The Cipher Theory

[Xander]

I gave you a perfect example of Phelps using the dang thing. What more do you want? Sometimes you people can be so intransigent in the face of the incontrovertible.

No, you gave an example of him sharing a revelation previously provided by Joseph Smith. An important detail you failed to mention in your presentation. You keep asserting cipher, apparently thinking that you can establish it via assertion. You've dealt with none of the refuting evidence provided in the previous posts, though you did try to dismiss this one:

There is no relationship between "Jah oh eh" and the Egyptian Counting system. There are also several other characters that incorporate "eh" in their "sound"--only one of which ("Pha eh") has a possible relationship to the Egyptian Counting system name for "one" (eh). This is simply another example where Graham exhibits his unfamiliarity with the source materials.

This remark reveals your utter lack of familiarity with these documents. Your argument here is essentially this: Since there were a few times when "eh" didn't refer explicitly to "one, first or beginning," then we can dismiss all evidence suggesting it carried that general meaning. Apparently for you it is just a wild coincidence that this explanation frequently corresponds to this syllable, right? I went through the examples in the GAEL where "eh" was used, and it is true that it doesn't always refer to its English explanation as presented in the Egyptian Counting, but this fact is easily explained by the "degrees" in which the word is presented.

This screams "spoken language" not a cipher. Words within any language change meanings depending on context and grammar, which is precisely what we see in the GAEL. Your argument is simply untenable. By your logic, the sound "red" must always refer to a color in English, and could never refer to "read" in the past tense nor could it refer to the last syllabel in someone's name. In English, the sound "red" is exactly the same in multiple examples, but the rules of grammer determine it's meaning. This is precisely what Joseph Smith was doing with his Egyptian Alphabet and Grammer. Your theory for cipher fits none of the data, and you have effectively dodged all the refuting data for more than a year now. You can't wish it away or expect it to just disappear. If you want to be taken seriously you need to address the problems with your theory. So far all you have done is accuse your critics of throwing out "baseless assertions" and leaving it at that.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Xander

[Xander]

Now here are the examples of "eh" and the overwhelming common denominator here is the concept of one/first/beginning. That you never understood this is just remarkable given your constant approach as the leading authority on these documents. From the GAEL here are the examples of Egyptian words containing the syllabel "eh," (and I may have missed a couple):

Pah eh - First man, or Adam coming from Adam. Keys or right over Patriarchal right by appointment

5th degree

Zub zool eh - In the days of the first patriarchs... in the first blessings of men; in the first blessings of the Church.

Zub eh - "...to express one thing or principle."

4th degree

Phah-eh : Kingly power coming with supreme glory

Zub Zool eh: The first inhabitants in the garden. Eden in the first generations; in the first church.

3rd Degree

Phah -eh: Kingly power or first king

Zub-zool-eh: The earth in the beginning...

Zub eh: being in or within

2nd degree

Phah-eh Kingly power or king

Zub zool eh: The earth as it was in the beginning; creation or beginning.

Zub eh: to be with as in

1st degree

Phah-eh : The first man; Adam, first Father

Zub zool eh: In the beginning of the earth

Zub eh : to bee in

2nd part 5th degree

Jah-oh-eh: The earth under the governing power of oliblish, Enish go on dosh, and Kai e van rash, which are the grand Key or in other words, the governing power, which governs the fifteen fixed stars (twelve that governs the earth, sun and moon, (which have their power in one) with the other twelve moving planets of this system. Oliblish - Enish go on dosh, and Kali ven rash, are the three grand central powers that govern all the other creations, which have been sought out by the most aged of all the fathers, since the beginning of the creation, by means of the Urim and Thummin: The names of the other twelve of the fixed stars are: Kolob, Limdi, Zip, Vusel, Venisti, Waine, Way oh- ox- oan, oansli, _ Kible Shineflis, flis, os. The Egyptian names of the fifteen moving planets are: Oan isis, Flos isis, flo ese: Abbesels, Ele ash, Subble, Slundlo, Car roam, Crash ma Kraw, obbles isim, I Zins bah, Missel Nah mesile Ohee oop Zah, Zool

Time out just to note the exhaustive explanation for this term in the second part of the fifth degree. Now according to William, they were trying to "encipher" more than 100 words into three syllables! Nonsense. This has all the hallmarks of an attempt to decipher a language complete with its own complex grammar. Continuing with the examples...

