Re: Joseph Smith the Conlanger?

On Mar 13, 2005, at 11:18, Andreas Johansson wrote:

> In a recent online discussion, someone quoted a piece from the Book of
> Mormon
> that contained the word "delightsome". I jokingly asked if that's a
> word (it's
> listed in the AHD, but I don't think I had seen it before). In reply,
> I was
> told that Smith had probably invented it himself; at any rate he
> certainly
> invented a lot of English words when he wrote the Book of Mormon.
I can't think of any. It could be that since I was raised in the
religion in
question, I'm just used to the terminology. Like Philip, I can only
think of
words for coinage and animals (apart from people and places) that were
"coined."


> Now, I wonder if anyone here knows if the word indeed originates in
> the BoM, if
> it's true Smith invented a lot of words (normal words, not names of
> people and
> places) for the BoM, and if any have entered normal usage, within or
> outside
> the Mormon community.
>
>                                               Andreas

None of the words I mentioned (other than people and places) have wider
use,
that I know of, and even the people/places words are pretty much a
Mormon
community exclusive.

So perhaps you could say that Joseph Smith was a type of neologist, not
a
conlanger. :)  Then there's the Deseret Alphabet "conscript" (see
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/deseret.htm) that was short-lived during
Brigham Young's time as leader of the church. It was meant to be a way
to
write English. As to WHY it was created... I don't know the answer to
that one.

James W.

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