The source from whence they sprang

[notHagoth7]

3 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

If you're looking for the possible Semitic origins of the word 'Moroni'...

That wasn't the purpose of my request...although what you provided there was interesting. Nor is my (current) purpose to explore the name Cumorah.

As mentioned earlier, my recent query about good sources for meanings of Semitic cognates has (as of yet) zero relation to South Asia.

So while the thread has piqued my interest in a few Semitic issues, the journey will take me well beyond the scope of this thread. 

Edited September 10, 2016 by notHagoth7

[Rajah Manchou]

19 hours ago, RevTestament said:

Technically, it would be Comoro Islands, and no. The Islands appeared on Arabic maps as 'al Qmr.' The first European maps to show them did show a Meroni on one of the islands. It seems Moroni came later as a place of a new sultanate on the big Island, which has a very active volcano. The Arabians are Semitic so it seems they applied a Semitic pronunciation to the ancient dialect containing the root "moro" or fire and "ni" or place for place of fire.

The main reason I don't believe Moroni is a Comorian word meaning 'place of fire' is because variations of the word 'moro' appear more frequently on the three islands without a volcano. There is also a Maroni in Madagascar, Indonesia and Kenya, places with little relationship to the Comorian dialect, but connected through Austronesian trade. Toponyms related to Camara and Maroni are all through the Indian Ocean. The Comoros just get more attention from critics because Tucker's Captain Kidd comments, and more recently, the CES Letter. Also Moroni being a capital city helps, otherwise I wonder if anybody would have noticed it.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[Robert F. Smith]

10 hours ago, notHagoth7 said:

Why?

My interest at the moment, for reasons beyond the scope of this thread, is in Semitic.

So, once again:

13 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I think that Rajah is saying that moro "fire" and ni "place" are non-Semitic.

To which you replied:

Quote

Yep.

Meanwhile, my request still stands.

That is why I referred you to an expert in Southeast Asian languages.  Such languages are non-Semitic, and may reflect the original meaning of Moroni, since the original settlers of the Comoros Islands appear to have come from SE Asia.  You may choose to ignore that, if you wish.  Your choice.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Rajah Manchou]

41 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

That is why I referred you to an expert in Southeast Asian languages.  Such languages are non-Semitic, and may reflect the original meaning of Moroni, since the original settlers of the Comoros Islands appear to have come from SE Asia. You may choose to ignore that, if you wish.  Your choice.

We don't know what the first settlers of the Comoros spoke. We do know that they used titles based on Persian and Semitic terms.

https://cloudup.com/cHyZv6JAZlK

We also know that they developed an Arabic/Malay pidgin, which would require some contact with Semitic languages.  I've noted this numerous times, including links to research showing they have Hebrew/Arab DNA.

I also mentioned a few times, including in the OP, that there is a possibility that they came from Egypt or Persia etc. 

There is a weird gap in Book of Mormon studies, one that readily acknowledges Hebraisms in distant American cultures, but fails to see it anywhere else, even in cultures that are pleading to be recognized as a lost remnant. My hope, and maybe it is a futile excercize, is to fill the void between the Old World and the New World. That enormous space between Jerusalem and Guatemala called Asia. The Jaredites, Mulekites and Lehites didn't teleport themselves over to America.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[notHagoth7]

22 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

That is why I referred you to an expert in Southeast Asian languages.  Such languages are non-Semitic, and may reflect the original meaning of Moroni, since the original settlers of the Comoros Islands appear to have come from SE Asia.  You may choose to ignore that, if you wish.  Your choice.

Understood completely.  I'm not ignoring your comments, or Rajah's.

Yet again, my request is simply a matter of having a desire/inkling to explore something (as I had said twice previously) that was "beyond the scope" of this thread (i.e. outside the scope of SE Asian languages).

(I initially assumed that a simple request for online sources for Semitic cognate translations didn't merit its own thread....however, with the ongoing confusion, perhaps it did.)

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

We don't know what the first settlers of the Comoros spoke. We do know that they used titles based on Persian and Semitic terms.

https://cloudup.com/cHyZv6JAZlK

We also know that they developed an Arabic/Malay pidgin, which would require some contact with Semitic languages.  I've noted this numerous times, including links to research showing they have Hebrew/Arab DNA.

