what do people know of the "Anthon Transcript"

[MikeWaters]

One of the YM leaders brought an old paperback BoM that was colored metallic gold with BoM characters, which were taken from the Anthon Transcript.

[SteelBlue]

The way I remember it, the Anthon transcript contained characters said to have been copied from the gold plates. Martin Harris took this transcript and showed it to 3 scholars of reknown, the most important being Dr. Charles Anthon at Columbia. According to Harris, Anthon gave him a written certificate stating that the characters were ancient writings. But upon learning that the characters came from a book said to have been given to JS by an angel Dr. Anthon is said to have taken back the certificate and destroyed it. Dr. Anthon always denied Harriss's version saying that he never gave any credence to the document. We all know this story because it is said to have fulfilled the prophecy where a learned one would say "I cannot read a sealed book." This event is said to have convinced Harris to financially back JS translation/production of the BoM.

The Anthon transcript ended up in the posession of David Whitmer. I believe the RLDS church now possesses that original document. The photo you posted may be a copy of that document.

[MikeWaters]

I know that part of the story.

I am more interested in comparison to known Egyptian and American written languages.

[Archaea]

in a brief glance, the characters appear to be hieratic in nature, with some other characters resembling other languages which I have only glanced.

My memory of linguistical features is fading.

I have only brief contact with Egyptian writings, and have forgotten Akadian.

I even bought a book on Mayan writings, but I need to find that.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I know that part of the story.

I am more interested in comparison to known Egyptian and American written languages.

If no Egyptologist could make heads or tails of it wouldn't that say all that needs be said about Harris' purported story? If the characters are unknown to anyone how could anyone purport to give a certification that they were genuine? My understanding is that "Reformed Egyptian" is unknown to anyone except Joseph Smith. On the other hand, if they're genuine somebody should translate them. Anton may not have been able to because this was before the Rosetta Stone was fully understood.

[MikeWaters]

it is probably very difficult to translate any document this short, without the equivalent of a rosetta stone. I was reading that the only ancient languages that have been cracked are ones with loads of scripts. Not just a few lines.

[Archaea]

Seattle I don't gather you're much of a linguist.

If a language varies significantly after years of degradation, it is possible without another Rosetta stone that nobody could translate it.

Degradation doesn't take long, especially after separation in time and distance.

Let's go to Germany for instance. During the twelfth century, Swiss German was a variant that so differed because it didn't follow a certain consonant change, that it became virtually indecipherable to most Germans. And this is a language of relatively close proximity.

Your assumptions are simply not valid.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

it is probably very difficult to translate any document this short, without the equivalent of a rosetta stone. I was reading that the only ancient languages that have been cracked are ones with loads of scripts. Not just a few lines.

Mike you are correct.

Linguistics is a hobby of mine, and Seattle is cracked on this one.

There are loads of small languages which have not been cracked. There are loads of dead Indian languages which will never be cracked.

[SteelBlue]

I'd imagine that FARMS has quite a few articles on the subject. Beyond that I doubt anyone has looked at the issue. A quick google search gave me a string of anti-sites. I haven't checked FARMS yet.

[Archaea]

For example, here is the Middle Egyptian alphabet.

http://members.aol.com/egyptnew/hiero.html

Sign list.

http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/...sign-list.html

Heiratic is explained in the middle of the link below.

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/writing.htm

For fun, here's the cuneiform alphabet.

http://www.ancientscripts.com/ugaritic.html

And an excellent work on Demotic.

http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/PUB/S...5_Lesson01.pdf

Reformed Egyptian could have come from Late Egyptian, hieroglyphic, hieratic or demotic, as all existed at the time of Nephi and his family.

Can you see why I believe it looks more like hieratic than hieroglyphic?