Edited December 8, 2011 by Xander

[Xander]

2nd part 4th degree

Jah-oh-eh - The earth and power of attraction it has with the third fixed star, which is called Kui-e ven-rah

2nd part 3rd degree

Jah-oh-eh: The earth under the government of an other or the second of the fixed stars, which is called Enish-go-on-dosh or in other words the power of attraction it has with the earth

2nd part 2nd degree

Jah oheh: The earth under the government of another, which is one of the fixed stars; which is called Oliblish

2nd part 1st degree

Jah-oheh: The earth including its affinity with the other planets; with their governing powers: which are fifteen: the earth; the sun, and the moon; first in their affinity; including one power.

And of course the Egyptian Counting document, explaining the general meaning of the sound "eh." It only appears in numbers that include the number one.

1= eh

11= Eh-Tah

21= Eh-Tah-Ni

31= Eh-Tah-Zi

41= Eh-Tah-Teh

51= Eh-Tah-Veh

61= Eh Tah Psi

71= Eh Tah-Psa

Notice that only in the "second part" in degrees 1-4, does "eh" take on a different meaning. William failed to provide that little detail, and just asserts that there are times when it is different, therefore there is "no relationship" to be understood here.

And now Joseph Smith's revelation concerning Facsimile 2, which according to Will, must have been based on Phelp's cipher!

Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit. One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of this earth, which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh.

This demonstrates quite effectively that this word was deciphered, not enciphered as Will argued in his presentation. It also illustrates that Joseph Smith believed this was a "language" as understood by the Egyptian people. It wasn't an encrypted code. But it is worth repeating that WIlliam has no way to address this data, which is why he keeps ignoring it and calling everything we say "bunk" "bluff" etc. He cannot refute the data with evidence, all he has done is try to minimize the damage with rhetoric.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Xander

[Xander]

It is the same point as with any "translation key", even those between languages that may share some characters in common. Take a look, for instance, at a Spanish-to-English "translation key."

Wade, you're avoiding the problem here by trying to seek other contexts in which unrelated ciphers were used in ways that would accommodate your model. It is a wild goose chase that won't work, because we're referring to a specific context and William even admitted that the early Mormons encoded information they felt was "sensitive." This is consistent with the general purpose of creating a cipher; to keep information hidden. So now you have to address the problem in those terms. You have to explain how it makes sense to use numbers to encrypt their original numeric values, while at the same time expect the information to be hidden. Thus far, neither you nor William has presented an explanation that makes sense. But as far as I can tell, you're the only one who has tried, so I have to give you credit for that.

[Xander]

And there is some confusion here over translation - which is an attempt to decipher - and the process of enciphering. They are not synonymous. William needs to argue for enciphering because that means they weren't trying to translate an Ancient language. He thinks they were taking random symbols from various places and infusing meaning into them. Meaning, they were encrypting data. But he has no cipher key. The GAEL looks nothing like a cipher key. It looks just like a lexicon with words, translations and even sounds. That's says spoken language all over it. He doesn't address this problem though.

So for you or William to keep referring to a "translation key" is misleading, since that isn't what William argued. He argued that they were enciphering but chose to use the word translation because, well, apparently they were too stupid to know that to translate is not synonymous with encipher.

Never have I seen a theory rest on more speculative premises and unproved assertions. Someone call Guiness.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Xander

[wenglund]

Kevin,

As wonderful as all that information may be, both Will and I are fully aware of all the "eh" examples you cited. I mentioned several of them myself in the thread I linked to earlier. And, it was evident in your own example for various sounds in certain degrees. We don't disagree that there is some correlation between the sound "eh" in the Counting document and the phoneme "eh" in the GAEL. We do.