I also mentioned a few times, including in the OP, that there is a possibility that they came from Egypt or Persia etc. 

There is a weird gap in Book of Mormon studies, one that readily acknowledges Hebraisms in distant American cultures, but fails to see it anywhere else, even in cultures that are pleading to be recognized as a lost remnant. My hope, and maybe it is a futile excercize, is to fill the void between the Old World and the New World. That enormous space between Jerusalem and Guatemala called Asia. The Jaredites, Mulekites and Lehites didn't teleport themselves over to America.

I have no doubt that Semitic languages and influence (including genetic influence) eventually came to the Comoros (and to Madagascar), and that the Semitic terms used point to that.  That is abundantly clear.  However, I would like to see the excavations and ancient DNA evidence which establish that the first arrivals were Semitic, Egyptian, or whatever.  As to the interpretation of Moroni, I have no problem with pursuing a variety of possible etymologies.  Indeed, I contributed to the item on that from the Onomasticon which you displayed here, which includes possible Semitic derivations.

As to the seeming "weird gap" you find in BofM studies, it doesn't exist in reality.  Moreover, I don't see such an "enormous space" between Jerusalem and Guatemala.  In fact, I find your comments and suggestions very important and helpful in understanding the larger picture in BofM studies, even if the world is much smaller than most imagine.

[RevTestament]

12 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

The main reason I don't believe Moroni is a Comorian word meaning 'place of fire' is because variations of the word 'moro' appear more frequently on the three islands without a volcano. There is also a Maroni in Madagascar, Indonesia and Kenya, places with little relationship to the Comorian dialect, but connected through Austronesian trade. Toponyms related to Camara and Maroni are all through the Indian Ocean. The Comoros just get more attention from critics because Tucker's Captain Kidd comments, and more recently, the CES Letter. Also Moroni being a capital city helps, otherwise I wonder if anybody would have noticed it.
 

Well, apparently a Swahili would understand the word as "place of fire." Maroni is a slightly different word although possibly the same cognate. The thing about languages is that loan words happen. Or possibly they just coincidentally use the same cognate. I believe the Hebrews have Egyptian loan words, but they are just written in Hebrew letters in the scriptures. I certainly have no expertise in these languages, and to speculate here is something I really don't want to do. There seems to be too many possibilities. Thanks for those other place names.

P.S. Does Kenya really have Austronesian connections?

Edited September 11, 2016 by RevTestament

[Rajah Manchou]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I have no doubt that Semitic languages and influence (including genetic influence) eventually came to the Comoros (and to Madagascar), and that the Semitic terms used point to that.  That is abundantly clear.  However, I would like to see the excavations and ancient DNA evidence which establish that the first arrivals were Semitic, Egyptian, or whatever.  As to the interpretation of Moroni, I have no problem with pursuing a variety of possible etymologies.  Indeed, I contributed to the item on that from the Onomasticon which you displayed here, which includes possible Semitic derivations.

As to the seeming "weird gap" you find in BofM studies, it doesn't exist in reality.  Moreover, I don't see such an "enormous space" between Jerusalem and Guatemala.  In fact, I find your comments and suggestions very important and helpful in understanding the larger picture in BofM studies, even if the world is much smaller than most imagine.

Thanks Robert. I always appreciate your comments. 

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

However, I would like to see the excavations and ancient DNA evidence which establish that the first arrivals were Semitic, Egyptian, or whatever.  

I'll try to keep things more succinct since links and points tend to get lost in longer comments.

• The Qumr of Southeast Asia were in contact with the Iranian world. (source)
• One of the first Qumr kings was from the Middle East, probably Aramaic speaking Persia, and his name was "Maran" or "Merong" (source)
• Maran seems to be related to Aramaic for 'lord' (source) or Persian for "King of Snakes". (source)
• Maran/Merong is also associated with the word Maroni which seems to be a Southeast Asian term for serpent. (source)
• The Qumr settled the Comoros, possibly taking the title Maran or Maroni with them. (source)

Bonus point: According to Michael Quinn, MARON was an incantation name used for treasure seeking, and Moroni, Maroni, and Maron may have been used interchangeably by Joseph Smith

My hypothesis is:

• Moroni comes through the Qumr who settled the island of Qumr, now known as the Comoros and Madagascar.
• The Qumr inherited the term Moroni (Maran, Maron, Merong) through their close contacts with Persian-Iranian rulers such as Maran Mahavamsam.
• The author(s) of the Book of Mormon somehow tapped into the usage of Maron/Maroni as a title for warrior kings that span the divide between east and west (serpent kings).

