Danger of Theorizing Part XII – Two Highly Literate Societies

Another of these points has to do with two distinct languages both spoken and written in the Land of Promise. According to the author of these sixteen points he requires to be met in order to determine a Land of Promise site, there must exist:

“(5) Two Highly Literate (Written Language) Societies living adjacent to but separate from each other between 550 BC and 200 BC, one of which lived "far northward" from the other. They must have coexisted for at least 250 years.”

Peru, of course, has boasted only two languages for millennia, with Quichua and Aymara the languages of the two distinct groups of people in the Andean area. This is even true today, where these two languages dominate all the natives over the entire Andean area. Quichua, of course, is the predominant language that survived among the natives from antiquity clear into Inca times.

Aymara (Aymar aru) is one of the major languages (of which there are 8 to 10 dialectic varieties) of South America, spoken by more than two million people in the Andean region of Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Argentina. Some linguists think Aymara may be distantly related to Quechua, but this has not been conclusively shown.

Quichua (Quechua) is a native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken by 6 to 8 million people primarily in the Andes of South America (called runa simi by indigenous Andean people), and derived from an original common ancestor language. Quichuas specifically is spoken in Ecuador (also called Kichwa), highlands in north-central Peru, and highlands of southern Peru, including the Puna, Bolivia, and north-western Argentina.

It is interesting that a Mesoamerican theorist would pick the subject of two distinct languages when the area of Mesoamerica had numerous such languages back into antiquity. John L. Sorenson comments liberally about these different languages as his excuse to claim that other than Jaredites, Nephites and Lamanites occupied the Land of Promise—as did Hugh Nibley before him, a linguist of the highest order.

The major problem here is the literacy factor. Written languages have been found in Mesoamerica—they have not been found to any degree in the Andean area of South America. However, in the book, “Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica,” this subject is covered quite thoroughly regarding the written languages that have been found coming out of Peru.

In fact, any written language surviving within the area of the Land of Promise from Nephite times is more suspect than it is supportive. The reasoning for this is simple. Nephite prophets time and again showed their concern over the Lamanites finding their records, for they knew the Lamanites would destroy them—in fact, the Lamanites would have destroyed anything Nephite because of their hatred. As Mormon said, “having been commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would destroy them)” (Mormon 6:6), it would be difficult to find any records of a written language in the Land of Promise once the Lamanites had annihilated the Nephite nation and purged the land--carvings in stone on large structures undoubtedly the only thing that survived.

While Mesoamerica structures were built of rock (there were few walls) and stone, which survived into our time, their carvings on the buildings also survived—which is the source of the written language of the Maya, etc. In Peru, while stone and rock were used to build the defensive walls, almost all of the building structures were made of mud brick and adobe, which did not survive the centuries, thus there were no carved edifices showing a language. And those few rock structures, like Tiwanaku, were utterly destroyed by later societies.

By the time the Spanish Conquistadores entered the Andean area, there was no written language had among the Lamanite descendants—and to think there would be such is simply a lack of understanding of the conditions Mormon and others wrote about. But to think that ancient Peruvian people did not have a written language in light of their fantastic accomplishments is foolhardy.

In fact, the history of early Easter Island emigrants claimed to have brought a written language with them from Peru. Today, that language is called Rongorongo and has withstood all attempts at interpretation.

In addition, the ruins of Tiwanaku when the Spanish first saw them may well have held carvings of some type, however, the Spanish, then later the Peruvian railroad, not only tore down all the ruins there, but broke them up into crushed rock for the rail beds. Then, too, the written Rongorongo language taken to Easter Island from Peru shows a written language of the ancient Andean area. But nothing remains in Peru, Ecuador or northern Chile today to verify any written language. And if Mesoamerica ruins had been decimated by the superstitious and sanctimonious Spaniards to the etent of Peru, we would not know of any written language of the Maya.