In the preface to his Classical Dictionary
(1825), Anthon shows some acquittance with Champollion’s treatise on Egyptian.
Even so, his ability to translate anything must have been minimal, to say the
least. It is doubtful that Anthon ventured a translation. Anthon himself denied
having authenticated Smit’s translation. His two versions of the interview,
occasionally at odds with each other, are discussed in Richard Bushman, Joseph
Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1984), 88, where additional literature on the topic is also given. However,
Anthony may have ventured to identify the provenance of the characters. The
reason for thinking so is that Harris’ description of the figures as “short
hand Egyptian” reflects a knowledge of current Egyptological terminology, of
which Harris could not have been aware of. Champollion (Précis du Sysème
Hiéroglyphique 1:18, 20, 355) describes hieratic as “tachygraphie,” which
is rendered “short hand” in the American review of Champollion’s work (American
Quarterly Review, June 1827, 450). The reference to Champollion’s Précis and to Anthon’s
reviews of this work derives from a helpful article published by FARMS (“What
Did Charles Anthon Really Say,” FARMS Update, May 1985). Anthon is known
to have been familiar with this work (Classical Dictionary [4th ed.,
1845], 45) and is the only known source from which Harris could have learned
this usage. (Edwin Firmage, Jr., “Historical Criticism and the Book of Mormon:
A Personal Encounter,” in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, ed.
Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002], 15-16,
n. 4)