Edited September 11, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[Robert F. Smith]

56 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

.....................................................................

• The Qumr of Southeast Asia were in contact with the Iranian world. (source)
• One of the first Qumr kings was from the Middle East, probably Aramaic speaking Persia, and his name was "Maran" or "Merong" (source)
• Maran seems to be related to Aramaic for 'lord' (source) or Persian for "King of Snakes". (source)
• Maran/Merong is also associated with the word Maroni which seems to be a Southeast Asian term for serpent. (source)
• The Qumr settled the Comoros, possibly taking the title Maran or Maroni with them. (source)

Bonus point: According to Michael Quinn, MARON was an incantation name used for treasure seeking, and Moroni, Maroni, and Maron may have been used interchangeably by Joseph Smith

My hypothesis is:

• Moroni comes through the Qumr who settled the island of Qumr, now known as the Comoros and Madagascar.
• The Qumr inherited the term Moroni (Maran, Maron, Merong) through their close contacts with Persian-Iranian rulers such as Maran Mahavamsam.
• The author(s) of the Book of Mormon somehow tapped into the usage of Maron/Maroni as a title for warrior kings that span the divide between east and west (serpent kings).

I am intrigued by the suggestion that Indo-Iranian (or Sanskrit) may be the language in which to survey possible etymologies for Moroni, but I would still like to see a study of ancient DNA from the Comoros.

However, there is another source for the word which we might want to consider:  The Oxford English Dictionary derives moron, mouron, "salamander," directly from the 14th century Old French moronne, morone, which is derived in turn from more, maure, "dark; Moorish," due to the dark color of the salamanders in Normandy.  This is also the source of Spanish moreno “dark.” However, that is not the end of the etymology (which is ultimately Semitic), and Spain was ruled by the Muslim Moors for about 500 years.
    There is even a connection with Persian Ahura Mazda and Jinn, which hints at the more archaic source of moron via the occupation of Spain for those five centuries by the Saracen Moors (Arabic Maghreb/Marrakesh/Morocco “West”; transliterated in Latin Maurus = Greek Mauros), and the appearance of the fiery salamander in the mystical Islamic-Persian cosmology of Avicenna (Ibn Sina 980-1037 A.D.).

Then too, since Nephite Moroni is likely to be a gentilic (nisbe) form of Jaredite Moron (both a personal and place-name), and since the Jaredites were most likely Mesopotamians, Moroni is more likely ultimately taken from the Akkadian proper name Mu-ra-ni “My-Cub” (from Akkadian mūrānu, mīrānu, merānu “cub; pup” = Sumerian UR.TUR.[RA] = kalbu "dog"; it was also used in PNs such as Mu-ra-nu-^dGu-la “Young-Dog-of-Gula”; Uqâ-mu-ra-ni “I-Waited-for-My-Puppy”; DUMU ^mMu-ra-ni; Me-ra-ni;  and ^fMu-ra-na-tum (NB).[1]   The same notion would apply to closely related Akkadian mūru “foal; calf,” as in mur nisqi “war horse”[2]; or to Akkadian māru, mer’u, mar’u (Sumerian DUMU, AMAR), “son, descendant, offspring; citizen,” as in PNs such as Mār-(god-name), or in such titles as mar šarri , "King's Son" (Sumerian dumu.lugal),[3] mār-ilišu.[4]  This means that Nephite Moronihah likely means something like "Pup of Yahweh, Son of Yahweh," since HALOT takes the YHH trigrammaton at Elephantine to be short for YHWH "Yahweh."  In an 1832 history dictated by Joseph Smith, the scribe wrote the name as Maroni.  That gives us insight into how it sounded.

