Re: OT: Mormons (was Re: Survey)

At 4:37 PM -0600 3/17/03, Danny Wier wrote:
>There's at least one thing the Mormons had produced that I wish we all could
>use -- Deseret alphabet! The Shakers have furniture, the Oneida community
>has silverware, Scientology has Hollywood ;)
The Deseret Alphabet is quite interesting. There are some journals which were kept
in the DA by men who learned the native languages of the Four Corners region.
What makes the journals exciting from my point of view is that they
occasionally included word lists from these languages transcribed in the DA.
Since the DA was intended to enable a phonemic transcription of English, the DA
transcriptions of the indigenous languages is much more accurate than if they
had been done in the Latin alphabet. It's possible that the transcriptions can
provide evidence for certain kinds of sound changes which have occurred in
these languages -- particularly Hopi and Paiute.

The backstory for my conlang project, Miapimoquitch includes these elements: an
early Mormon settler to the Four Corners region encounters an elderly Paiute
who speaks an unknown language. He writes down what he can in his journal using
the DA.

>Also, don't forget that there are different denimonations and movements
>within the LDS Church -- the mainliners of SLC, the Nauvoo, Illinois-based
>group, and even a "fundamentalist" group that actually practices or at least
>promotes polygamy.
The way you've worded it is misleading. It might be better to say that there are
different denominations of Mormonism rather than of the LDS Church, which is
understood to refer only to the organization headquartered in Salt Lake City.
All denominations have in common a belief in the prophetic calling of Joseph
Smith, Jr, and the admission of the Book of Mormon to the canon of scripture
alongside the Old and New Testaments.

There are at least three well-established polygamist groups which broke off from the
LDS Church: the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the
United Apostolic Brethren, and whatever the Kingston clan calls itself. There
are also many so-called "independent polygamists" who claim no allegiance to
any formally established group. They all have in common the belief that the LDS
Church is "out of order"; the claim is that the document which discontinued the
practice of polygamy (the "Manifesto" of 1890; it's included in LDS editions of
scripture) does not have divine approval. The polygamists are waiting for the
LDS Church to acknowledge this error and reinstate the practice of plural
marriage.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                                               Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"It is important not to let one's aesthetics interfere with the appreciation of
fact." - Stephen Anderson

Reply