Original copy of the characters of the "golden plates"

[FFH]

. Most of what I've read says that it had a syllabic writing system with a few pictographs... Could you point me to a source on heiroglyphs that says they're not mostly syllabic/alphabetic?
But hey, we're alphabetic! There must be another more complicated version of English somewhere.
We have that, too. @. Look, I spelled at! #. And number! All with one symbol. There must be a more complicated form, right?

Good point about the @ and # and how about the all mighty $ dollar sign. I am well aware that the Chinese and Japanese symbols are way more complex than the Egytian symbols. I do not dispute that at all. Egytian to me looks like kids play compared to some of the Kanji or Japanese symbols that I have studied. So many different meanings and small variations in writing different words and nuances. It is a complicated mess to me. That is why we just learne the simplified version of Japanese. It got us by while living in Japan for almost two years. It take the Japanese until they are well into high school before they can learn to read a newspaper.

Egyptian is very simple looking compared to Chinese and Japanese. I am not an expert on Egytian so I cannot debate any further with this. I am only pointing out the similarities of the Egytian symbols with the Japanese symbols that we learned. Most of them I have pointed out are exactly the same. Only one symbol that I pointed out is backwards compared to Japanese symbol.

 

[FFH]

I will point out three more. Five rows down and about 10 characters from the right is the hirigana symbol pronounced "ro". Sixth row down and in positions 6 and 7 from the right are the symbols "shi" and "i" exactly as they are written in Japanese hirigana. Shall I point out more?

 

[Jaymes]

'Ro' I can see. Can you show me a Japanese character that means 'i', though? I'm looking at my katakana and hiragana tables, and I'm not seeing any single-letter things anywhere.

'Shi' being there would be more impressive if 'shi' was something more than a single, curving line し. With that logic I've written shi many times without ever having to learn Japanese.

What you say looks like 'sa' in katakana takes a real stretch. It looks very poorly written if it is indeed supposed to represent sa (サ ... let's see if katakana/hiragana show up on the board!)

Second row down, fifth character from the left is a box, and ro isn't filled in like this box is.

Third row, fifth letter could be te て if you stretch it. It looks more like a T to me, though.

 

[FFH]

Sorry I gave you the wrong row for "shi" and "i". I corrected the previous post. Just refresh it. I also went back and named each character as it appears with the coresponding row and position the best I could on my other previous posts. Maybe I will put them all together on one post tomorrow and you can see just how many there are. It is amazing and fun. Sounds like you have the symbols in front of you in a book to compare. Am I correct? I am doing the same because it has been over 15 years since I have written anything in Japanese. I am a little rusty.

 

[FFH]

The easiest and most obvious katakana "sa" is the first row first symbol. You can see "sa" repeated several times throughout the text.

 

[FFH]

Hirigana "shi" is also on the first row position 6 and 7. It is written twice. It is also written a few more times.

Edit: the second "shi" is too square at the bottom. I did not notice that.

 

[FFH]

Another real obvious one is the katakana "ki". Third row down and about 5 characters from the right.

 

[FFH]

Five rows down and about 10 from the right is the "ro".

 

[FFH]

Remember there is supposed to be Chaldaic, Arabic and Syriac influences in this writing as well. According to Charles Anthon. Every symbol is not guaranteed to be Egyptian.

I will post all the characters in order so they can be seen more easily in the next couple of days.

 

[FFH]

Hirigana "chi" is four rows down and three positions from the left. It is written exactly as the Japansese write it. Amazing.

 

[FFH]

Hirigana "mo" is seen on the first row 10 positions from the left. It is only missing one line. It looks like a fish hook.

