Semitic Language Attributes

According to Mormon 9:32-34 The Book of Mormon was originally written in a language called Reformed Egyptian, which was adapted from Egyptian.  Egyptian is now a dead language, meaning nobody speaks it as their primary language.  The written language of Egyptian was primarily used as a scribal or shorthand language, meaning one could convey more or less the same amount of information in much fewer characters.  This, Mormon indicates, was the reason they chose the language, because they were writing upon plates of gold, meaning space on these plates would be very precious.  Not only was the ore hard to come by at times (Mormon 8:5) but writing the history in their native language of Hebrew would have greatly expanded the size of the plates and thereby reduced their practicality.
Mormon also said that nobody but they used Reformed Egyptian, which was why the Lord provided a means of translation (the Urim and Thumim).  But, since we know it was based on Egyptian and Hebrew, we also know that it was a Semitic language, which is one of the major families of languages in the world, of which Hebrew and Arabic are the only ones still spoken today.  Now, the first language that the Book of Mormon was translated into in our day was English.  However, it is often evident when a text is translated from one language to another, especially when great care is taken to preserve the exact meaning of the original.  So if the Book of Mormon was really translated from Reformed Egyptian, we should see some evidence of this.

The Question:
What evidence is there that the Book of Mormon was originally written in a Semitic language?



The Short Answer:
The Book of Mormon is full of remnants of its original Semitic language, including Semitic sentence structure, rules of grammar, names, and idioms.

The Long Answer:
Early critics of the Book of Mormon pointed out that the original manuscript of the book contained over 3,900 grammatical errors.  That is because the Book of Mormon was not originally written in English.  What appears to us to be terrible English, is actually beautiful Semitic!  Here are ten attributes of Semitic languages which the Book of Mormon and its original manuscript exhibited:

1. Semitic languages are written from right to left.  During the translation process, Joseph Smith was heard to comment that it was difficult to get used to reading the characters from right to left instead of from left to right which he was of course used to.
2. Written Semitic languages contain no capitals.  The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon likewise did not contain English-appropriate capitalization.  Even the word "jerusalem" was written in the manuscript in all lower-case.  It was difficult at first to determine which words should be capitalized.
3. Written Semitic languages contain no paragraphs.  The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon also had very few separations between paragraphs.
4. Written Semitic languages contain no punctuation.  The original manuscript also did not have appropriate punctuation.  A man by the name of John H. Gilbert spent several weeks adding punctuation to Oliver Cowdary's copy of the manuscript so it would be ready for the printers.
5. Semitic languages have only two verb tenses:  past and present.  The Book of Mormon also contains only past and present tense verbs; it does not use perfect, pluperfect, past participles, etc. that exist in some other languages.
6. Semitic use of function words.  Take a look at Helaman 3:14.  If this were written in English, it would have all the commas but only two instances of the word "and."  In order to be Semitically correct however, it requires all eighteen "ands" since Semitic languages had no commas.  The Book of Mormon's usage of other function words also match those of Semitic languages, such as excessive use of possessive words (like "his") since there were no apostrophes, and the use of cognate accusatives ("dreamed a dream," "worked a work," "write a writing," etc.).
7. Semitic numbering system.  Look at Mormon 2:2.  If this were written in English, the number would be written, "three hundred and twenty-six."  However, once again due to the lace of punctuation, Semitic languages use the word "and" to connect all the numbers.  Hence:  "three hundred and twenty and six years had passed away."
8. Semitic names.  The Book of Mormon contains 183 brand new names, most of which are very Semitic sounding or originally contained vowel sounds found in Semitic languages but not in English.  Some examples of these are Chemish, Korihor, Abinadom, and Mathonihah.
9. Semitic sentence structure.  The Book of Mormon contains examples of Semitic sentence structure, such as in Enos 1:5.  In English, it would have simply said, "thy sins are forgiven," but in Semitic languages, the extra "thee" is required at the end of the sentence, or else it doesn't make sense.
10. Semitic idioms.  An idiom is a phrase that exists only in a certain language.  Some examples of Semitic idioms in the Book of Mormon include "turned himself around," "stretched forth his hand," "lowly in heart," "stiff necks", "by the hand of," and "by the mouth of."  Sometimes these idioms don't translate very well into another language, meaning they would have been written differently if originally in English:  "curious workmanship" actually means "skilled" rather than "strange" workmanship; "fountain" can mean either a spring or river while "many waters" means an ocean or sea; "having dwelt" is one way of saying where someone is from; and "to reign in his stead" means a king "followed" rather than "replaced" the previous king.

Joseph Smith was not a learned man.  He did not know Hebrew or Egyptian or any other Semitic language when he began translating the Book of Mormon.  This therefore supports the fact that the Book of Mormon was translated from a Semitic text rather than written by someone who only spoke English.