Alphabet, Grammar, and Counting documents appear to have been intended to render the English text of the Prophet’s revelations into some kind of cipher that these men apparently believed to be typical of language as practiced by “the ancients.”

Not that they would have called it a cipher.

No, I believe the term they would have used to describe what they were doing is “translation”—not of Egyptian papyri, mind you, but of already written English texts—into a set of characters of their own selection and invention.

Mortal Man would have us believe that these men were entirely focused on the papyri. I think the evidence is such that it strongly disputes that perspective. What they were doing with the EA/GAEL goes far beyond the Egyptian language and Egyptian papyri.

There is still much to be explained about what they were doing, but I believe it must be understood in the context of what the term "pure language" meant to these men, and in future, I will endeavor to minimize my use of the word "cipher" in relation to these things because I think it only serves to perpetuate the misunderstanding that has prevailed since my 2010 presentation.

Edited October 30, 2011 by William Schryver

[Zeta-Flux]

Will,

Thanks for your clarification. If I'm remembering part of your presentation, one of the people involved in this effort had used some of the same symbols in a previous letter, but with different meanings. Was he attempting to "translate" (for lack of a better word) at that time also?

Edited October 30, 2011 by Zeta-Flux

[William Schryver]

Will,

Thanks for your clarification. If I'm remembering part of your presentation, one of the people involved in this effort had used some of the same symbols in a previous letter, but with different meanings. Was he attempting to "translate" (for lack of a better word) at that time also?

It was Phelps, in a letter to his wife on May 27, 1835, several weeks before the arrival of the papyri in Kirtland.

Here is the relevant portion of that letter, and the corresponding part of EA-WP where the same characters are used, but with different sounds and different explanations.

It appears to me that Phelps had already established a "template" for this kind of "pure language translating" before the Egyptian materials ever arrived in Kirtland.

ETA: Phelps claimed, as I recall, to have mastered 14 languages. A careful review of his attempts to demonstrate his linguistic abilities reveals that he was, quite frankly, a humbug.

Edited October 30, 2011 by William Schryver

[Zeta-Flux]

Thank you. It is interesting to me that one of your three examples of straightforward vowel-progression happens with these specific characters. Do these characters happen near the beginning of the July 1835 Egyptian Alphabet document?

I hope Wade might wade into the discussion, as I know he has some theories about the sounds.

Edited October 30, 2011 by Zeta-Flux

[William Schryver]

Thank you. It is interesting to me that one of your three examples of straightforward vowel-progression happens with these specific characters. Do these characters happen near the beginning of the July 1835 Egyptian Alphabet document?

I hope Wade might wade into the discussion, as I know he has some theories about the sounds.

The characters from the May 1835 Phelps letter are, in the July 1835 Egyptian Alphabet document, characters 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31. So they are more or less right in the middle of the 69 that were given explanations. The first 65 characters listed in the EA documents are given sounds and explanations. The remaining 4 characters given sounds and explanations are selected from the 71 characters on the subsequent pages. There are 136 total characters in the EA documents.

Edited October 30, 2011 by William Schryver

[wenglund]

Sorry for the delay in responding but I just now located the thread in which I discuss the KEP sounds. It is available here:

To be clear, my research of the sounds thus far has been focused on the Joseph Smith Egyptian Papers, and not on the Book of Abraham (which, as others have pointed out, contains relatively few sounds that correspond with the EA/GAEL)

As for whether the sounds may have been intended as ciphers, since ciphers are essentially languages, I suppose it is quite possible. Certainly, the presence of sounds makes it possible to securely convey messages orally between parties that are familiar with the language, and if desired keep the message secret/sacred from those not acquainted with the language. The sounds may also be a more efficient way to convey written message than the use of strange characters, particularly when using typesets.

What raises questions in my mind about the sounds being intended as a cipher, is that there isn't a strong correlation between the parts of the sounds (the phonemes) and the English explanations, and even less of a correlation between the sounds and the associated characters. This means that in order for the EA/GAEL sounds to act as a cipher, the EA/GAEL, itself, would have to function like a code book, where each sound has a corresponding ciphertext.

But, that may just be how things look on the surface. Who knows what may be discovered through more in-depth analysis.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[William Schryver]

Zeta,

I have made reference, several times, to my Analysis by Character study--the primary study upon which my 2010 presentation was based. Just so that you can get a feel for the nature of that study, I have uploaded to my Google Docs site a couple sample pages (prepared last year) from the study. I have since been adding to the study, and it remains a work "in progress" (now over 100 pages in length), This should give you an idea of what I'm talking about when I make reference to it. It lists, in order, each of the 69 characters given explanations in the EA/GAEL, with images of each of the characters (in some cases, up to 10 separate images (IIRC); the sounds for each character (transcribed from each instance); full transcriptions of the explanations (again, transcribed from each instance of the character, or its "compound"); and the corresponding text from the Book of Abraham (and other sources, such as D&C 76 and D&C 88) to which the explanations make reference, and superscripts that link the EA/GAEL explanations to the text upon which those explanations attest a dependency.

