A Divine Origin of the Columbia Chess Chronicle, 1888

[Guest]

I am not a linguist, but I can interpret statistical analyses, and Carmack's manipulation of numbers borders on ridiculous.

Here is just one example from his paragraphs above, where he concludes there is more Early Modern English usage in the Book of Mormon than in Symmachus' 1888 text. First his conclusion:

In short, Book of Mormon language is so much more sophisticated and archaic than this 1888 text or any pseudo-biblical text I've looked at

And here is just one of his elements he thinks supports this:

The 1888 text has "this wise", possibly an error for biblical "on this wise" (10 times). This is found in the Book of Mormon eight times. But the earliest text also has "in this wise" once (mh0718), which was more common in Early Modern English than "on this wise", though missing from the King James Bible.

So in the Book of Mormon, there are 8 instances of "on this wise," and 1 of "in this wise," for a total of 9 instances. Therefore the Book of Mormon usage is 1/9th instances of Early Modern English "in this wise."

In Symmachus' 1888 text, there are 10 instances of "this wise." Carmack calls that "possibly an error" (based on what he thinks it meant to say but actually did not say). Therefore the 1888 text is 0/10ths instances of Early Modern English "in this wise."

He states that in Early Modern English, "in this wise" is more common than "on this wise."

So Carmack compares and concludes that, for the phrase "in this wise" relative to "on this wise":

A 1/9ths usage is closer to "more common" usage than a 0/10ths usage. (statistically both would be indistinguishable from NOT common.) Therefore, the Book of Mormon usage of "in this wise" is closer to Early Modern English than the 1888 text.

In reality, neither usage qualifies as a more common usage, and not only that, Carmack blatantly changed one of his data sets to be what he thinks it should have been, not what it actually was.

Carmack disingenuously favors his desired result to the extent of changing the data set that doesn't support it, and his lack of logic and consistency in his statistical analysis seems grossly inadequate for research like this.

If a bunch of ghosts got together after they died, having lived in the 16th century presumably, and wrote the English Book of Mormon so it could be dictated to Joseph, then sophisticated is the exact word we'd have to use to describe it. It's a perfect fit.

Your analysis is every bit as good as Carmack's, Stem. I say go with it!

[_Kishkumen]

And if this doesn't work out, they can always fall back on the Holy Ghost Committee....

HGCT

[_Symmachus]

In short, Book of Mormon language is so much more sophisticated and archaic than this 1888 text or any pseudo-biblical text I've looked at

So claims a partisan deeply committed to and enamored of this silly pet theory. Come on. No one else who is familiar with the history of the English language and its dialects going back to Caedmon would peg the Book of Mormon as a specimen of Early Modern English. My hunch is that proponents of this theory are better at gathering statistics than thinking historical-linguistically about a text (or as the great ones used to call it, philology). Number crunching on data culled from corpora is no substitute for reading lots of texts. This is scientism at its worst.

I'm amazed this poster can take it all that seriously, but being that serious about it has made him/her miss the point about my post. There is a difference between "archaic" and "archaizing." Both of these 19th century texts are archaizing in that they are cast in linguistic form that both author and reader would recognize as an earlier form of the language (or at least an attempt). The Columbia Chess Chronicle is only one page or so, and from it, we see how easy it is jam in lot of archaic-looking stuff.

Anyone who really wants to commit to this theory or reject it with a clear conscience should undertake the following exercise for one month: read nothing but Holinshed's Chronicles, and read them all (start with the first volume here). Then, read the Book of Mormon (use Skousen's Yale edition, which really sounds more respectable than it is).

I seriously doubt that anyone who did that would conclude that these are the same stage of the English language. Even one page of Holinshed is enough, but if you're not satisfied read Harpsfield's Life of Thomas Moore or even Richard Hakluyt. In any case, if you read enough early modern English, you'll realize that the proponents of the theory that the Book of Mormon is in early Modern English depend for their claims on people's general ignorance of this stage of the language (and perhaps also their own ignorance of it). That is why all of the arguments are corpus-based and offer up bits of decontextualized data: they run a search on a given corpus (like the OED), call it "data," then run their analysis. They depend on your not appreciating the wider linguistic context from which these data are culled (something that would have been much more difficult in 1888, when educated people still read Holinshed and Hakluyt).

The most that they can show is that the Book of Mormon contains a handful of features of early modern English, but they are an extremely limited set of features indeed: the fabled did-syntax for the past tense, "more part of" for greater, and according to this poster, a whole two instances of "go to it," and one instance of "in this wise" (both of which could just as well be typographical errors). It is highly questionably that these features are even relevant in the first place or that they are constitutive of "early modern English,"—in other words, that these features necessarily indicate early modern English. But assuming they are genuinely archaic, they are barely more than stylistic markers and fit the theory that the composer/compiler/translator/author of the Book of Mormon was imitating the language of the King James Bible—which is in early modern English!