The problem is, the correlation isn't absolute. Like with other example I mentioned in the linked thread, not all instances of the phoneme "eh" in the GAEL are given the "one" explanation. the sound "Jah-oh-eh" happens to be one of them (pun intended). And since it is, that undermines your assertion.

However, that is not all that undermines your assertion. Neither the "eh" CHARACTER in the Counting document nor the "jah-oh-eh" CHARACTER in the GAEL, match up with facsimile #2. This is key because your assertion focuses on the what CHARACTERS are believed to be ancient Egyptian.

So, I am sorry, but there are two key reasons why your assertion fails.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 8, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

Wade, you're avoiding the problem here by trying to seek other contexts in which unrelated ciphers were used in ways that would accommodate your model. It is a wild goose chase that won't work, because we're referring to a specific context and William even admitted that the early Mormons encoded information they felt was "sensitive." This is consistent with the general purpose of creating a cipher; to keep information hidden. So now you have to address the problem in those terms. You have to explain how it makes sense to use numbers to encrypt their original numeric values, while at the same time expect the information to be hidden. Thus far, neither you nor William has presented an explanation that makes sense. But as far as I can tell, you're the only one who has tried, so I have to give you credit for that.

I agree, I am avoiding the problem (though I don't think we have the same problem in mind--see below). I try because I view this somewhat differently than you, in part because I am willing to listen to Will's clarifications of his meaning and where he puts the emphasis, and I let him speak for himself. I do this because it is the reasonable thing to do even were I not to agree with him (although in this case I do). Perhaps you should give it a try. It would certain help avoid the "problem" of unfruitful semantic battles.

Have you looked through the syllogisms I posted earlier? I am interested to hear your response.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 8, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

I should mention, though, my agreement that given the first explanation for Facsimile #2, it is clear that Joseph believed that the "Jah-oh-eh" sound/name was Egyptian.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 8, 2011 by wenglund

[William Schryver]

OH, MY!

• Almost two full years spent intensely analyzing the EC/EA/GAEL manuscripts, often rising at 5:00 am on weekdays and working all day Saturdays transcribing, organizing, and preparing extensive tables, expending hours in Photoshop preparing and organizing images, etc.: HARD WORK!
  `
  
• Going to the awful trouble of occasionally going on MDDB in an often futile attempt to disabuse the public mind of the huge body of disinformation and misinformation and outright deceptions practiced by Mormon critics vis-a-vis the Kirtland Egyptian Papers: EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING!
  `
  
• Watching Kevin Graham make three of his trademark bloated posts wherein he obliviously makes a valiant (albeit, unfortunately, largely ineffective ) effort to argue IN FAVOR of my thesis: PRICELESS!
  

I'll elaborate tomorrow ...

[wenglund]

ime out just to note the exhaustive explanation for this term in the second part of the fifth degree. Now according to William, they were trying to "encipher" more than 100 words into three syllables! Nonsense. This has all the hallmarks of an attempt to decipher a language complete with its own complex grammar. Continuing with the examples...

I am sorry, but this doesn't make sense to me. In order to decipher all that text from three syllables, then logically all that text had to at one point been enciphered into those three syllables. Yet, you are suggesting that it is nonsense to think that such could be enciphered. So, logically, if it is nonsense to think it was enciphered, then it is nonsense to think it was deciphered.

However, while it may seem nonsensical from the perspective a modern Egyptologists to think that all that text could be deciphered from three syllable or even a single character (Kabbalist may see it differently), if someone is creating an new "Egyptian" language, it is not nonsense. They are free to encipher however they please depending upon their own objectives. If their objective is to convey large amounts of information in a small amount of space, then the EA/GAEL model works quite well, even given the admitted downside.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[William Schryver]

I should mention, though, my agreement that given the first explanation for Facsimile #2, it is clear that Joseph believed that the "Jah-oh-eh" sound/name was Egyptian.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Did he?

Are you sure?

You yourself have argued, on this thread, for a concept of "Egyptian" that probably should inform (and therefore qualify) your answer above.

If you have access to the Tanner transcription of the GAEL, re-read everything that is associated with the word "Jah oh eh".

