Many immigrants interacted with other
groups, but many isolated themselves into like-speaking communities called
ghettos. Note that the area Joseph Smith occupied was free of foreign-speaking
immigrants for the most part
At this time many nationalities established their own centers—the Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch (actually Germans, as in Deutsch) tended to stay in their isolated communities, and developed a distinctive English with a strong German accent and an idiosyncratic syntax; many Germans also settled in Wisconsin and Indiana; Norwegians settled in Minnesota and the Dakotas; Swedes in Nebraska. These had contact with existing communities, like that around Chesapeake Bay in Virginia (who were mainly descended from settlers from Somerset and Gloucestershire in the West Country of England, unlike the Massachusetts settlers who were largely from the eastern counties of England).
By the 19th Century, a standard variety of American English had developed in most of the country, based on the dialect of the Mid-Atlantic states with its characteristic flat “a” and strong final “r”. Today, Standard American English, also known as General American, is based on a generalized Midwestern accent and is most familiar to us and the world.
From the beginning, American language zealots like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Noah Webster were uncompromising in their push for a plain English, free of the regional dialects and class distinctions of Britain. Long before the Declaration of Independence, British visitors to America often remarked that the average American spoke much better English than the average Englishman. After the American War of Independence of 1775 - 1783, there was some discussion about whether English should remain the national language, but it was never really in any doubt, and was not even mentioned in the new Constitution (even today, the USA does not have an “official language,” as indeed neither does Australia or Britain itself).
Some of the many differences between
British English words and American English words
He then diverts from this to introduce a “neck of water,” suggesting that “We first note that a "neck" can also refer to a marine feature. Straits, sounds and inlets are sometimes called "necks of water," particularly if they are quite narrow.”
However, nowhere in the Book of Mormon is the term “neck of water” used, nor any strait, sound, or inlet, no matter how narrow. Besides, the term “neck” used for a waterway is extremely rare and more often a nickname for a narrowing channel than a scientific name, as seen in the use of it along the Kildidt Inlet where it becomes the Kildidt Narrows in British Columbia. 99% of the time such a narrow waterway is called an inlet.
The fact of the matter is a neck is a narrow land area connecting two larger land areas, and sometimes called an isthmus, but only when that isthmus is quite narrow. As is shown in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, a “Neck” is: “A long narrow tract of land projecting from the main body, or a narrow tract connecting two larger tracts; as the neck of land between Boston and Roxbury.”
No doubt Webster used this example in Boston since he was born in Hartford (now West Hartford) Connecticut, and after marriage moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, about 60 miles from Boston, and 300 miles from Palmyra where Joseph Smith grew up. Palmyra being about 320 miles from West Hartford where Noah Webster grew up, and 350 miles to New Haven where Webster lived when publishing his 1828 dictionary.
While living at Amherst, at the age of 48, Webster completed his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language in 1806, which contained 37,000 words. Twenty-two years later, at the age of 70 and while living at New Haven, he published his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, which contained 65,000 words.
Thus, it should be understood that Joseph Smith, born 47 years after Noah Webster, would have spoken the same basic New England language as Webster, and that of Webster’s American-English dictionary.
On the other hand, the story of the
OED, the Oxford English Dictionary,
did not even begin until the 1850s, when a plan to create a vast and
comprehensive collection of English words from the Middle English period (1150
A.D.) onwards, was considered.
In 1857, the Philological Society of England, recognizing the gaps that existed in English dictionaries, decided that a new project should examine the whole treasure trove of English words, including those that had been rejected or left unnoticed by other lexicographers. In 1879 an agreement was reached with Oxford University Press to begin work on a New English Dictionary (OED). The dictionary would include “lost and outmoded words as well as the newest fashionable or technical terms; it would trace the history (or etymology) of every word, showing the earliest known usage of each word, and would map how the word had shifted in meaning over time; it would show word families, pronunciations and multiple meanings; and it would search through a whole range of literature taking its quotations from texts previously thought to be insignificant.”
No one realized at that stage that it would be more than fifty years before the first version of the dictionary was published. Thus the Oxford English Dictionary was first published in 1928, 100 years after Noah Webster’s American dictionary and 98 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.
In addition, the settlement of America served as the route of introduction for many Native American words into the English language. Most of the early settlers were austere Puritans and they were quite conservative in their adoption of native words, which were largely restricted to terms for native animals and foods (raccoon, opossum, moose, chipmunk, skunk, tomato, squash, hickory). In many cases, the original indigenous words were very difficult to render in English, and have often been mangled almost beyond recognition. As an example, the word squash is from the native quonterquash or asquutasquash, depending on the region; racoon is from raugraughcun or rahaugcum; hickory is from pawcohiccora).
Some words needed to describe the Native American lifestyle were also accepted (canoe, squaw, papoose, wigwam, moccasin, tomahawk), although many other supposedly Native-derived words and phrases (such as brave, peace-pipe, pale-face, war-path) were actually spurious and a product of the fertile imaginations of 19th Century American romantic novelists. New words were also needed for some geographical features which had no obvious English parallel in the limited experience of the settlers (foothill, notch, bluff, gap, divide, watershed, clearing).
Considering the British-oriented definition of some words, the British-only spelling of some words, and the British-only meaning of some words, one can only wonder why anyone would choose to use the OED in trying to define Joseph Smith’s meaning of his translation of the scriptural record instead of the language and dictionary known to him at the time.
Regarding this learning period, it
should be noted that the first School of the Prophets was organized in Kirtland,
Ohio, by Joseph Smith, and conducted “under the immediate care and inspection
of” trustees Joseph Smith, Frederick G. Williams, Sidney Rigdon, and Oliver
Cowdery. The world in which this school emerged was a world at the beginning of
monumental change. In fact, it has been insightfully described as the period
between 1815 and 1830 as a time in which the matrix of the modern world was
largely formed.
