Fascinating guesswork at Deseret's etymology
 

http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2006/...rs-1-2-barney/

I agree with Barney's suggestion about Nibley's conjecture and I am not well-versed in the other languages to quibble but find the discussion interesting.

Fascinating. I especially like the twice-used word onomasticon.

I hadn't caught that, but here's a good Onomasticon for Biblical references.

http://www.pef.org.uk/pages/Onomasticon.htm

Interesting read. Thanks.

Interesting stuff, but I've often wondered about the deseret thing. Wasn't the BoM supposed to have been written in Hebrew language with Egyptian characters (let alone whatever language Ether is supposed to have been written in)? Why would an Egyptian word show up?

Did a prophet say it was Egyptian or is it written somewhere more clearly than in Ether 2.3?

Interesting read. Nibley has WAY too much fun sometimes.

I doubt we know anything about the language spoken in Ether. If one accepts arguendo, the allegations are true, then it seems as if it were Semitic based. And as you are aware there are loanwords and similarities between Egyptian and Hebrew.

What's interesting to me is that there is enough of a connection to call for a scholarly study in (apparently) two different directions.

To me, the guesswork is so broadly divergent, I'm not certain I'd call it "scholarly study" but rather, speculation.

I agree that Nibley appears to have taken too great a leap, and that the proposals by Barney appear more logical, but I'm not schooled enough in any of those languages to evaluate it properly.