Analysis by Character Study - Sample Pages

Edited October 30, 2011 by William Schryver

[wenglund]

Since the other thread was closed, and since this applies here:

By the way, "Katumin" does not appear in any of the EA/GAEL explanations.

Neither does Abram, and Abraham doesn't appear in the explanation for Ah brah-oam. However, I think Chris is conjecturing that the sounds in these cases are also names. Katumin (or Kah-tou-mun) is "the name of the royal family." And, Ah Broam (Abram) is the name of "the father of the faithful," whereas Ah Bra-oam (Abraham) is the name of the "father of many nations."

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Zeta-Flux]

William,

That looks to be quite a project.

To make sure I'm reading you correctly, one of the reasons that you see the relationship going from the BoA -> EA/GAEL is because of the dependency on of the EA/GAEL on other pre-existing texts (such as the D&C sections you mentioned). Is that right?

On the topic of this thread, do you see any pattern in how sounds were associated with either the characters or their meanings? Did the authors of the documents occassionally use something they learned in their Hebrew classes, for example?

[Chris Smith]

Neither does Abram, and Abraham doesn't appear in the explanation for Ah brah-oam.

IIRC, Abram does appear in the handwritten manuscripts.

However, I think Chris is conjecturing that the sounds in these cases are also names. Katumin (or Kah-tou-mun) is "the name of the royal family." And, Ah Broam (Abram) is the name of "the father of the faithful," whereas Ah Bra-oam (Abraham) is the name of the "father of many nations."

Right. And although Katumin doesn't appear in the BoA, it does occur in Joseph's translation of the mummies' "epitaphs".

[William Schryver]

William,

That looks to be quite a project.

It started out small, and continued to grow, kind of like Jack's beanstalk. It started out as a way to organize things so I could make sense of them. Then I realized that it could really serve as a tool to come to understand the documents. And that's exactly what it has become. Very much so. I have learned more about the EA/GAEL from that document than from any other single thing I have done. I really believe that one of the great obstacles to people getting into this research is that the source documents themselves are such a disorganized mess. My Analysis by Character brings organization to the source documents in a way nothing else (of which I am aware) has ever done.

To make sure I'm reading you correctly, one of the reasons that you see the relationship going from the BoA -> EA/GAEL is because of the dependency on of the EA/GAEL on other pre-existing texts (such as the D&C sections you mentioned). Is that right?

That is definitely one of the reasons. There are, in my opinion, indisputable references in the EA/GAEL to other, pre-existing revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith, such as D&C 76 and 88. When I saw that, and then thought about it for a few days, I realized that it had astounding import in terms of the purpose of the EA/GAEL. Couple that with the fact that at least 40 or so of the characters are not Egyptian and do not come from the papyri ... well, then you start to realize that these documents had an entirely different purpose than what people have long believed.

On the topic of this thread, do you see any pattern in how sounds were associated with either the characters or their meanings?

I have yet to discern any meaningful pattern in how the sounds were formulated, or in how they were associated with their accompanying characters and explanations. It really seems arbitrary to me ... at least at this juncture.

Did the authors of the documents occassionally use something they learned in their Hebrew classes, for example?

Well, not much that I can see. There are some things. For example, character #38 that we talked about earlier, whose sound is "Beth", can be related to the Hebrew "beit" which means "house" or "household", etc. It has the following explanations in the EA documents:

EA-WP(Phelps) ^a Beth

Man’s first residence; a fruitful garden; a great valley

EA-JS(Smith) ^b Beth

Man’s first residence; fruitful garden; a great valley

a place of happiness

EA-OC(Cowdery) ^c Beth

Man’s first residence in a fruitful garden; a great valley or plain filled with fruit, trees and flowers

good to the taste, pleasing to the eye, and sweet and precious to the smell

place of happiness for man

So you can see a relationship there. But then "beth" is used in many of the sounds and has no apparent relationship to its Hebrew meaning, like for example "Alkobeth":

EA-WP(Phelps) Alkobeth

Ministers not ordained of God, sinful

EA-JS(Smith) Alchobeth

ministers not ordained of God sinful

EA-OC(Cowdery) Alkobeth

Ministers not ordained of God, sinful

GAEL(2°) Alko beth

Ministers not ordained of God Sinful

So I don't really see a whole lot of influence from their Hebrew classes, and I am almost certain that most of the GAEL was completed before Seixas arrived in Kirtland. Some of the last entries in the GAEL are in the handwriting of Parrish, who started scribing for Joseph Smith no earlier than mid-November of 1835. There are only a handful of things in the GAEL in the handwriting of Parrish. I would estimate that somewhere in the neighborhood of 98% of the GAEL is in the handwriting of Phelps. (I have also identified a considerable amount of textual evidence that seems to suggest that the GAEL was largely Phelps's baby.)

