![\"Tenochtitlan](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/02\/655px-Mitos_y_Fantasias_de_los_aztecas_foto_7.png\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brian Stubbs is a Latter-day Saint who specializes in the linguistics and particularly the vocabulary of the Uto-Aztecan family of Amerindian languages \u2014 a family that, as I understand it, includes such tongues as Shoshoni, Comanche, Hopi, Paiute, Nahuatl, and Tarahumara. \u00a0He also has advanced graduate training in Semitic languages. \u00a0Notably, he is the author of\u00a0Uto-Aztecan: A Comparative Vocabulary<\/span><\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2011).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In 2015, he published a potentially revolutionary book entitled\u00a0Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan<\/span><\/a><\/em>, which he then followed up the next year (2016) with a more accessible, popularized account under the title of\u00a0Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now.<\/a><\/span><\/em>\u00a0 The latter book has just appeared in a revised second edition (that is apparently not yet available via Amazon.com).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a column of mine on the subject that appeared in the Deseret News<\/em> for 1 June 2017:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Critics of the Book of Mormon often argue that no evidence exists for contact between the ancient Near East and the Americas. Accordingly, proof of such contact would demolish a principal objection to Joseph Smith\u2019s prophetic claims.<\/span><\/p>\n If the thesis of Brian Stubbs\u2019 \u201cExploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan<\/a>\u201d is correct, he has furnished precisely that proof.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ll draw here from two reviews of his difficult, complex book. The first was published in\u00a0BYU Studies by Dirk Elzinga<\/a>, who teaches linguistics at Brigham Young University and is online at byustudies.byu.edu<\/a>. Holder of a doctorate from the University of Arizona, his research focuses on Uto-Aztecan languages (specifically, Shoshone, Goshute, Paiute and Ute). The second, written by John Robertson, professor of linguistics emeritus at Brigham Young University, appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture<\/a> and online at\u00a0mormoninterpreter.com<\/a>. Equipped with a Ph.D. from Harvard, Robertson\u2019s scholarly career has concentrated on language change, the reconstruction of proto-Mayan, and the grammar and sound system of Mayan hieroglyphs.<\/span><\/p>\n More than 30 years ago, Stubbs told Robertson he had found \u201ca significant number of cognates that would link a New World language family (Uto-Aztecan) to an Old World language family (pre-exilic Hebrew and later others).\u201d \u201cTwo words are cognate,\u201d Elzinga explains, \u201cif it can be demonstrated that they both have a common historical source and that their sound (and meaning) differences are due to normally occurring linguistic change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Robertson admits he was initially \u201csuspicious\u201d of \u201ca wild claim.\u201d After all, \u201cthe scholarly consensus was and is that among the thousands of languages spoken in the New World prior to European contact\u201d none had Old World connections. (\u201cIt is something of a parlor trick among linguists,\u201d observes Elzinga, \u201cto find false cognates between any two arbitrarily chosen languages; it is surprisingly easy.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n Since then, though, based on such works as his massive 2011 book \u201cUto-Aztecan: A Comparative Vocabulary,\u201d Stubbs has become \u201ca well-respected linguist\u201d (Elzinga) and \u201cone of the leading Uto-Aztecanists worldwide\u201d (Robertson).<\/span><\/p>\n And now he\u2019s published \u201chis crowning work\u201d (Robertson), \u201chis magnum opus, a compendium of lexical, phonological, and grammatical data that provides evidence for infusions of ancient Near Eastern languages in Uto-Aztecan grammar and lexicon\u201d (Elzinga).<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOf course,\u201d Robertson points out, \u201cit would not be difficult to dismiss the whole of his argument out of hand.\u201d For one thing, \u201call previous attempts to connect any New World language to European or Middle Eastern languages have been amateurish, even laughable by credible linguistic standards,\u201d and, for another, \u201cbecause Stubbs is a Mormon, his scholarship would naturally be tainted and therefore untrustworthy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n However, \u201cIt is an impressive follow-up to his earlier UA work,\u201d writes Robertson. \u201cHis 2015 publication deserves the same assessment of the data that has been given to his earlier 2011 publication \u2014 even in the face of his unusual claim.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAt first glance,\u201d writes Elzinga, the book seems to belong to \u201clinguistic crackpottery.\u201d It\u2019s \u201cdense, self-published, and in sore need of careful editing \u2014 none of which immediately commends it to the serious reader.\u201d But Stubbs \u201chas \u2026 the training and experience, together with extensive accurate data, to back up his extraordinary claim.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n