Monday, March 6, 2023

Brian Stubbs on an Egyptianism in Alma 8:24

  

. . . one Book of Mormon phrase fits Egyptian. A common Late Egyptian idiom or way of saying to leave a place or return from a place is rdi s’-I n/r ‘set my back to’: rdi ‘set/put’; s’ ‘back’; the pronoun suffix following ‘back’ tells whose back or who is leaving/returning; and n or r ‘toward/against’ (Hannig 1995, 653; Faulkner 1962. 156). In Alma 8:24, Alma writes, “I was about to set my back towards this land forever” (italics added), that is, leave forever. Perfect Late Egyptian!

 

rdi

s’ -i

n/r

put/set

back-my

toward/against

 

(Brian D. Stubbs, Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now [2d ed.; N.P.: Brian D. Stubbs, 2020], 25)