Ojibway writing

[BartBurk]

I came across this and wondered if anyone here thought it had significance for the Book of Mormon. The Ojibway and Sioux seemed to have a form of writing using pictographs. The ancient practice was to use bark as the writing material. What surprised me was the relatively expansive nature of the pictograph stories. Here is a web site describing some of these:

inquiry.net/outdoor/native/sign/pictographs.htm

Look especially under the link for pictograph stories. Of course bark is not a material that would last for a long time. One of the criticisms of the idea the Book of Mormon took place in the Great Lakes area is the lack of writing. If there was indeed an ancient writing system which mainly used bark as the writing material that objection is overcome. I get the feeling reading the Book of Mormon that use of plates was limited to the history of the Nephites. But I could see Captain Moroni using bark as a way of writing a letter.

More can be found here:

jamesastarkeyjr.com/TopicBirchBarkScrolls.htm

 

[The_Old_Medic]

Many cultures in this world have used pictographs, before writing evolved. Chinese script is a form of pictograph. Almost all North American Native Groups used pictographs, and they can be found on stones in virtually every area of North America.

The Mormon belief in the plates is, to put it mildly, “unusual”. In every other version of a “Sacred Book”, there are ancient versions of that book available for study. With the LDS, it sprang out, fully developed, and "disappeared never to be seen again on this earth.

But, the language used in that book, when studied by language experts, bears an uncommonly close relationship to the language from the King James Version of the Bible. It seems exceedingly odd that a book, supposedly written almost 2,000 years earlier, would use exactly the same language as 17th century England.

As a person of Ojibway descent myself (Swampy Cree to be exact), I am quite aware that my people wrote many of the creation stories, and other tales on any surface that they had available, including bark, skins, stones, wood, and later more modern materials.

I do NOT see any, and I repeat, ANY connection between the stories of my people and anything that is in the Book of Mormon. In fact, the two tales are so far apart in every respect that they have no similarity at all. NONE!

 

[RebeccaJ]

Pictographs does not equal “reformed Egyptian”…nothing exists in that mythical language, on any type of surface, anywhere.

 

[christianley]

Pictographs does not equal “reformed Egyptian”…nothing exists in that mythical language, on any type of surface, anywhere.

If reformed Egyptian really did exist (highly unlikely) we wouldn’t have any good idea what it may have looked like so it would be impossible to recognize it.

 

[BartBurk]

Pictographs does not equal “reformed Egyptian”…nothing exists in that mythical language, on any type of surface, anywhere.

How would we know what reformed Egyptian looked like if we saw it?

 

[puzzleannie]

I came across this and wondered if anyone here thought it had significance for the Book of Mormon. The Ojibway and Sioux seemed to have a form of writing using pictographs. The ancient practice was to use bark as the writing material. What surprised me was

how to you get from Indians writing in pictographs on birch bark, to an alleged angel writing alleged divine revelation using supernatural means and language on alleged golden plates?

 

[BartBurk]

how to you get from Indians writing in pictographs on birch bark, to an alleged angel writing alleged divine revelation using supernatural means and language on alleged golden plates?

You don’t. But I thought the information on the Ojibway was very interesting.

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

I’m interested. Thank you.

 

[RebeccaJ]

How would we know what reformed Egyptian looked like if we saw it?

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Anthon Script

“The Anthon Transcript was a sheet of paper, thought to be lost, upon which Joseph SMITH copied sample “reformed Egyptian” characters from the plates of the Book of Mormon. In the winter of 1828, Martin HARRlS showed these characters to Dr. Charles Anthon of Columbia College (now Columbia University), and hence the name.”

But then…

A Singular Discovery by Richard Stout

Stout gives very good evidence that the characters in the Anthon Script were sourced from the “Detroit Manuscript”. A book of 3 to 4 hundred pages written in Gaelic, with Latin shorthand (Trionian notes). It was discovered in 1823 in Detroit, and determined to be a book on Catholic doctrines.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

"The column on the left is made up of
characters from the “Anthon transcript,
The column on the right contains
Tironian notes, the Latin shorthand
upon which early modern shorthand
was based.”

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

"The Anthon Transcript was a sheet of paper, thought to be lost

Well there you go. Paper appears out of no where, and how exactly is it that we’ve verified that this was the original paper?

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

Many cultures in this world have used pictographs, before writing evolved. Chinese script is a form of pictograph. Almost all North American Native Groups used pictographs, and they can be found on stones in virtually every area of North America.

The Mormon belief in the plates is, to put it mildly, “unusual”. In every other version of a “Sacred Book”, there are ancient versions of that book available for study. With the LDS, it sprang out, fully developed, and "disappeared never to be seen again on this earth.

But, the language used in that book, when studied by language experts, bears an uncommonly close relationship to the language from the King James Version of the Bible. It seems exceedingly odd that a book, supposedly written almost 2,000 years earlier, would use exactly the same language as 17th century England.

It wasn’t in anything like that same language.

It makes perfect sense to me that JS would *translate *the book into KJV English since the KJV is what he’d been reading since he was a kid.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Well there you go. Paper appears out of no where, and how exactly is it that we’ve verified that this was the original paper?

A good topic for you to research and report back on.

 

[JHow]

How would we know what reformed Egyptian looked like if we saw it?

That is a question for Smith, since he so characterized it. But, unfortunately, I haven’t seen that he explained it anywhere. Coincidentally, it was exactly in the 1820’s that scholars like Champollion were learning to translate the real Egyptian scripts, including hieroglyphs and hieratic, and before that, demotic.

To my mind, comparing the story of the translation of real hieroglyphs and the fantastic translation done by Smith (see a pro-Smith version below) just further underscores the invented nature of Smith’s book.

The key to unlocking hieroglyphic writing, and demotic before that, was a realization that the glyphs were mostly phonetic in nature, and especially as applied to foreign names in the texts. Ancient egyptian writing was not pictographs, and only partially ideographs.

Smith, however, is described as either translating word-for-word (ideographs), or in places as letter-for-letter (better, if an alphabet is based on a previous one, like coptic to demotic). If he was translating hieroglyphs, he should have been translating phone-for phone (sound), and then, based on a knowledge of the grammar and syntax of the orginal language, ultimately supplying us with the meaning of the text in English.

Even if you take for granted Smith’s magical translation means (urim & thumim, hat, rock, etc.), you still have an incoherent explanation for the orginal language. To Smith, translation is a mechanical, code-breaking process. In real-life it is not. Nothing in the description of Smith’s translation process recognizes that, at the most fundamental level, language, human speech, is sound.

It just adds up to one more thing that no one can verify: language, plates, means of translation…

maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=7&num=1&id=167

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

Nothing in the description of Smith’s translation process recognizes that, at the most fundamental level, language, human speech, is sound.

That’s not true for anyone who reads past 600 words per minute. Language ceases to be sound-based, and the mind begins to read at an ideographic level.

 

[JHow]

That’s not true for anyone who reads past 600 words per minute. Language ceases to be sound-based, and the mind begins to read at an ideographic level.

Translation is not reading.

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

Originally Posted by Cowboy Pete View Post
That’s not true for anyone who reads past 600 words per minute. Language ceases to be sound-based, and the mind begins to read at an ideographic level.
Translation is not reading.

Translation is not reading.

Whatever you just did to my post wasn’t any sort of cognizable reading, either, since what you said is utterly unresponsive to what I said.