Regarding Priesthood Keys to Administer the school, a revelation clearly states: “And again, verily I say unto thy brethren, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams, their sins are forgiven them also, and they are accounted as equal with thee in holding the keys of this last kingdom; As also through your administration the keys of the school of the prophets, which I have commanded to be organized; That thereby they may be perfected in their ministry for the salvation of Zion, and of the nations of Israel, and of the Gentiles, as many as will believe” (D&C 90:6-8).
In an article entitled: “The Kirtland School of the Prophets: The Beginning of the Church Educational System,” the following report to the trustees is given by Wm. E. McLellin on February 27, 1835: “When the school first commenced, we received into it both large and small, but in about three weeks the classes became so large, and the house so crowded, that it was thought advisable to dismiss all the small students, and continue those only who wished to study the sciences of penmanship, arithmetic, English grammar and geography. Before we dismissed the small scholars, there were in all about 130 who attended. Since that time there have been, upon an average, about 160, the most of whom have received lectures upon English grammar; and for the last four weeks about 70 have been studying geography one half the day, and grammar and writing the other part.”
McLellin also reported that the reference books used were: “T. Burdick’s arithmetic, S. Kirkham’s grammar and J. Olney’s geography have been used, with N. Webster’s dictionary, as standard.” That is, the official dictionary, which was the standard dictionary for the School of the Prophets, and the first efforts at creating a Church educational system, was Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language.
It seems prudent, then, that if we are going to understand fully the meaning and understanding of the early members, the translation by Joseph Smith of the plates and the Book of Mormon, it would behoove us to use Webster’s 1828 dictionary, which would provide us with the interpretation and meaning of the words Joseph and his scribes knew and used.
In 1857, the Philological Society of England, recognizing the gaps that existed in English dictionaries, decided that a new project should examine the whole treasure trove of English words, including those that had been rejected or left unnoticed by other lexicographers. In 1879 an agreement was reached with Oxford University Press to begin work on a New English Dictionary (OED). The dictionary would include “lost and outmoded words as well as the newest fashionable or technical terms; it would trace the history (or etymology) of every word, showing the earliest known usage of each word, and would map how the word had shifted in meaning over time; it would show word families, pronunciations and multiple meanings; and it would search through a whole range of literature taking its quotations from texts previously thought to be insignificant.”
No one realized at that stage that it would be more than fifty years before the first version of the dictionary was published. Thus the Oxford English Dictionary was first published in 1928, 100 years after Noah Webster’s American dictionary and 98 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.
In addition, the settlement of America served as the route of introduction for many Native American words into the English language. Most of the early settlers were austere Puritans and they were quite conservative in their adoption of native words, which were largely restricted to terms for native animals and foods (raccoon, opossum, moose, chipmunk, skunk, tomato, squash, hickory). In many cases, the original indigenous words were very difficult to render in English, and have often been mangled almost beyond recognition. As an example, the word squash is from the native quonterquash or asquutasquash, depending on the region; racoon is from raugraughcun or rahaugcum; hickory is from pawcohiccora).
Some words needed to describe the Native American lifestyle were also accepted (canoe, squaw, papoose, wigwam, moccasin, tomahawk), although many other supposedly Native-derived words and phrases (such as brave, peace-pipe, pale-face, war-path) were actually spurious and a product of the fertile imaginations of 19th Century American romantic novelists. New words were also needed for some geographical features which had no obvious English parallel in the limited experience of the settlers (foothill, notch, bluff, gap, divide, watershed, clearing).
Considering the British-oriented definition of some words, the British-only spelling of some words, and the British-only meaning of some words, one can only wonder why anyone would choose to use the OED in trying to define Joseph Smith’s meaning of his translation of the scriptural record instead of the language and dictionary known to him at the time.
Regarding Priesthood Keys to Administer the school, a revelation clearly states: “And again, verily I say unto thy brethren, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams, their sins are forgiven them also, and they are accounted as equal with thee in holding the keys of this last kingdom; As also through your administration the keys of the school of the prophets, which I have commanded to be organized; That thereby they may be perfected in their ministry for the salvation of Zion, and of the nations of Israel, and of the Gentiles, as many as will believe” (D&C 90:6-8).
In an article entitled: “The Kirtland School of the Prophets: The Beginning of the Church Educational System,” the following report to the trustees is given by Wm. E. McLellin on February 27, 1835: “When the school first commenced, we received into it both large and small, but in about three weeks the classes became so large, and the house so crowded, that it was thought advisable to dismiss all the small students, and continue those only who wished to study the sciences of penmanship, arithmetic, English grammar and geography. Before we dismissed the small scholars, there were in all about 130 who attended. Since that time there have been, upon an average, about 160, the most of whom have received lectures upon English grammar; and for the last four weeks about 70 have been studying geography one half the day, and grammar and writing the other part.”
McLellin also reported that the reference books used were: “T. Burdick’s arithmetic, S. Kirkham’s grammar and J. Olney’s geography have been used, with N. Webster’s dictionary, as standard.” That is, the official dictionary, which was the standard dictionary for the School of the Prophets, and the first efforts at creating a Church educational system, was Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language.
It seems prudent, then, that if we are going to understand fully the meaning and understanding of the early members, the translation by Joseph Smith of the plates and the Book of Mormon, it would behoove us to use Webster’s 1828 dictionary, which would provide us with the interpretation and meaning of the words Joseph and his scribes knew and used.
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