(Don't misinterpret my comments as criticism. Not at all. Just prompting you to think about things. You've made very many great points on this thread! Anyway, I'll check back in early tomorrow morning ...)

[Ares]

Once again we're getting complaints about the personal references and remarks. Please edit them out of your arguments or this thread will go the way of the others in this series. That would be disappointing given the scholarly content that makes for a great debate/discussion if the parties involved can avoid sniping and nit-picking.

Read twice, be nice, post once.

[William Schryver]

I am sorry, but this doesn't make sense to me. In order to decipher all that text from three syllables, then logically all that text had to at one point been enciphered into those three syllables. Yet, you are suggesting that it is nonsense to think that such could be enciphered. So, logically, if it is nonsense to think it was enciphered, then it is nonsense to think it was deciphered.

However, while it may seem nonsensical from the perspective a modern Egyptologists to think that all that text could be deciphered from three syllable or even a single character (Kabbalist may see it differently), if someone is creating an new "Egyptian" language, it is not nonsense. They are free to encipher however they please depending upon their own objectives. If their objective is to convey large amounts of information in a small amount of space, then the EA/GAEL model works quite well, even given the admitted downside.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Oh, Wade! You touch upon the mere tip of the iceberg when it comes to Graham's posts above! He's clearly feeling a bit flustered.

But I must really sign off for tonight.

Keep thinking things through! Don't lose sight of the forest for the trees. It's easy to do when dealing with this complex material. Always keep the big picture in front of you as you examine the minute details.

If you haven't already, make sure you take a good long look at my transcription of page 1 of the EC, to which I have posted several links above. Also, if you haven't already, familiarize yourself with Phelps's "Methodology" pages, full transcriptions to which I have linked on this thread.

Every day I learn something new about this stuff--it's a very intriguing puzzle to piece together!

See you tomorrow ...

Edited December 8, 2011 by William Schryver

[William Schryver]

Once again we're getting complaints about the personal references and remarks. Please edit them out of your arguments or this thread will go the way of the others in this series. That would be disappointing given the scholarly content that makes for a great debate/discussion if the parties involved can avoid sniping and nit-picking.

Read twice, be nice, post once.

I don't think he's been sniping any more than he usually does. I've seen a lot worse. I just assumed you had made a conscious (albeit somewhat inexplicable) decision to accommodate him, irrespective of the unremitting "personal references and remarks."

[Ares]

I don't think he's been sniping any more than he usually does. I've seen a lot worse. I just assumed you had made a conscious (albeit somewhat inexplicable) decision to accommodate him, irrespective of the unremitting "personal references and remarks."

I did not specify who the complaints were from and who they were about. Everyone needs to check their tone. Even our most respected scholars, critics and the peanut gallery. Thanks!

[wenglund]

And there is some confusion here over translation - which is an attempt to decipher - and the process of enciphering. They are not synonymous.

I hope that with as often as I have reiterated this point in this thread there isn't anyone who is still confused about the distinction.

William needs to argue for enciphering because that means they weren't trying to translate an Ancient language.

I think you have that exactly backwards. If you read through the syllogism I compassionately reconstructed, you will see that Will's and my belief about enciphering was a logical conclusion that followed from the premise (among several) that the EC characters weren't Ancient Egyptian. In fact, by way of questions I posed to you earlier, you agreed as much. Did you forget?.

He thinks they were taking random symbols from various places and infusing meaning into them. Meaning, they were encrypting data. But he has no cipher key.

You, like several other people on this thread, keep getting hung up on the word "cipher." Perhaps without intending, you have been applying an overly narrow and rigid interpretation onto a word that was used more broadly, or at least used in a way differently than you suppose. Since it has been such a stumbling block for you, Will has charitably suggested an alternative term "translation key." This should have put an end to the semantic game.

The GAEL looks nothing like a cipher key.

Will's comment, and the one you addressed in the OP of in this thread, was in regards to the Counting document, not the GAEL. But, either way, could you please tell us what you think a cipher key should look like and what elements it would have that you believe the EC or the GAEL doesn't, or vice-versa?

