Nature of the Original Language of the Book of Mormon (Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack)

Skousen, Royal, and Stanford Carmack. Nature of the Original Language of the Book of Mormon (Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack)., 2018.

Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack present "The Nature of the Original Language of the Book of Mormon" in the Hinckley Center at BYU. Cohosted by BYU Studies and the Interpreter Foundation with generous support from Book of Mormon Central.

Skousen and Carmack argue that virtually all of the language of the Book of Mormon, not just the bad grammar, is found in Early Modern English. And not only are these words, phrases, and expressions in the text largely from Early Modern English, but a good many of them ceased to exist in English prior to 1700 (examples like but if 'unless', do away 'to dismiss', and idleness 'meaningless words'). In all, Skousen identifies about 80 such word uses, phrases, and expressions that disappeared from English one to three centuries before the 1830 publication of the Book of Mormon.

The book, published by BYU Studies, is available at https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/nature-original-language-book-mormon-...