43 – Reformed Egyptian : 改良エジプト語

We are told that the Book of Mormon was written in a language called reformed Egyptian.

(See the following scriptures: 1 Nephi 1:2, Mosiah 1:4, Mormon 9:32)

Some questions:

• What in the world is reformed Egyptian?
• Is it a secret language?
• Why did they used reformed Egyptian rather than their native Hebrew?
• Do we know what reformed Egyptian is?

As we shall see, reformed refers to a writing style, not a specific language.

So first, why did the Book of Mormon writers choose to write in reformed Egyptian rather than in their native Hebrew?  From the very beginning, the Book of Mormon writers recognized two important facts.  One, the written language they chose to write the record in had to be as easy as possible to write.  Two, the written language they used had to take up the least amount of space possible.  The writers had to be able to write very small characters without losing clarity.

There were a number of choices.

• Hebrew: this was their native language and would have been the easiest for them to write in using correct grammar. However, Hebrew takes up a lot of space, since the characters have to be written large enough to be read correctly.
• Phoenician: this was widely used in Lehi’s day as the international language of trade.  However, it required very detailed characters which, like Hebrew, would have to be written large enough to be read correctly.
• Cuneiform: this was a very old language that used simple triangular symbols. It was written by pressing a stylus onto a clay tablet.  It was useful for short messages, but writing a book on clay tablets would not be practical.
• Demotic: this was a compact and easy to use Egyptian writing system. Since it was not the native language of the writers of the Book of Mormon, there would be spelling and grammar errors.  However, it could be written with small characters and did not take up a lot of space.  From what Moroni tells us, it was more important to use a writing system that used less space, even if some grammar errors were made in the writing.

Let’s go back to Lehi’s day and take a closer look at Egyptian.  Lehi was well-educated and could read Egyptian.  He made sure his sons were taught to read it as well.  It was a sign of a good education to be able to read classical Egyptian.

There were at least three different methods of writing in Egyptian.

The first method was called “hieroglyphics”.  This is the writing style that most of us would identify as being ancient Egyptian writing.  This was basically picture writing, with images of birds, people, animals, and so on.  It was very difficult to write.  It took a lot of time and required a very skilled artist to write in hieroglyphics.

As the Egyptian civilization progressed, it became obvious that while hieroglyphics were great for writing on monuments or in burial tombs, it was much too complicated for daily use.  The result was a simplified writing system known as “hieratic”.  In hieratic, the pictures were changed into standardized symbols.  This made it much easier and quicker to write.  It was still a very complicated method of writing and required the memorization of hundreds of symbols (just like kanji...).

Finally, a third method, called “demotic”, was developed that was even easier and simpler to use.  The symbols used in hieratic were further simplified and reduced.  Demotic could be written in either horizontal lines or in vertical lines, like modern Japanese.

Both hieratic and demotic can be referred to as reformed Egyptian, since they were attempts to simplify and to reduce the time and effort required for writing.  In this sense, reformed can mean modified, improved, or simplified.

Interestingly, we see a similar pattern in written Chinese.  Like ancient Egyptian, the oldest Chinese writing systems used pictures.  Over time, those pictures were reduced to standard symbols.  That process of simplification is still on-going today.  So modern Chinese could be called “reformed” Chinese.

In the Nara period, Japanese students went to China to study Chinese literature.  In Japan, the ability to read and write classical Chinese was the mark of a well-educated scholar.  The Japanese scholars quickly recognized the difficulties of using Chinese characters for writing in Japanese.  The spoken Japanese and the written Chinese did not match up at all.  The Japanese language is different than Chinese in both vocabulary and syntax.  There could be no Japanese literature until the complex and difficult Chinese method of writing was “reformed” and able to represent actual spoken Japanese.  Manyougana, hiragana, and katakana are, in a sense, “reformed” Chinese.

Every writing system is merely an imperfect and perhaps futile attempt to record a spoken language accurately and correctly.  Written language, even today, is different than spoken language.

For example, how many different dialects are there in Japan?  Does written Japanese accurately and correctly represent all of those dialects?  Think of text book English compared to actual spoken English, or text book Japanese compared to actual spoken Japanese.  They are very different, aren’t they.

Spoken language changes with each generation.  Written language changes very slowly.  We are currently using the third translation of the Book of Mormon.

Why?

Spoken Japanese has changed so much in just 60 years that most of the younger Japanese people cannot read Brother Saito’s translation from the 1960’s, let alone Alma Taylor’s translation from 1910.

Did Joseph Smith know how to read reformed Egyptian?  No.  In 1830, no one knew how to read any of the various Egyptian writing systems.  Joseph Smith did not need to know how to read reformed Egyptian.  He did not translate the reformed Egyptian that was written on the plates because he was a great scholar.  He translated the reformed Egyptian by the power and authority of God.  He translated the reformed Egyptian because he was a Prophet of God, chosen to open this Dispensation of the Fulness of Times.

The Book of Mormon, whether in English or in Japanese or even in reformed Egyptian is the word of God. We have a duty to read from the Book of Mormon daily, as President Nelson has urged us.

I so testify.