 

[FFH]

P= Positition

Row 1
p1 = katakana sa
p6 = hirigana shi
p7 = similar to hirigana ku
p10 = hirigana mo, with one cross instead of two
p12 = similar to katakan me
p14 = similar to hirigana i
p15 = similar to hirigana no
p20 = similar to katakana ko
p21 = similar to hirigana me

Row 2
p5 = katakana me
p6 = simillar to katakan ro
p8 = katakana sa
p13 = similar to hirigana ro
p14 = similar to hirigana mi
p15 = hirigana ri
p16 = hirigana ri
p18 = katakana sa
p19 and p20 together look like hirigana na

Row 3
p2 = computer mouse
p 11 = similar to hirigana ku
p 17 = katakana ki

Row 4
p3 = hirigana chi
p5 = computer mouse
p9 = katakana sa
p13 = similar to katakana ku
p14 = hirigana ri

Row 5
p1 = similar to katakana ku or ta
p10 = similar to katakana ku or ta
p19 = hirigana ru or ro

Row 6
p7 = hirigana ru or ro
p9 = katakan ma
p14 = katakana ro
p19 = similar to hirigana chi
p20 = similar to katakana sa
p23 = hirigana shi
p24 = hirigana i
p28 = katakana ma
p30 = hirigana ru or ro

Row 7
p1 = similar to katakana ro
p 13 = hirigana ru or ro
p24 = similar to hirigana mo, with one cross instead of two.
p26 = katakana sa
p30 = katakana sa

 

[FFH]

The point I was trying to make is that this is a simplified or reformed version of Egyptian, which seems to match up a bit with the Japanese simplified version of Kanji, which is similar to the Egyptian style of writing. Writing with pictures and symbols. A simplified or reformed version of Egyptian. This fits into the description that Martin Harris got from Charles Anthon about the golden plates. It would have been easy for Lehi and Nephi to write and read these characters. It could be easily taught. A shorthand version of Egytian with Chaldaic, Arabic and Syriac influences or writings possibly mixed in.

 

[john63]

Whoever wrote that doesn't know how to spell "Characters".

 

[FFH]

Whoever wrote that doesn't know how to spell "Characters".

Yeah i thought that was odd too. If he was unable to spell character but was able to copy a text from another language you can see how simple it would have been to learn how to read and write it. Not a big deal at all.

 

[MdmSzdWhtGuy]

Sorry to bring this discussion back to the copy of the plates, but I was wondering, how was the copy made? I don't think they had Xerox copiers back then, so was this a rubbing, or was it an artists rendering of what he saw when he looked at the plates?

Also, what is the Mormon explanation for why the plates themselves have never been found. I appears that Joseph Smith claimed them to exist on Earth within the last couple hundred years, yet the plates themselves have never been made public.

In fact this is the first time I have seen or heard of a copy having been made.

B.

 

[john63]

Sorry to bring this discussion back to the copy of the plates, but I was wondering, how was the copy made? I don't think they had Xerox copiers back then, so was this a rubbing, or was it an artists rendering of what he saw when he looked at the plates?

Also, what is the Mormon explanation for why the plates themselves have never been found. I appears that Joseph Smith claimed them to exist on Earth within the last couple hundred years, yet the plates themselves have never been made public.

In fact this is the first time I have seen or heard of a copy having been made.

B.

I don't think it's a direct copy of the plates. I Joseph Smith or whoever wrote this just looked at some characters on the plates and copied them by hand.

The plates are not on this earth anymore, they are in the care of the Angel Moroni in Heaven. The plates were never made public, but 11 other people besides Joseph Smith saw the plates. The "Testimony of the Three Witnesses" and the "Testimony of the Eight Witnesses" in the Book of Mormon tell who these people were.

 

[MdmSzdWhtGuy]

So 12 people saw the plates before they were transported off the planet? 12 disciples? 12 plate viewers, is this a coincidence? Thanks for the explanation regarding the whereabouts of the plates, I had not heard that before.

B.

 

[Valjean]

This is all irrelevant. You can find recognizable characters in a Jackson Pollock painting or passing cumulus cloud.

I want to know where this photo came from. The original plates were presumably lost or destroyed.
As Mark Twain would put it, I suspect taffy is being distributed....

 

[john63]

So 12 people saw the plates before they were transported off the planet? 12 disciples? 12 plate viewers, is this a coincidence? Thanks for the explanation regarding the whereabouts of the plates, I had not heard that before.

B.

I can understand why a non-Mormon would find that explaination a bit wacky, but yes, that's what we believe. The 3 witnesses and the 8 witnesses all signed a statement that says they saw the plates.