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Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, circa July–circa November 1835

Source Note

“Grammar & A[l]phabet of the Egyptian Language,” [ca. July–ca. Nov. 1835]; English in the handwriting of and ; hieratic and unknown characters in unidentified handwriting (likely Phelps and Parrish); thirty-six pages; Kirtland Egyptian Papers, CHL. Includes redactions and archival markings.
The paper of this ledger volume is ruled with thirty-four blue lines that are now faded. The text block measures 12¼ × 7⅞ inches (31 × 20 cm) and originally contained 108 leaves (one leaf is now missing) arranged in nine gatherings of twelve leaves each, plus two flyleaves in the front and two in the back. The text block is sewn all along on three recessed cords. The front and back covers of the volume are composite boards. The volume has a brown, goat-skin, quarter-leather binding. The covers are adorned with shell marbled paper, with yellow veins and a body of dark green and red. The bound volume measures 12⅜ × 8 × 1 inches (31 × 20 × 3 cm). At some point, a “3” was debossed on the bottom of the spine, and the title “Egyptian Alphabet” was written on a piece of paper and adhered to the spine.
This volume was first used by JS and his associates in 1833 as they created an index of topics in JS’s Bible revision—a process they called “classifying the different Subject[s] of the Scriptures.” Evidence of that process is still visible on the volume: “Faith.” and “10” are inscribed on the front cover in ink, and there is also a partial ink stroke to the left of “10” where a piece of the cover paper has been torn away. This stroke was probably the beginning of an “N” in an original inscription that read “No 10,” which would match notations on two other volumes in the 1833 scripture classification project. The verso of the second front flyleaf bears accidental ink transfer from writing on the the first page of the volume, which is now missing but was related to the scripture classification project. That effort was later abandoned, and the volume fell into disuse. In 1835, it was repurposed by for church leaders’ study of the Egyptian language.
The entire volume is inscribed in brown ink. By the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, the inscribed pages of this volume were paginated in blue ink. The handwriting in which the numbers are inscribed is similar to that of early-twentieth-century apostle James E. Talmage. The content in the volume is organized into ten sections of inscribed pages, each followed by a number of blank pages. Each inscribed page contains two vertical lines, forming a column and a left margin. The final page of the volume is blank except for those vertical lines, which may indicate an abandoned plan to inscribe the final page. Pairs of adhesive wafers were affixed to the upper left corners of the blank second rectos of the third, fifth, and seventh gatherings and the blank first recto of the ninth gathering. The wafers may have been connected to the earlier scripture classification effort; they appear to be unrelated to the Egyptian-language project.
The volume is markedly worn, and the binding is badly damaged, which has left all the gatherings loose from one another and from the covers. The front pastedown leaf is partially separated from the pasteboard, and the back pastedown leaf is partially torn.
The volume appears to have been included in the 1846 Historian’s Office inventory, which lists an “Egyptian Grammar” among several other bound volumes. Egyptian materials—with which this volume was likely grouped—were listed on additional inventories throughout the nineteenth century, suggesting continuous institutional custody.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Classification of Scriptures, not before 17 July 1833.

  2. [2]

    The book that later became the Kirtland elders quorum “Record” was originally labeled “Second Comeing of Christ | No 3.” The book that later became JS’s second Ohio journal was originally labeled “Repentence” on one side, with a corresponding “No 8” on the spine and “Sabbath Day | No 9” on the other side. (See Source Note for Classification of Scriptures, not before 17 July 1833; and Source Note for JS, Journal, 1835–1836.)

  3. [3]

    Pages 1–7 are inscribed, followed by twenty-six blank pages. Pages 8–11 are then inscribed and followed by six blank pages. Pages 12–14 are inscribed and followed by six blank pages. Pages 15–18 are inscribed and followed by eleven blank pages. Pages 19–22 are inscribed and followed by fifteen blank pages. Pages 23–26 are inscribed and followed by twelve blank pages. Pages 27–28 are inscribed and followed by twenty-two blank pages. Pages 29–30 are inscribed and followed by twenty-two blank pages. Pages 31–32 are inscribed and followed by twenty-two blank pages. Pages 33–34 are inscribed and followed by thirty-eight blank pages.