Lastly, I would emphasize that their case depends only a few instances of some phrases, and three or four syntactical features. Both of those are very unreliable criteria to use if you want to establish linguistic affiliation. Modern Greek Syntax, for example, is much closer to modern English syntax than it is to any stage of Ancient Greek, and yet obviously Modern Greek is much more closely related to its earlier forms than to modern English. Same goes with Latin and the Romance languages, all of which but Sardinian share almost no syntactical patterns with Latin and are much closer to English syntax. For hell's sake, they all form their perfect/past tense just like English (and German and Dutch, and Modern Greek, too, for that matter!). Applying the methodology of Skousen and his school, we'd have to conclude, therefore, that Spanish is a form of English.

[_Kishkumen]

I've been looking at that short, 1888 pseudo-biblical text with greater than 50% periphrastic did (about 1,280 words). A few things I've noticed are the following:

The 1888 text overuses "did say" to the detriment of "said" (6 of 8 = 75%). The Book of Mormon uses "did say" about 1% of the time, sensitive to earlier tendencies. Non-emphatic periphrastic did wasn't implemented so indiscriminately in the Book of Mormon, often matching early modern tendencies.

The 1888 text uses both exceeding and exceedingly with following adjectives. The Book of Mormon consistently uses exceeding with adjectives (exceedingly with most past participles), and it has 57 instances of "exceeding great", never "exceedingly great" — very consistent use different from 19c style, which had begun to mix usage, even with great.

The 1888 text has two instances of has, no hath. The earliest text of the Book of Mormon is more than 90% hath, higher than Shakespeare, and similar to various 17c writers.

The 1888 text has biblical "go to" twice. The earliest text of the Book of Mormon uses the less-common archaic "go to it" twice.

The 1888 text has "this wise", possibly an error for biblical "on this wise" (10 times). This is found in the Book of Mormon eight times. But the earliest text also has "in this wise" once (mh0718), which was more common in Early Modern English than "on this wise", though missing from the King James Bible.

The 1888 text has "now did the words of the wise men smote upon the ears of the people" — there isn't anything like this in the King James Bible or the Book of Mormon. Perhaps this is a typo.

The 1888 text mentions "preceding verses"; the Book of Mormon doesn't ever mention verse(s).

In short, Book of Mormon language is so much more sophisticated and archaic than this 1888 text or any pseudo-biblical text I've looked at

Wait, this is real?

[_Kishkumen]

I'm amazed this poster can take it all that seriously, but being that serious about it has made him/her miss the point about my post. There is a difference between "archaic" and "archaizing." Both of these 19th century texts are archaizing in that they are cast in linguistic form that both author and reader would recognize as an earlier form of the language (or at least an attempt). The Columbia Chess Chronicle is only one page or so, and from it, we see how easy it is jam in lot of archaic-looking stuff.

Bingo! I am astounded that obviously archaizing characteristics could seriously be mistaken for archaic language in this way. The data in the Book of Mormon obviously contextualize the text in a consciously archaizing tradition that seeks to imitate the English Bible. That one could look at that wealth of evidence for this mode of archaizing and then propose that the text is instead an example of Early Modern English blows my mind.

[_Runtu]

Bingo! I am astounded that obviously archaizing characteristics could seriously be mistaken for archaic language in this way. The data in the Book of Mormon obviously contextualize the text in a consciously archaizing tradition that seeks to imitate the English Bible. That one could look at that wealth of evidence for this mode of archaizing and then propose that the text is instead an example of Early Modern English blows my mind.

Yeah. The usage being talked about suggests intentional archaizing, at least to me. As Symmachus says, it's the de-contextualizing and the insignificant number of "hits" that raise red flags for me.

[Guest]

My hunch is that proponents of this theory are better at gathering statistics than thinking historical-linguistically about a text

"Gathering" statistics, maybe, the way one might skip though sun-drenched fields, "gathering" wildflowers. Accurately identifying, correlating, and interpreting the numerical results? No. His statistical techniques are apparently as disjointed and bizarre as his linguistic skills, given your assessment.

[_moksha]

Clementine linguistic forms ...

Clementine form usage - "Orange you glad you're part tangerine."

[_Stem]

So claims a partisan deeply committed to and enamored of this silly pet theory. Come on. No one else who is familiar with the history of the English language and its dialects going back to Caedmon would peg the Book of Mormon as a specimen of Early Modern English. My hunch is that proponents of this theory are better at gathering statistics than thinking historical-linguistically about a text (or as the great ones used to call it, philology). Number crunching on data culled from corpora is no substitute for reading lots of texts. This is scientism at its worst.

