Although the “argument” against the Book of Mormon based on the
appearance of “Adieu” in Jacob 7:27 has been answered rather thoroughly (see
this FairMormon Web page, for example), I did like the following from Brian
Stubbs showing the ignorance of linguistics critics who still use this “argument”
are guilty of:
Critics claim
Joseph’s use of
French ‘adieu’
(Jacob 7:27) shows a charlatan’s effort to get fancy with a French term in an English translation. What they fail
to realize is that half of English is French.
In 1066 the Norman French conquered
and ruled England, influencing English for centuries. We adopted
more French into English than we retained of Old English. Modern English kept merely
15% of the Old English vocabulary.
French and Latin loans replaced 85% of Old
English. Most astonishing is the ignorance of the critics in not checking
to discover that adieu IS English! It is from Middle English adieu, which
is from Old French adieu,
and so has been part of the English language for several centuries, following the same route as the other 40,000 French words into English. In other words, adieu has
been English as long as all the other highlighted terms. In this paragraph the French loans are highlighted, words from Old English are in bold, and Latin
loans italicized, while the words from other sources (as well as articles, prepositions,
and proper nouns) are
not marked. (Brian D. Stubbs, Changes
in Languages from Nephi to Now [Blending, Utah: Four Corners Digital
Design, 2016], 21; emphasis in original)