  4. [4]

    The first pair of wafers is on the third blank page following page 14, the second pair is on the fifth blank page following page 26, the third pair is on the seventeenth blank page following page 30, and the fourth pair is on the fifteenth blank page following page 34.

  5. [5]

    Another of the volumes used for the scripture classification project contains similar adhesive wafers.

  6. [6]

    Evidence of water damage and mold indicate that at least some of the wear is due to damage and not use.

  7. [7]

    “Schedule of Church Records. Nauvoo 1846,” [1], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.

    Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.

  8. [8]

    “Inventory. Historian’s Office. 4th. April 1855,” [1]; “Historian’s Office Inventory, G. S. L. City March 19, 1858,” [1]; “Historian’s Office Catalogue Book March 1858,” [7], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL; see also Historian’s Office, Journal, 17 Oct. 1855.

    Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.

    Historian’s Office. Journal, 1844–1997. CHL. CR 100 1.

Historical Introduction

When sold four Egyptian mummies, two rolls of papyrus, and a number of papyrus fragments to members of the in , Ohio, in July 1835, JS and a few of his close associates began producing manuscripts that outlined their conceptualization of the Egyptian language. That work was captured in four documents: a manuscript containing their ideas of an Egyptian numbering system (the Egyptian Counting document) and three documents containing incomplete transliterations and definitions of characters (the Egyptian Alphabet documents). Relying heavily on these earlier efforts—and perhaps on additional nonextant documents— inscribed the volume presented here, entitled “Grammar & A[l]phabet of the Egyptian Language.” also inscribed a small number of entries in the volume. It is not known whether JS directed the production of this volume or whether JS or others besides Phelps and Parrish were involved with the project, but it is likely that JS knew and approved of the work Phelps and Parrish were doing.
The Grammar and Alphabet volume was one piece of a larger attempt to understand the Egyptian language, which was in turn part of a larger effort by JS to study ancient languages. The Egyptian Alphabet documents, the Grammar and Alphabet volume, and the manuscripts of the Book of Abraham all incorporated characters from the papyri as well as other characters of unknown origin. Some characters and elements from the definitions in the Egyptian Alphabet documents were incorporated into the Grammar and Alphabet volume, and a few were then copied into the Book of Abraham. A few of the characters found in the Grammar and Alphabet volume appear to have been copied there first and then later copied into the Egyptian Alphabet documents.
The Grammar and Alphabet volume was produced in , where and resided during this period. Phelps likely began inscribing Grammar and Alphabet material in this volume sometime between July 1835 (when the Egyptian Alphabet documents were first drafted) and 1 October 1835 (when JS’s journal mentions that JS, , and worked on “the Egyptian alphabet,” which could refer either to the Grammar and Alphabet volume or to the Egyptian Alphabet documents). JS’s journal does not mention work on the Egyptian-language project after late November 1835. Phelps and Parrish apparently finished their work on the Grammar and Alphabet volume by sometime around January 1836, when attention shifted to the newly organized Hebrew school.
As the title suggests, the Grammar and Alphabet volume contains two types of information. The bulk of the material is lexicographical—ancient Egyptian and other characters are defined. Grammatical principles and rules appear in some of the definitions. The structure of the volume is complex: it is split into two parts, each of which is further divided into five subsections, called “degrees.” The degrees in each part appear in reverse numerical order. Part 1 begins with the fifth degree and works backward to the first, then part 2 starts over with the fifth degree and proceeds in the same manner. The Grammar and Alphabet volume’s five-degree system has antecedents in the earlier Egyptian Alphabet documents, all of which are arranged in a similar fashion. Part 1 of the Grammar and Alphabet volume is composed mostly of the characters from the first part of the first degree of the Egyptian Alphabet documents, and part 2 of the Grammar and Alphabet volume is composed of characters from the second part of the first degree of the Egyptian Alphabet documents. Given the arrangement of the inscribed leaves in the Grammar and Alphabet volume, it seems unlikely that planned to add additional parts from the Egyptian Alphabet documents to this particular ledger volume, though he could have added to the work by inscribing in a new volume.
While each of the parts of the Grammar and Alphabet volume contains characters arranged into five degrees, the characters are arranged differently in each part. The arrangement of part 1 follows that of the first part of the Egyptian Alphabet documents: the characters are arranged in the same order from 1.1 (“Ahlish”) through 1.23 (“Zool”). Character 1.18 (“zub-zool-oan”) does not appear in sequential order but is discussed along with other characters at the beginning of each degree. Part 2 is arranged differently from part 1. Rather than copy an entire list of characters into each degree, copied one character from the Egyptian Alphabet documents into each degree of part 2. In other words, Phelps copied character 2.1 (“Ahme=os=”) into the first degree of part 2, then he copied character 2.2 (“Aleph”) into the second degree and so forth. After copying character 2.5 (“Alkebeth”) into the fifth degree, he started back in the first degree, where he copied character 2.6 (“Alkibeth”) beneath character 2.1. Phelps continued this pattern until the thirty-fifth character (copied in the fifth degree). He then wrote characters 2.36 through 2.42 in each degree of part 2. The reason for the difference in arrangement of characters between parts 1 and 2 is unknown.
