DiscussMormonism.com

I have a question wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 29, 2018 1:54 pm

This is one of those threads/posts that should be in the Mormon Discussions repository, to be referred to every time someone like Peterson tries to call “Bulls Eye” on the name Alma.

_Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 19, 2018 10:25 pm

Philo Sofee wrote:... leaving not a wrack behind...

What does that even mean?

- Doc

There is a problem further with their etymology. If you visit the Book of Mormon onomasticon, you will see an etymology for this name that is purely ridiculous. Even though the Bar Kochba document has an aleph first, it is argued there that it is really an ayin (which I transcribe for convenience here as 3). This is not impossible, since the sound 3 was gradually merged with aleph in some Hebrew and Aramaic dialects (e.g. Babylonian) and that is reflected in the orthography. However, if this is an ayin/3, then the etymology proposed is flatly ridiculous.

The Onomasticon itself provides the evidence. Throughout that entry, you will notice references to Ugaritic (a language that had been extinct for 600 years by the time of Lehi) and to Arabic (which is not attested for a 1,000 years after Lehi), both of which contain a root gh-l-m, which means "young man." In later Hebrew, that gh- became 3, and it is written as an ayin in Biblical Hebrew. The apologetic etymology is that Alma reflects the form 3alm- with the hypocoristic -a. If you have to choose between an out-of-place hypocoristic for a Hebrew name spelled wrongly on the one hand, and a perfectly good Aramaic word in a place were people spoke Aramaic, which do you think is more likely? Me too. Hence, the hypocoristic claim, while cute, is silly.

But the root cannot work. For ayin/3 in Biblical Hebrew actually reflects two sounds, not one: ayin and ghayin. For Arabic and Ugaritic, these sounds are kept distinct in the writing, but not so in Biblical Hebrew, where they are both written as ayin. In Lehi's day, these sounds were still distinct in Hebrew as well (later they merged together as just ayin). We know this because the Greek translation of the Bible transliterates some names spelled with ayin with a gamma (a "g" sound) and others with an alpha (an "a" sound). Greek didn't have a ghayin or an ayin, obviously, so to Greek speakers, words begin with ghayin sounded like gamma, and words with ayin sounded like alpha. That is why, in Biblical Hebrew, the twin city of Sodom is spelled 3amorah with an ayin, but it shows up as Gomorrah in Greek (and eventually English). In Lehi's day, it was probably pronounced as Ghemorah. All of this is to say: 3alma should be, if anything Galma or Ghalma. Of course, perhaps the Nephite language (apparently a mish-mash of Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Greek, Egyptian, and some Uto-Aztecan) had a similar phonological development of gh: it became ayin and then aleph. Perhaps. But that kind of argument is purely circular because its evidence is the thing for which it is intended to be evidence.

In sum: the orthography (spelling) and phonology (sound inventory and sound patterns) of Aramaic perfectly account for the word 'lm' vocalized as Allima. In order to make Alma work, apologists must engage in special pleading. Likewise, the proposed etymology for the name Alma contains within it the seeds of its own ridiculousness.