Re: The Anthon Transcript [was: A similar problem perhaps]

[Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm glad this was repeated to the list. As a part-Cherokee, I feel you're
on the right path re: the Cherokee Syllabary and the Anthon Transcript
(didn't know that was the keyword for it) of Joseph Smith.

See my webpage for some of this. Briefly, the original written language
was brought on golden tablets from a tribe that joined the
Tsalagi/Cherokee "from the north" long ago; before Sequoyah, only those of
the heritage of the people from the north were allowed to become literate
in it, but Sequoyah, being the last living member of the Scribe Clan, the
others having been massacred by the invaders, opened up literacy to the
Tsalagi-proper. Joseph Smith was snoopin' around the Tsalagi for a while,
and then he disappeared -- coincidentally, so did the golden tablets;
coincidentally, he founded a new religion on some gold tablets with some
kind of writing on them which was hard to decipher; coincidentally, some
say that the writing describes a primal history of the Americas -- which
I'm sure must have been the academic specialty of the Angel Moroni! ;-)

I got most or all of the above from Traveling Bird's *Tell Them That They
Lie,* which I found in my CSU Hayward library in the Cherokee section,
written by descendants of Sequoyah, who insist he 'created' nothing, just
passed along ancient writing to the Tsalagi "masses" before it was too
late; all the rest was self-serving missionary and linguistics puffery,
according to them.

warm regards, moonhawk

dalford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.sunflower.com/~dewatson/alford.htm

"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines!" 
                                                   -- Roy, Mystery Men



On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, Woody Brison wrote:

> Hmmm, why is this so difficult?  Maybe if I learn to check 
> the outgoing address on my posts... here's another repeat 
> this time to the list
> 
> =============
> 
> This is great, to actually get some feedback...
> 
> I have 'debated' Mormonism with a lot of hostile people, so 
> over the years I've developed a mindset about it that allows 
> me to evaluate their criticisms objectively without being 
> offended by their personal stances.  Your comments are very 
> interesting and welcome.
> 
> And you are right, we don't know if the Anthon Transcript 
> was made by Joseph Smith from the plates, or by some clever 
> forger trying to discredit him, or some lunatic, or what, 
> so even if I was defensive about the religion that wouldn't 
> be legit here -- we don't know whether this is connected to 
> the religion or not (and we may never know!)  Scientific 
> detachment is called for.  You have no idea the fun we have
> as Mormons trying to investigate our 'roots'; all sorts of 
> nuts inject all sorts of pressures into any attempt to 
> discuss anything on publicly accessible forums. 
> 
> Thanks for the pointer about Sequoia, I had forgotten that;
> very appropo.  I will check.  My research needs a lot more 
> familiarity with old alphabets.
> 
> Your comments on the fact that the characters get smaller 
> as the lines go along are well appreciated.  I had noticed 
> that but don't know what to think of it.  It's telling us 
> something, but what?  That doesn't occur in the VMS, right?
> I had a math professor in college that wrote on the 
> blackboard like that. He would start big at the left and get 
> smaller and smaller, but at the right he would run out of room 
> in spite of his best efforts, and then he would turn the line 
> of writing downward at the end, toward the lower right corner. 
> I don't know too much about psychology, but he seemed a little
> self-conscious in front of his classroom full of students; I 
> thought that had something to do with it.  He was also very 
> excited about his topic, almost oblivious to his class, the 
> size of the blackboard, and everything else -- the spacing 
> was just a very subordinate, half-noticed detail.
> 
> What about a model that supposes there were lines of text 
> on the plates of a certain length, and Joseph Smith was 
> trying to copy them onto the paper without breaking the 
> line?  He was not highly educated, he was a farm boy, it 
> would be a problem to him like hoeing a row of corn or 
> something like that.  He'd start with a letter size about 
> 'yea big' and see how it went, as he got a ways down the row 
> he'd see he wasn't going to make it and start reducing the 
> letter size.
> 
> To check this idea we ought to measure the letter sizes 
> and their spacing along the lines.  I will do that.  Good 
> idea, thanks!  We should see the size getting smaller as 
> we go downward, too, ie. the starting characters at the 
> left of each line should decrease in size as we go down -- 
> the writer should be getting smarter with each line.
> 
> Looking at the picture more closely, 
> (http://web.lds.net/pages/wwbrison/freq_ct.htm)  I think 
> this whole idea isn't right.  The first four lines don't 
> show much variation in size of characters.  The first line 
> does show some initial 'oversize' characters but 'corrects' 
> this after 5 or 6 symbols; the rest of lines 1 thru 4 are 
> of uniform size.  The last three lines look like a separate 
> sitting, like someone wrote the first four, then after a 
> day or week came back and decided to add three more lines. 
> They are uniform size, all smaller.  Only a little variance 
> here and there, most noticeable at the beginning of line 
> 6.  I will have to do the measurements.  I wonder if there 
> were two different copyists? 
> 
> Gee, this is great!  I didn't expect to get this much help 
> on the first try.
> 
> Joseph Smith was not crazy, but he did some crazy-looking 
> things.  Travelled around quite a bit at great discomfort 
> to promulgate his new religion, came into opposition with 
> neighbors to the extent of having to move away several times,
> built two large buildings at great expense at a time when 
> his followers were penniless, settled them in a malaria 
> swamp and by dint of mind-boggling effort turned it into 
> a healthy place and a good sized city (Nauvoo), and so on.
> Endured being arrested and sued something like 40 times,
> never convicted.  If we assume he was crazy we could find 
> many points of correspondence with that model.  But if we 
> assume that he really had contact with God, then it all 
> makes good sense according to that model too; better, I 
> think...
> 
> I will try not to tangent like that too much here, this list 
> is for discussing the VMS...  I wonder if there is anything 
> from the Mormon mindset that could help decypher it?  A fair 
> number of professors at BYU have been puzzling over a couple 
> of ancient documents that Joseph Smith translated, and Mormons 
> typically are very good with languages.  Mormon boys go on 
> proselyting missions at age 19 for 2 years, and about half go 
> to foreign missions and learn some new language if not several. 
> Walk around Salt Lake City and take a straw poll, ask people 
> what languages they know, and you'd be astonished at the 
> results, if you didn't know about the missions thing but were 
> familiar with Americans generally... 
> 
> OK, that's enough out of me.  I will try to relate this to the 
> VMS in future, to try to sort of 'pay' for the help I'm getting 
> with my project.
> 
> Woody
> 
> 
> Brian Eric Farnell wrote:
> > 
> > Hey, those little characters that look like a computer mouse
> > remind me of something I learned in Cub Scouts, maybe a Native
> > American sign or something.  You might want to check the symbols
> > against Native American alphabets, some had no written language
> ...
>