The lexicographical material has the same format as the Egyptian Alphabet documents—each entry contains a character, its associated transliteration, and the definition assigned to that character. Within the first part, each degree generally contains the same list of characters. Rather than inscribing all the material in a degree at the same time, generally worked entry by entry, filling out the information for a given character in each of the five degrees of the relevant part before moving on to the next character. Phelps numbered each entry at the beginning of each degree of the first part, but as he continued in each degree, he numbered the entries only sporadically. The characters’ definitions frequently invoke biblical and ancient Egyptian figures and concepts, and many of them develop and become more complex over the course of the five degrees in part 1.
For instance, the level of detail in the definition of character 1.9 (“Ho-e-oop”) increases over the five degrees in the first part: in the first degree, “A young unmarrid man; a prince”; in the second, “A virtuous prince”; in the third, “A prince of the line of the Pharoahs”; in the fourth, “a prince of the royal blood a true desendant from Ham—the son of Noah”; and in the fifth, “A prince of the royal blood a true desendant from Ham, the son of Noah, and inheritor of the Kingly blessings from under the hand of Noah, but not according to the priestly blessing, because of the trangrissions of Ham, which blessing fell upon Shem from under the hand of Noah.” While not every definition shows such obvious development, the definitions of all but one of the characters change from degree to degree.
Grammar entries are scattered throughout the volume. Some, such as the explanation on pages 1–2, are lengthy, while others appear in a single entry, where they take the place of a character’s definition. The grammar entries do not, however, lay out systematic rules for a language system. The lengthiest grammar discussions can be found attached to four characters, all in the first part: 5.27 (“Za Ki=on hish chal sidon hish”) in the fifth degree, 3.15 (“Iota nitahveh ah-que”) in all degrees, 2.15 (“Beth”) in the first and second degrees, and 1.10 (“Zip Zi”) in the fourth degree. In the fifth and second degrees of part 1, respectively, dissected characters 5.27 and 3.15 to lay out principles of grammar and explain how different markings could be added to the characters to alter the meaning by increasing the number or changing the part of speech. Phelps also dissected character 3.11a (“Kiah broam = Kiah brah oam = zub zoo oan”) in the fifth degree, although he did not explain the markings or their significance.
and copied many characters from two of the five sections of the Egyptian Alphabet documents into the Grammar and Alphabet volume. This may indicate that the work of the Grammar and Alphabet was considered incomplete, though additional volumes would have been needed to continue work on the Grammar and Alphabet project. Indeed, in November 1843, JS “suggested the Idea of preparing a grammar of the Egyptian Language.” Whether JS intended to finish or publish the Grammar and Alphabet volume already in existence or to correct or otherwise build upon previous work and prepare a new grammar is unknown. But it appears that at the time Phelps stopped work on the Grammar and Alphabet volume in , JS and his associates felt their work in studying an Egyptian language system was not finished.
JS and his associates retained the volume and later used it several times in 1842 and 1843. The volume was used extensively when JS and his associates published Facsimile 2 and its accompanying explanation in March 1842. The following spring, six brass plates were dug out of an Indian burial mound near Kinderhook, Illinois, and brought to , Illinois, for JS to translate. One of the men who unearthed the plates had manufactured them and planted them in a mound to deceive local Mormons. According to one source, JS looked at the plates and then “compared them . . . with his Egyptian alphabet,” an apparent reference to the Grammar and Alphabet volume.
Several months later, on 13 November 1843, JS and drew on the Grammar and Alphabet volume in a letter to sometime Mormon supporter . In the letter, JS and Phelps included several phrases in other languages, including an allegedly Egyptian passage based on the Grammar and Alphabet: “Were I an Egyptian,” the letter stated, “I would exclaim= Jah oh=ah: Enish-go=an=dosh. Flo-ees-Flo-isis.” In the margin of the letter at this point are the three characters that correspond to these transliterations (2.37, 2.38, and 2.39). The published version of this letter in the church’s Times and Seasons adds in parentheses the meaning of the transliterations—“O the earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun”—which essentially follows the definitions found in the Grammar and Alphabet volume.
The inscribed pages of the volume are presented herein in both photographic and typographic format. Differences in the transliterations throughout the Grammar and Alphabet volume, as well as the differences between this volume and the Egyptian Alphabet documents, are discussed largely in the annotation of the fifth degree of each part. When characters, transliterations, or definitions are consistent throughout the volume, annotation on those elements is found in the fifth degree. Unless otherwise noted, the repeated characters and their associated transliterations in each of the degrees are similar throughout the Grammar and Alphabet volume and within the Egyptian Alphabet documents as well. Because so many of the definitions that appear in the Grammar and Alphabet volume build upon previous definitions in that same document and are only occasionally similar to definitions found in the Egyptian Alphabet documents, the annotation herein rarely compares the Grammar and Alphabet volume with the Egyptian Alphabet documents. The Comparison of Characters chart provides an easy reference for similarities and differences among the documents by listing all the characters, sounds, and explanations that appear in both the Egyptian Alphabet documents and the Grammar and Alphabet volume. Developments in the definitions throughout the various degrees, which are easily compared within the document transcript by following the structure of the document, are not noted.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    See Egyptian Counting, ca. Early July–ca. Nov. 1835; and Egyptian Alphabet, ca. Early July–ca. Nov. 1835–A, –B, and –C.