It looks just like a lexicon with words, translations and even sounds. That's says spoken language all over it.

Yet, you have been suggesting that it is a deciphering of a WRITTEN text (the papyri). Do you see the problem you have inadvertently created for yourself?

So for you or William to keep referring to a "translation key" is misleading, since that isn't what William argued. He argued that they were enciphering but chose to use the word translation because, well, apparently they were too stupid to know that to translate is not synonymous with encipher.

Actually, Will gets to decide and clarify what he has argued. Not you. He has done so. The reasonable thing for you to do is accept his clarification and to move on, and not play semantic games. Is that too much to ask?

Never have I seen a theory rest on more speculative premises and unproved assertions. Someone call Guiness.

I appreciate the jovial attempt at humor. It was made all the more enjoyable by the inadvertent, though rich infusion of irony.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Did he? Are you sure? You yourself have argued, on this thread, for a concept of "Egyptian" that probably should inform (and therefore qualify) your answer above. If you have access to the Tanner transcription of the GAEL, re-read everything that is associated with the word "Jah oh eh". (Don't misinterpret my comments as criticism. Not at all. Just prompting you to think about things. You've made very many great points on this thread! Anyway, I'll check back in early tomorrow morning ...)

In the explanation in Facsimile #2 Joseph said: "which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh." I could be reading it wrong, but this tells me that Joseph consider that sound/name to be Egyptian, or at least used by Egyptians. It doesn't tell me which "Egyptian" he had in mind. It also doesn't tell me what Phelps may have thought of the sound when producing the GAEL. However, I await with interest any insights you may have.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 8, 2011 by wenglund

[cksalmon]

Your admirable efforts on this thread have persuaded me to break out a portion of the chapter in my forthcoming book that deals with the inimitable William Wines Phelps, the would-be linguist and translator of early Mormonism.

At any rate, either tomorrow or the next day I will start a new thread that should prove quite interesting to those who are interested in this topic ...

I've gone to bat for you. Have I missed the new thread? I assume not. The "portion of the chapter [of] [your] forthcoming book that deals with the inimitable William Wines Phelps" will be posted tomorrow, perhaps? In a new, separate thread? I trust it will have little relevance to this particular thread.

[wenglund]

Keep thinking things through! Don't lose sight of the forest for the trees. It's easy to do when dealing with this complex material. Always keep the big picture in front of you as you examine the minute details.

If you haven't already, make sure you take a good long look at my transcription of page 1 of the EC, to which I have posted several links above. Also, if you haven't already, familiarize yourself with Phelps's "Methodology" pages, full transcriptions to which I have linked on this thread.

Every day I learn something new about this stuff--it's a very intriguing puzzle to piece together!

See you tomorrow ...

I now have Marquardt's book and so I have copies available (although poor in quality). What was most helpful is your commentary on the infeasibility of the "methodology" you posted earlier. I recall you mentioning that before, but sometime I forget things in my old age. I will have to reconsider what I said to Kevin about all the text associate with the three syllables. See. I also learn something new every day. [thumbs up]

Feel free to keep me in line. I look forward to tomorrow.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 8, 2011 by wenglund

[Cobalt-70]

I am sorry, but this doesn't make sense to me. In order to decipher all that text from three syllables, then logically all that text had to at one point been enciphered into those three syllables. Yet, you are suggesting that it is nonsense to think that such could be enciphered. So, logically, if it is nonsense to think it was enciphered, then it is nonsense to think it was deciphered.

However, while it may seem nonsensical from the perspective a modern Egyptologists to think that all that text could be deciphered from three syllable or even a single character (Kabbalist may see it differently), if someone is creating an new "Egyptian" language, it is not nonsense. They are free to encipher however they please depending upon their own objectives. If their objective is to convey large amounts of information in a small amount of space, then the EA/GAEL model works quite well, even given the admitted downside.