[Zeta-Flux]

I just reviewed Wade's thread on the sounds, and need a little time to process all of that information. (Plus I want to read Chris's comments about the mummy epitath's--I don't think I've even heard of that before).

[wenglund]

Couple that with the fact that at least 40 or so of the characters are not Egyptian and do not come from the papyri ... well, then you start to realize that these documents had an entirely different purpose than what people have long believed.

Since this thread is about sounds, this may be a good time to reiterate that for the most part, the EA/GAEL sounds also don't appear to be Egyptian.

From whence were the sounds derived, is anyone's guess at this point. At a glance it appears that there may be some minor Greek and Latin and Hebrew influence, and I am also exploring the possibility that there may be some Native American influence, though I am having trouble finding dictionaries for NA languages in the Northeast. What is interesting is, at least from what I have been able to gather, the NA languages were, up until the early 1800's, pretty much an oral language, rather than written. We'll see.

It is also possible that the sounds may have been derived by inspiration or revelation, though I am not banking on it since the EA/GAEL seem to be more secular in purpose rather than spiritual (except as a possible means for conveying sacred things in a sacred manner).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited October 30, 2011 by wenglund

[William Schryver]

Since this thread is about sounds, this may be a good time to reiterate that for the most part, the EA/GAEL sounds also don't appear to be Egyptian.

From whence were the sounds derived, is anyone's guess at this point. At a glance it appears that there may be some minor Greek and Latin and Hebrew influence, and I am also exploring the possibility that there may be some Native American influence, though I am having trouble finding dictionaries for NA languages in the Northeast. What is interesting is, at least from what I have been able to gather, the NA languages were, up until the early 1800's, pretty much an oral language, rather than written. We'll see.

It is also possible that the sounds may have been derived by inspiration or revelation, though I am not banking on it since the EA/GAEL seem to be more secular in purpose rather than spiritual (except as a possible means for conveying sacred things in a sacred manner).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I think they (or just Phelps?) believed this was "pure language"--whatever that meant. But I also think it is counter-intuitive for them to believe they're tapping into "pure language" while at the same time using the standard five English vowels (a, e, i, o, u) to stir into the mix in order to produce a variety of "sounds" in this "pure language".

To be perfectly honest, I think a substantial part of the EA/GAEL is little more than incomprehensible gobble-di-gook. Just read this portion of the "explanation" of the methodology of the GAEL, in the "second degree":

This character on the second degree has an arbitrary sound = all Beth

This character, that is the character of the second degree, is designated from characters

of the first degree by the manner of its being inserted in the compound: as follows:

When it is connected it has the signification of the second degree; and when

disconnected from the names of other places, it stands for the original sound of Kal=si

Voanhiash Kah=oan. ^for Chaldee^ And it should be known, as being in the second

degree, in order to vary the verbs, prepositions, participles conjunctions, and adverbs:

All names of rivers, seas, of lands of hills, and of mountains should be preserved in their

order according to their degrees, From the first For instance, the first connection should

be called Jugos, which signifies verb or action: and the second connection should be

called Kah=Jugos, which is a variation, according to the signification of the second

degree: Kah Jugos should be preserved in the second degree. It signifies an action

passed: The third connection is Kah Ju=ga=os, which signifies an action to be receved or

^to^ come to pass. The fourth connection is called Ka=os=Ju which signifies

connection and the fifth is called Ka-os=Juga=os and is used to qualify according to the

signification of the fifth degree. Whether for prepositions, verbs, adverbs etc.

This order should be preserved according to the signification of the degrees ...

Incredible, don't you think?

I mean it sounds like someone took LSD, and then just as the trip was reaching its peak, downed half a bottle of bourbon, then started writing.

Reading this is another reason I suspect this was Phelps's baby, because I'm not aware of Joseph Smith ever having written anything so incomprehensible in this life. On the other hand, I think Phelps was quite capable of doing something like this.

I need to find a document I have that contains the record of an exchange between George A. Smith and Joseph Smith, talking about W. W. Phelps. It's pretty darn funny.

Edited October 30, 2011 by William Schryver