Why There Should be No Written Language in the Land of Promise - Part I

From time to time we have written about this idea of the ancient written language found in Mesoamerica should prove that this area was the land of the Nephites since no other ancient written language has been found in the Americas.
    There are numerous theorists who make this a major point for Mesoamerica and, they claim, is grounds to discount all other areas in the western Hemisphere since no other area had a written language when the Europeans arrived, but Mesoamerica.

Location in Central America where the Maya language was spoken when the Europeans arrived

While linguist Lyle Campbell of the University of Hawai'i Manoa, known for his studies of indigenous American languages, along with numerous other linguists, claim the Maya language family is one of the best-documented and most studied in the Americas, it has not been traced back to any European language, especially not Hebrew or Egyptian. They claim it descended from the Proto-Mayan language, thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago, that diversified into six different branches: the Huastecan, Quichean, Yucatecan, Qanjobalan, Mamean and Chʼolan–Tzeltalan (Lyle Campbell, “American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America,” Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, no. 4. New York, 1997, p165).
    Nora Clearman England, a Mayanist and Linguist of the University of Texas, has stated that “Mayan languages are the descendants of a proto-languages called Proto-Mayan or, in Kʼicheʼ Maya, Nabʼee Mayaʼ Tzij, "the old Maya Language" (England, Autonomy of the Mayan Languages: History and identity, (Ukutaʼmiil Ramaqʼiil Utzijobʼaal ri Mayaʼ Amaaqʼ.) (in Spanish) (2nd ed.). Guatemala City: Cholsamaj).
    England also stated that: “Since the arrival of the Spanish in 1524, Guatemalan Mayas have suffered brutal subordination to first a Spanish colony and then a Ladino state. They have been politically, socially, economically, and linguistically marginalized, but have never, in the almost 500 years of colonial history, lost their sense of nationhood and community cohesion, nor indeed, their languages (Texas Linguistic Forum 45: 33-45, Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Symposium about Language and Society—Austin, April 12-14, 2002).
    It should also be noted that “In contrast, non-indigenous Guatemalans rarely speak Mayan languages and generally hold them in contempt. Indigenous languages are excluded from business, academia and national government offices in spite of the recent efforts of indigenous activists” (Nora C. English, “Mayan Language Revival and Revitalization Politics: Linguists and Linguistic Ideologies,” American Anthropologist, vol.105, iss.4, December 2003, pp733-743). 
    With such dedication to this collective mindset, and in light of such contrary attitudes from without, it should suggest that the Maya language, which has stayed constant in the past 500 years, probably had not changed in the long periods before the Spanish arrived.
    Thus, it cannot be suggested that the Maya language is a language developed from another source, such as Hebrew or Egyptian, the two languages noted in the Book of Mormon as being used by the Nephites (Mormon 9:32-33). So, what makes members, scholars, and critics, talk about a written language that should be prevalent in the Land of Promise today? In fact, should there be such a written language? There are certain factors that should be considered:

Zeezrom, an attorney, confronted Amulek and tried to bribe him into renouncing his God

When Alma and Amulek were preaching, and Amulek countered Zeezrom’s attempt to entrap him, the people became angry, and  “they spit upon him, and cast him out from among them, and also all those who believed in the words which had been spoken by Alma and Amulek; and they cast them out, and sent men to cast stones at them” (Alma 14:7b), and so intent were the people of Ammonihah to destroy Alma and his preaching, they bound him and Amulek “And they brought their wives and children together, and whosoever believed or had been taught to believe in the word of God they caused that they should be cast into the fire, and they also brought forth their records which contained the holy scriptures, and cast them into the fire also, that they might be burned and destroyed by fire” (Alma 14:8).
    Note that they “brought forth their records which contained the holy scriptures” meaning that the scriptures or sacred writings made up only a portion of the records. We know other information and material was also within those Nephite records for “now there are many records kept of the proceedings of this people, by many of this people, which are particular and very large, concerning them” and these writings, which were “many books and many records of every kind, and they have been kept chiefly by the Nephites” (Helaman 3:13,15).
    The specific type of information is also told us: “the proceedings of this people, yea, the account of the Lamanites and of the Nephites, and their wars, and contentions, and dissensions, and their preaching, and their prophecies, and their shipping and their building of ships, and their building of temples, and of synagogues and their sanctuaries, and their righteousness, and their wickedness, and their murders, and their robbings, and their plundering, and all manner of abominations and whoredoms, cannot be contained in this work” (Helaman 3:14). Thus the “records of the Nephites” involved all their writing, all their books.
    Now these records, including the sacred writings, were seen in the “cave” or “vision” by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery when Joseph went there to return the plates to Moroni. Of this, Wilford Woodruff wrote in his journey of a meeting of the School of the Prophets: “President Young said in relation to Joseph Smith returning the plates of the Book of Mormon, that he did not return them to the box from where he had received them. But he went into a cave in the Hill Cumorah with Oliver Cowdery and deposited those plates upon a table or shelf and in that room were deposited a large amount of gold plates, containing sacred records…Joseph Smith said that cave contained tons of choice treasures and records” (Wilford Woodruff Journal, December 1, 1869 entry).

On another occasion, Brigham Young stated: “When Joseph got the plates, the angel instructed him to carry them back to the hill Cumorah, which he did. Oliver says that when Joseph and Oliver went there, the hill opened, and they walked into a cave, in which there was a large and spacious room…They laid the plates on a table; it was a large table that stood in the room. Under this table there was a pile of plates as much as two feet high, and there were altogether in this room more plates than probably many wagon loads; they were piled up in the corners and along the walls” (Journal of Discourses 19:38).
    Six years before the final battle, when Mormon was fleeing with his army through the Land Northward, the Lamanites followed, and “whatsoever lands we had passed by, and the inhabitants thereof were not gathered in, were destroyed by the Lamanites, and their towns, and villages, and cities were burned with fire; and thus three hundred and seventy and nine years passed away” (Mormon 5:5).
    In the fires of the cities, obviously any books or records left behind would have been destroyed. And just as obviously, then, those records that survived, were kept from destruction as many writings had, and preserved in the room in which Joseph and Oliver visioned. All other writings in the land of the Nephites when the Lamanites drove them out and eventually annihilated them, were destroyed. Thus, we might conclude that among the records that Mormon had available to. him, were those of the daily workings of the Nephites in addition to the holy writings on the plates of Nephi.
(See the next post, “Why There Should be No Written Language in the Land of Promise - Part II," regarding the reason for the Lamanite animus and hatrerd toward the Nephites)