  2. [2]

    See “Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts.”

  3. [3]

    Some of the first characters in each degree of the first part of the Grammar and Alphabet volume are among the final characters in the Egyptian Alphabet documents. (See characters 5.27 and 5.28 in Egyptian Alphabet, ca. Early July–ca. Nov. 1835–A, –B, and –C.)

  4. [4]

    JS’s journal records, “This after noon labored on the Egyptian alphabet, in company with brsr O. Cowdery and W.W. Phelps: The system of astronomy was unfolded.” This may refer to the significant material in the Grammar and Alphabet volume that discusses a planetary system—for instance, characters 2.37–2.40 in the fifth degree of the second part. (JS, Journal, 1 Oct. 1835.)

  5. [5]

    See JS, Journal, 26 Nov. 1835.

  6. [6]

    JS and others began a “Hebrew School” on 4 January 1836 and studied under Joshua Seixas, a Jewish educator associated with several educational institutions, between 26 January and 29 March. In their Nauvoo-era work on the Book of Abraham, JS and his scribes incorporated transliterations of Hebrew words. That those transliterations are absent from the Grammar and Alphabet volume suggests that work on the Grammar and Alphabet was completed before church leaders began studying Hebrew in early 1836. (JS, Journal, 4 and 26 Jan. 1836; 29 Mar. 1836; see also Book of Abraham Manuscript and Explanation of Facsimile 1, ca. Feb. 1842 [Abraham 1:1–2:18]; Explanation of Facsimile 2, ca. 15 Mar. 1842; and Grey, “Joseph Smith’s Use of Hebrew in the Book of Abraham,” 12–20, 25.)

    Grey, Matthew J. “Joseph Smith’s Use of Hebrew in the Book of Abraham.” Unpublished paper. Copy in editors’ possession.

  7. [7]

    While the Grammar and Alphabet volume is divided into two parts with five degrees in each part, each of the Egyptian Alphabet documents is divided into five different “parts” all coming from the “first degree.”