In addition, the -ōn hypocoristic ending in Northwest Semitic is much older than the -ōm ending,[5] thus the priority of the Jaredite form.

---

[1] Chicago Assyrian Dictionary “M” II:106.

[2] CAD “M” II:229-230.

[3] CAD “M” I:308-316.

[4] CAD “M” I:314.

[5] M. Rehm in Freedman, ed., Anchor Bible Dictionary, IV:299b, citing M. Noth, IPN, 56.

[Rajah Manchou]

3 hours ago, RevTestament said:

Well, apparently a Swahili would understand the word as "place of fire." Maroni is a slightly different word although possibly the same cognate. The thing about languages is that loan words happen. Or possibly they just coincidentally use the same cognate. I believe the Hebrews have Egyptian loan words, but they are just written in Hebrew letters in the scriptures. I certainly have no expertise in these languages, and to speculate here is something I really don't want to do. There seems to be too many possibilities. Thanks for those other place names.

The word for fire in Swahili is 'moto'. It was the Comorians that later shifted it to 'moro'. As for Moroni the city, we'll never know where the name came from. But as you mentioned the earliest maps listed Meroni, but that was located on the island of Anjouan. Meroni (whatever that meant) could have been adopted as the name of the capital on the big island later and slightly shifted to Moroni because it fit nicely with the setting at the foot of an active volcano. But the original Meroni would not be related to "fire" since there are no volcanoes on Anjouan. 

In any case, my reason for going OCD overboard with this topic is to provide more context for the argument that Joseph Smith lifted the names Camorah and Moroni off a map of the Comoros. That may be the case, but at least we now know that it was a logical pick as the terms have meaning that goes far beyond Captain Kidd. In the context of an Asian setting, these names work 100%.

Moroni/Maroni = name used for warriors and serpent (maroni) kings such as Maran Mahavamsam and Shahmaran. (source)
Camorah/Cumorah = term for sacred islands and mountains such as Qumr, Camara and Kumeru. (source)

Edited September 11, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[Rajah Manchou]

7 hours ago, RevTestament said:

P.S. Does Kenya really have Austronesian connections?

It does. Most ports on the Indian Ocean rim had Austronesian connections at a very early stage. 



Its probably a topic for another thread, but there is some interesting research on the pre-Islamic arrival of Judaism in the Comoros, Madagascar and the east coast of Africa. There are many proofs found among the Malagasy and the Lemba, but I found this one to be the most fascinating.

https://www.evernote.com/l/AAjQU9_poDNKu7-FKCeg8Z_zXVbTDr0kkR4

I believe the Errohim/Elohim drums did not come directly from the Arabian Peninsula but via Malay traders carrying Dongson drums (source) via the Austronesian tin and bronze trade as suggested in the OP. (source) In the context of the Book of Mormon, this could run parallel to Hagoth's trading ships.

Edited September 11, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[Rajah Manchou]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I am intrigued by the suggestion that Indo-Iranian (or Sanskrit) may be the language in which to survey possible etymologies for Moroni, but I would still like to see a study of ancient DNA from the Comoros.

As you've mentioned before there are some interesting Hebraisms in Tamil poetry. Tamil Brahmi inscriptions are found at very early date from Egypt to Oman to Sri Lanka to the Malay Peninsula. (source)

As for ancient DNA in Comoros, we'll probably never see it. However, I think what we see in the Lemba and the Antemoro would not be much different from what was going on in the Comoros. The challenge is to date the arrival of the Lemba and to identify the direction they came from. 

"Interestingly, there are a number of similarities between the genetic profile of the Comoros islanders and the Lemba of South Africa, a Bantu speaking people whose Semitic origins are evident at both the cultural and genetic level. The Lemba have high frequencies of the Middle Eastern Y-chromosome HgJ-12f2a (25%), a potentially SEA Y, Hg-K(xPQR) (32%) and a Bantu Y, E-PN1 (30%) (similar to E-M2), raising the possibility that the Lemba and Comorian populations are consequences of similar demographic processes. The high-resolution genotyping of the Lemba Y chromosomes and mitochondria will elucidate this question." (source)