The -mr ending in Coriantumr also
impresses me. The name Coriantum is also a Jaredite name (Ether 1;13-14,
10:31), so it is reasomable to suppose that Coriantumr has a suffix -r
added to Coriantum. However, what impresses me about the name is that no
helping vowel is inserted as is typical of English. Ancient Sanskrit had a rule
rhythmically similar to the English rule that the vowels are a, e, i, o, u,
and sometimes y and w, but in Sanskrit the vowels are a, i, u,
r, l, and sometimes m and n, in words such as krm,
wherein -r- is the vowel. The
vocalic nature of English -r- is apparent in the fact that any one of the
5 vowels can be put in front of -r and yet each is pronounced the same
in unaccented syllables: solar, polar, collar, moler, father, holler, fir, sir,
stir, favor, motor, color, occur, fur, blur, sure. In contrast to Sanskrit and
other languages that recognize syllabic -r-, English speakers,
especially in the 19th century, did not recognize syllabic -r.
They invariable thought a vowel had to go with -r, -er being most
common. So to find -mr, that is, final -r after a consonant with
no helping vowel, though fine in some ancient languages, but not in conventional
English spelling, I find impressive. In fact, in the written manuscript,
evidence suggests that Oliver Cowdery was trying to put an -er at the
end of Coriantumr, and after being corrected, in frustration, made the biggest R
of the whole manuscript. (Brian D. Stubbs, Changes in Languages from Nephi
to Now [2d ed.; N.P.: Brian D. Stubbs, 2020], 26)