  8. [8]

    For instance, character 1.14 was inscribed in each degree of part 1. Beginning with the fifth degree, Phelps drew the character and wrote the character’s transliteration (“Iota”) and definition. When he got to the fourth degree, he inscribed a definition, then canceled that definition, wrote a new one, and copied the original definition (from the fourth degree) into the third degree. This nature of cancellation hints that Phelps recorded the definition in the fourth degree, moved to the third degree, and only then realized his mistake in the fourth degree. This whole process suggests that Phelps had in mind or on paper the five distinct definitions of each character, since the Egyptian Alphabet documents had only one definition per character.

  9. [9]

    Character 1.16 remains consistent throughout the degrees.

  10. [10]

    JS, Journal, 15 Nov. 1843.

  11. [11]

    One source claims that JS misidentified a Greek psalter as a dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1842. In spring 1842, a minister named Henry Caswall arrived in Nauvoo, Illinois, incognito, “in order to test the scholarship of the prophet.” Caswall, who published an account in a popular anti-Mormon pamphlet that year, wrote that he brought a Greek psalter from roughly the thirteenth century to JS and pretended ignorance of its content and age. According to Caswall, JS called it “a dictionary of Egyptian Hieroglyphics.” The Latter-day Saints published a rebuttal to Caswall’s pamphlet, stating that JS had not examined the psalter and observing that Caswall’s words and actions did not become his position as a minister. (Caswall, City of the Mormons, 5, 35–36, italics in original; “Reward of Merit,” Times and Seasons, 15 Oct. 1843, 4:364–365.)

    Caswall, Henry. The City of the Mormons; or, Three Days at Nauvoo, in 1842. London: J. G. F. and J. Rivington, 1842.

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

  12. [12]

    See Historical Introduction to Explanation of Facsimile 2, ca. 15 Mar. 1842.

  13. [13]

    “Late and Interesting from the Mormon Empire on the Upper Mississippi,” New York Herald, 30 May 1843, [2]; see also Bradley and Ashurst-McGee, “Joseph Smith and the Kinderhook Plates,” 93–109. The first through fourth degrees of the first part of the Grammar and Alphabet volume begin with the title “Egyptian Alphabet”, perhaps indicating that members referred to the volume that way.

    New York Herald. New York City. 1835–1924.

    Bradley, Don, and Mark Ashurst-McGee. “Joseph Smith and the Kinderhook Plates.” In A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine and Church History, edited by Laura Harris Hales, 93–115. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016.

  14. [14]

    JS, Nauvoo, IL, to James Arlington Bennet, Arlington House, Long Island, NY, 13 Nov. 1843, JS Collection, CHL; see also characters 2.37, 2.38, and 2.39 in the fifth degree of the second part of the Grammar and Alphabet. A similar rhetorical approach was used in a pamphlet published a month later by JS. Instead of the three characters used in the letter, however, a single transliteration, “Su-e-eh-ni”, was incorporated into the pamphlet with the definition “(What other persons are those?).” This transliteration and a similar definition appear in the Grammar and Alphabet at character 1.16 in the first degree of the first part. (Smith, General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, 4; see also Brown, “Translator and the Ghostwriter,” 43–44.)

    Brown, Samuel. “The Translator and the Ghostwriter: Joseph Smith and W. W. Phelps.” Journal of Mormon History 34, no. 1 (Winter 2008): 26–62.

  15. [15]

    JS to J. Bennet, 13 Nov. 1843, in Times and Seasons, 1 Nov. 1843, 4:373; see also characters 2.37, 2.38, and 2.39 in the fifth degree of the second part of the Grammar and Alphabet; and Brown, “Translator and the Ghostwriter,” 43–44.

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

    Brown, Samuel. “The Translator and the Ghostwriter: Joseph Smith and W. W. Phelps.” Journal of Mormon History 34, no. 1 (Winter 2008): 26–62.

  16. [16]

    For a more detailed comparison, see Comparison of Characters.

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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, circa July–circa November 1835
ID #
7898
Total Pages
227
Print Volume Location
JSP, R4:111–190
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