Russell C McGregor Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 Thanks Nevo. Now I recall reading John Gee's review of it. Never mind. These are not the droids we're interested in. These are not the droids we're interested in... 3
Mola Ram Suda Ram Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 These are not the droids we're interested in..."Doen't.. repeat everything I say."
hagoth7 Posted September 3, 2015 Posted September 3, 2015 (edited) ... Edited September 3, 2015 by hagoth7
hagoth7 Posted September 3, 2015 Posted September 3, 2015 (edited) Hi again Robert,...One really needs to read the BofM in order to figure out what "reformed Egyptian" is supposed to be. For example, in Mormon 9:31-34, Moroni excuses the imperfections of the record as due to restrictions imposed by plate-size and the consequent use of economical "reformed Egyptian" characters, rather than the more expressive reformed ("altered") Hebrew (compare III Nephi 5:18).[1] Thus, Moroni seems to be describing what scholars contemporary with Joseph Smith were calling enchorial, short-hand (tachygraphie), or cursive Egyptian writing, which we today refer to as hieratic or demotic. Such cursive scripts naturally change through time, and a millennium of Nephite history was certainly enough time within which to expect some changes in their cursive Egyptian script.... If I may, there's a pretty distinct difference between shorthand and cursive, which is perhaps somewhat clear, but could use more clarification. Cursive doesn't necessarily save a lot of room (at least it doesn't in typical English). Shorthand, on the other hand, does. I'm of the opinion, based on statements in the Nephite record, and on a few statements by others, that the Nephite prophets and scribes wrote a form of shorthand, based on elements of what we might know as heiratic and/or demotic, that was leveraged to have a symbol represent a phoneme(sound), and perhaps in some cases, an entire word. (They essentially borrowed and reformed egyptian characters for their version of shorthand to save place on the plates.) This is what most modern shorthand systems do, and many of them were based, at least in part, on the precedent of TIronian shorthand. Thus, if the suggestion above is accurate, deciphering their writing would require not only decoding which symbols represented which sounds, but how the combined sounds formed a word (where a word began and ended), and what that word meant. Such an effort would be no small fish to fry, at every level, especially considering how few symbols we have to start from. Edited September 3, 2015 by hagoth7
Robert F. Smith Posted September 4, 2015 Posted September 4, 2015 Hi again Robert,If I may, there's a pretty distinct difference between shorthand and cursive, which is perhaps somewhat clear, but could use more clarification. Cursive doesn't necessarily save a lot of room (at least it doesn't in typical English). Shorthand, on the other hand, does.................................................................................................................... It was Champollion himself who described cursive Egyptian as tachygraphie ("short-hand"), and Hugh Nibley provided an illustration of the ways in which space could be saved by use of Egyptian ideograms (Since Cumorah, 2nd ed., CWHN VII:149).
piccione Posted October 9, 2015 Posted October 9, 2015 Those interested in reading the book involving the Translation of the Book of Mormon Caractors Document that I have just completed, I have set up a website where it can be accessed. www.bookofmormoncaractorstranslation.com
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