I'm amazed this poster can take it all that seriously, but being that serious about it has made him/her miss the point about my post. There is a difference between "archaic" and "archaizing." Both of these 19th century texts are archaizing in that they are cast in linguistic form that both author and reader would recognize as an earlier form of the language (or at least an attempt). The Columbia Chess Chronicle is only one page or so, and from it, we see how easy it is jam in lot of archaic-looking stuff.

Anyone who really wants to commit to this theory or reject it with a clear conscience should undertake the following exercise for one month: read nothing but Holinshed's Chronicles, and read them all (start with the first volume here). Then, read the Book of Mormon (use Skousen's Yale edition, which really sounds more respectable than it is).

I seriously doubt that anyone who did that would conclude that these are the same stage of the English language. Even one page of Holinshed is enough, but if you're not satisfied read Harpsfield's Life of Thomas Moore or even Richard Hakluyt. In any case, if you read enough early modern English, you'll realize that the proponents of the theory that the Book of Mormon is in early Modern English depend for their claims on people's general ignorance of this stage of the language (and perhaps also their own ignorance of it). That is why all of the arguments are corpus-based and offer up bits of decontextualized data: they run a search on a given corpus (like the OED), call it "data," then run their analysis. They depend on your not appreciating the wider linguistic context from which these data are culled (something that would have been much more difficult in 1888, when educated people still read Holinshed and Hakluyt).

The most that they can show is that the Book of Mormon contains a handful of features of early modern English, but they are an extremely limited set of features indeed: the fabled did-syntax for the past tense, "more part of" for greater, and according to this poster, a whole two instances of "go to it," and one instance of "in this wise" (both of which could just as well be typographical errors). It is highly questionably that these features are even relevant in the first place or that they are constitutive of "early modern English,"—in other words, that these features necessarily indicate early modern English. But assuming they are genuinely archaic, they are barely more than stylistic markers and fit the theory that the composer/compiler/translator/author of the Book of Mormon was imitating the language of the King James Bible—which is in early modern English!

Lastly, I would emphasize that their case depends only a few instances of some phrases, and three or four syntactical features. Both of those are very unreliable criteria to use if you want to establish linguistic affiliation. Modern Greek Syntax, for example, is much closer to modern English syntax than it is to any stage of Ancient Greek, and yet obviously Modern Greek is much more closely related to its earlier forms than to modern English. Same goes with Latin and the Romance languages, all of which but Sardinian share almost no syntactical patterns with Latin and are much closer to English syntax. For hell's sake, they all form their perfect/past tense just like English (and German and Dutch, and Modern Greek, too, for that matter!). Applying the methodology of Skousen and his school, we'd have to conclude, therefore, that Spanish is a form of English.

I don't know what you all are talking about seeing as I struggle to put together a coherent sentence most of the time. But the spliced in random Early Modern English phrases into a 19th century book like the Book of Mormon is sheer genius, and Joseph was only a genius in terms of religion creation and religious movements but not in terms of writing scripture. So since that is true, he couldn't have spliced in Early Modern English phrases. His wife said he couldn't even write a letter. That means the best conclusion we have is it was inspired after all.

I don't know the more this stuff bounces off of, in and out of, my head the more I'm convinced its about the most useless sounding researching I've ever heard of, particularly as it relates to those who are want to defend the Book of Mormon as some ancient text translated by God and given to someone in the 19th century, word for word.

[_Kishkumen]

I don't know what you all are talking about seeing as I struggle to put together a coherent sentence most of the time. But the spliced in random Early Modern English phrases into a 19th century book like the Book of Mormon is sheer genius, and Joseph was only a genius in terms of religion creation and religious movements but not in terms of writing scripture. So since that is true, he couldn't have spliced in Early Modern English phrases. His wife said he couldn't even write a letter. That means the best conclusion we have is it was inspired after all.

I don't know the more this stuff bounces off of, in and out of, my head the more I'm convinced its about the most useless sounding researching I've ever heard of, particularly as it relates to those who are want to defend the Book of Mormon as some ancient text translated by God and given to someone in the 19th century, word for word.

LOL!

Well, my theory is that Joseph was a frontman for a cabal of Rosicrucian Masons including Luman Walter. This cabal planned to use the story of the discovery of the Book of Mormon as well as various characteristics/narratives of the text to rally Freemasons in western New York in the 1820s. Unfortunately, the Morgan Affair interfered, and the text's Rosicrucian/Masonic purpose had to be shrouded in frontier Christian garb. Thus, the archaizing voice of the text is a deliberate signal to fellow Masons of a certain esoteric/magical bent.