You are talking about two types of "nonsense" here. The first kind of "nonsense" is the nonsense of using something like the EA/GAEL as a cipher key. It is nonsense because it is useless as a cipher key, given that the supposedly "encoded phrases" are long and esoteric. There would never be a document you might want to encode, for example, that just happened to contain the phrase "The highest degree of light, because its component parts are light. The governing principle of light Because God has said Let this be the centre for light, and let there be bounds that it may not pass. He hath set a cloud round about in the heavens, and the light of the grand governing of 15 fixed stars centre there - and from there its is drawn by the heavenly bodies according to their portions; according to the decrees that God hath set, as the bounds of the ocean, that it should not pass over as a flood, so God has set the bounds of light lest it pass over and consume the planets." Nobody who understands cryptography (substitution ciphers, information theory, etc.) would take seriously such a bass-ackward cipher key. If Smith and Phelps wanted to encode long esoteric strings of text with single-character substitution characters, then why not just encode the whole Book of Abraham with the letter "A"? Such a cipher would be just as useful as the one you are proposing.

The second type of "nonsense" is the nonsense that Smith and Phelps were deciphering real Egyptian characters. This nonsense, however, is not nonsensical because of implausibility and sheer absurdity. Rather, this nonsense is merely due to reasonable ignorance on the part of Smith and Phelps, who were not competent Egyptologists. I say it was reasonable because Smith and Phelps thought that Egyptian could convey a lot of information in a short amount of space. (Mormon 9:33.) This is nonsense, yes, but it is reasonable nonsense from Smith's perspective and worldview.

[mledbetter]

You do seem proud of yourself; however, the tone in which you preen your "logic" before the world is so distasteful I could not care less what you say. The entire topic becomes of no interest to me in this type of discussion. Cheers to you and your mysterious congratulatory email compatriots.

HUH??!! I didn't notice any issues with his tone.

[William Schryver]

The first kind of "nonsense" is the nonsense of using something like the EA/GAEL as a cipher key. It is nonsense because it is useless as a cipher key, given that the supposedly "encoded phrases" are long and esoteric. There would never be a document you might want to encode, for example, that just happened to contain the phrase "The highest degree of light, because its component parts are light. The governing principle of light Because God has said Let this be the centre for light, and let there be bounds that it may not pass. He hath set a cloud round about in the heavens, and the light of the grand governing of 15 fixed stars centre there - and from there its is drawn by the heavenly bodies according to their portions; according to the decrees that God hath set, as the bounds of the ocean, that it should not pass over as a flood, so God has set the bounds of light lest it pass over and consume the planets." Nobody who understands cryptography (substitution ciphers, information theory, etc.) would take seriously such a bass-ackward cipher key. If Smith and Phelps wanted to encode long esoteric strings of text with single-character substitution characters, then why not just encode the whole Book of Abraham with the letter "A"? Such a cipher would be just as useful as the one you are proposing.

This is absolutely true.

The Egyptian Counting document is, for all intents and purposes, a functioning cipher key. Its use is demonstrated in the GAEL. The GAEL, on the other hand, although its format resembles the counting document; although its format is typical of a cipher key, is not a practicable system. Even if one made a valiant attempt to strictly follow Phelps's stated rules for its use (which, ironically, not even Phelps himself does!) it would be impossible to use the GAEL in the fashion for which it was designed: to render long passages of English text in the form of a handful of ostensibly "Egyptian" characters.

[William Schryver]

I've gone to bat for you. Have I missed the new thread? I assume not. The "portion of the chapter [of] [your] forthcoming book that deals with the inimitable William Wines Phelps" will be posted tomorrow, perhaps? In a new, separate thread? I trust it will have little relevance to this particular thread.

Go away Chrissy.

We've already picked teams for this game, and no one wanted you. So go back to your home board and do whatever it is you do there.

[Hestia]

This is the final warning to everyone to keep personal snide comments to yourself and address the points. For some reason this topic tends to bring out a great deal of animosity when it is after all a discussion about different ideas.

[William Schryver]

Now here are the examples of "eh" and the overwhelming common denominator here is the concept of one/first/beginning.

/snip remainder/

<sigh>

I am appreciative of the fact that, when it comes right down to it, very few people are in a position to judge whether or not there is any merit to the huge rhetorical mass of which "Xander's" posts are constituted. I mean, at first glance, it kind of looks like he knows what he's talking about … right?

And the fact of the matter is that it has long been proven that no one in the entire Mormon-related message board world has the rhetorical stamina to hang with "Xander". He is the undisputed king of the novel-length post. Dude can multiply words like no other.

So all I can really do is to encourage those who are interested in this often complex subject matter to continuing learning all they can about things. I have been making publicly available accurate transcriptions of significant portions of the source materials. There is also available online a somewhat flawed, but still very helpful English transcription of the GAEL from 1966, done by Jerald Tanner: GAEL

I realize that it is no small challenge to make sense of the thing when viewed in its original format. The most important thing I did to facilitate study of the EC/EA/GAEL was to get it all organized in a manner that would permit a rigorous methodological approach to the material.

At any rate, as far as Graham's posts above are concerned:

In his overwhelming haste to contradict my criticism of his assertion that Jah oh eh has a relationship to the Egyptian Counting system, Graham has gone to a great deal of trouble to assemble what he believes to be an exhaustive list of other instances in the GAEL where the explanations for characters are related to the Egyptian Counting system. He is apparently under the impression that, in so doing, he is damaging my thesis! Has he not been paying attention at all? Apparently not, because he cites "Pha eh", which I have already mentioned several times.

He's clearly not paying attention. He's like the people with whom all of us have had conversations: they don't listen to a thing you're saying; they're just sitting there pondering what it is they're going to say next, and they will frequently just interject in the middle of your thought in order to do it.

At any rate, is it really possible that Graham has missed the fact that I have repeatedly mentioned that character #67 (Iota ni tah veh ah que – "I saw twenty-five persons") is an explicit[i/] example of where Phelps used the Egyptian Counting system in the manner for which it was desgined?

Is it really possible that Graham doesn't understand that, to the extent the Egyptian Counting system is used in the GAEL, it confirms my thesis of its function as a translation key?

Unfortunately for the strength of my thesis, the additional examples Graham's provides are not very persuasive ones. If they had been, I would have cited them myself!

The only one I consider a reasonable possibility is character #19 (Zub zool eh), but I just don't think it is that strong of an argument, all things considered.

Graham does give one glaring example of how he simply is not familiar with the source materials. He is so accustomed to relying on his little set of talking points that he can copy and paste from place to place that he has obviously never really taken the time to actually examine the material itself!

He cites above, as a supposed example, the sound for character #16 (Sue e eh ni – "What other person is that? Who?"). (Remember that he is looking for cases where "eh" in a sound has the meaning of "one" or even "first".)

He is under the impression that Sue e eh ni means "The same as the first". It doesn't. Graham doesn't understand.

Here is a list of all the explanations from the EA/GAEL given for character #16:

EA-WP(Phelps) Su=e=eh=ni

What other person is that? Who?

EA-JS(Smith) Sue Eh ni

What other person is that or who

EA-OC(Cowdery) Su-e-eh-ni

What other person is that? Who

GAEL(1°) Su-e-eh ni

who, whence, etc.

an interrogative pronoun through its degrees

GAEL(2°) Su e-eh-ni

The same as in the first degree

GAEL(3°) Sueehni

The same as the first

GAEL(4°) Sue

To point out subjects

GAEL(5°) Su e eh ni

The same as the first

Sue e eh ni is given the explanation of "What other person is that? Who?" Or, in the first degree of the GAEL, it is given the explanation of "who, whence, etc." and it is noted that it is "an interrogative pronoun through its degrees". Then, for brevity's sake, in the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 5^th degrees, Phelps merely tells us that the explanation is "the same as in the first degree". Meaning, of course, that in the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 5^th degrees, Sue e eh ni means: "who, whence, etc."

Anyway, the bottom line is that I wish all of Graham's examples had merit, but unfortunately they don't. The best example is still the one I have given above, for character #67. But it's a good one. It illustrates the use of the Egyptian Counting system to "translate" a numerical value into a word. That's what a "translation key" is supposed to do.

Edited December 8, 2011 by William Schryver