I worked late into the night, often as late as 2:00 am. Sometimes I would sleep only a couple of hours, and would awaken with some new insight, which I knew I must test to insure that it would match the meaning of the surrounding characters everywhere it showed up in the text.

Many of the times when I got up in the middle of the night, I sat at the dining room table, poring over the unique characters, trying to obtain some sense of their meaning. Sometimes, my ‘insights’ were strengthened by the study and they became a part of my expanding understanding. Sometimes they had to be rejected because they were incompatible with the surrounding text in other areas.  I frequently found that even the rejected insights often eventually led to a still better understanding of the overall text.

Within a year I felt I had developed a pretty good tentative translation. Throughout this period I felt led in my studies, but I knew I still had only a partial translation.  Very early, I recognized the Caractors Transcript as being an expansion of the content which was in the Title Page of the Book of Mormon.  It wasn’t until I had a tentative translation, around the summer of 1995, that I began to study Egyptian hieroglyphics. I was beginning to be of the opinion that I never would be able to get the meaning of all of it.  I seemed to be at a plateau of understanding, and began to feel the need to study Egyptian to see if I could find the source of the Nephite characters in Egyptian characters, and perhaps learn more from a new direction.

In the process, I learned a lot about Egyptian writing. and found that there were three different forms of Egyptian script in use around 600 BC {when the Nephites left the Land of Jerusalem}.

1. The earliest form of Egyptian Script is known as hieroglyphics, and was in the form of carefully drawn pictures of humans, animals, plants, and objects. Hieroglyphics dated back to about 3000 BC, but were slow to draw, making writing a very tedious process.
2. By about 1000+ BC, the priestly caste had developed a more easily written form of writing which we call hieratic. This was a kind of short hand which was still based on the hieroglyphic characters but which took up much less space on the page, and was easier to write. Hieratic was used primarily by the priests in religious works.
3. By 700 BC, the expanding needs of Egyptian commerce forced the development of a {simpler}, every-day business record form of script, which today is called demotic.By 600 BC, the rules of writing all three scripts were basically the same. There were three different types of characters. Some were phonetic, forming a type of alphabet in which the sounds of the words were spelled out, with many acceptable variations in spelling of the same word. Some of the characters were ideographs, that is, pictures of objects which carried well-understood (to the Egyptian reader) meanings and pronunciation. Others were ideographs of objects which carried meaning, but which were not pronounced at all.

By the time I started studying Egyptian, I had recognized that the Caractors Transcript characters were conveying meaning, rather than pronunciation. This understanding has remained unchanged in all of my studies. To date, there is no hint (that I can find) of anything in the Caractors Transcript that conveys the pronunciation of the words. Everything appears to be centered on the original Egyptian meanings of the ideographs, rather than on sounds.

Back in 1995 I was of the increasingly developing opinion that the Nephite characters must have been derived from Egyptian characters by way of shape and meaning. I had come to a plateau in the process of unfolding of understanding the characters, and one day I suddenly arose from my computer and turned my attention to Egyptian Language–Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics a text by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge (Dover Publications, NY, 1910).

I didn’t consciously ponder whether I should leave my work on the computer — I just did it with no prior thought about it at all, and believe that the Holy Spirit was gently guiding me. I hadn’t been looking at Budge’s book very long, when I noticed the hieroglyphic which was pronounced ‘neb‘ but which had the meanings of lord, all, bowl (page 91). I was struck between the similarity between the bowl-shape which meant lord in Egyptian and the cup-shaped character in the Caractors Transcript, which I felt certain also meant Lord. I started searching through the many examples in the book. Shortly, I came across several instances in which lord obviously referred to a king or person of influence. Was there an example in which it referred to a god and not to a human?

I first noted a string of characters that struck me with an electrifying effect. “Lord of heaven, Lord of earth, maker of beings terrestrial…” the English text read, and just above were the Egyptian hieroglyphics from which that was translated.

The quote was from the Stele of Panehesi from the XIXth dynasty (1320-1200 BC, or over 200 years prior to the time of King David in Jerusalem), and had been taken from a reference by Brugsch (Monuments de l’Egypte, Plate 3), but of course, what most moved me was the identical meaning of similar characters in the Nephite and Egyptian forms of Lord and that they could refer to God, the creator of all things!

This was the first concrete evidence I had that I was on the right track!  I was so enthused that I started searching both the Budge and Brugsch texts for anything in which shape and meaning were similar to other Caractors Transcript characters. I soon found a striking number of similarities, not so much in the demotic, but in the much older hieroglyphics! In fact, I have found so many matches of meaning and shape (albeit highly abbreviated) that I feel that it is highly improbable that all of them could be wrong. This does not mean that I feel confident that all of my matches are right. I probably am not quite on target in some places.

I believe that I have now found the ancient Egyptian sources for most of the 20 Nephite ROOT characters. Their original Egyptian meanings are logically converted into similar meanings in the Nephite language. Various combinations of the ROOTs yield even more complex concepts which still may be traced to the original Egyptian meanings.

I have now broken each character into its ROOT elements and assigned an ASCII character to each. By placing these ASCII characters in the corresponding positions as they are read, one may use a computer’s word processing program to produce a transliteration. This transliteration, although it is not in grammatical structure of today’s English, produces the words which I have rendered into the English translation.

The character string A9-A13 (see the following table) is provided as an example. At the top of the figure are the Egyptian characters from which I believe the Nephite characters were derived. Above the codes are the Nephite characters as copied from the Caractors Transcript. Below the Nephite characters are the subdivisions which reflect the original positioning of the Egyptian characters at the top. In the first line of the text is the original Egyptian meaning, while the second line shows the meaning as translated into the Nephite writing. The third line shows the ASCII characters which I have used to represent the composition of each Nephite character.  Throughout the text an exclamation point (! as in A9) means from; a tilde (~ as at A10) means one of the, to, or for; an open parentheses means of ( ( as in A12); a close parentheses means tongue as in element 2 of A11 and 2 & 4 of A13); the question mark means causedtobe as in elements 1 & 3 of A13; and the last unexplained element, obelisk {I now believe the Egyptian source was a ‘pillar’ rather than obelisk} is represented by | in A11. The first line is a direct result of taking the meanings of each ASCII character and converting it into Egyptian and the second line is derived by substituting the Nephite ROOTS into their transliteral meanings in the complex phrases (A11 and A13 in the example). Finally, my interpretation of the English meaning of the Nephite transliteration is shown in the last line.

ORIGINAL EGYPTIAN MEANING: from [A9] the/to/for [A10] of-tongue (testimony) obelisk (testimony) obelisk [A11] of [A12] caused-to-be-tongue–caused-to-be-tongue (NEPHI) [A13]. TRANSLITERATION OF NEPHITE MEANING:from [A9] the/to/for [A10] testimony plates [A11] of [A12] NEPHI [A13]. ASCII CHARACTERS: ! [A9] ~ [A10] ( )| [A11] ( [A12]? )? ) [A13] ! [A9] ~ [A10] ( )| [A11] ( [A12]? )? ) [A13]ENGLISH TRANSLATION: from the testimony plates of Nephi,

A computer word processing system can rapidly change every ! to from, every ~ to the/to/for, and every ( to of throughout the text. The results of these changes for all 20 ROOT characters shows the EGYPTIAN MEANING throughout the text.

A second change makes all instances of oftongue into its Nephite translation of testimony.

All proper nouns, such as Nephi (A13) and other complex characters, are similarly treated with word processing changes.

The Nephite word, WORD is derived from the Egyptian combination of causedtobetongue.  {Think in terms of ’causedtobeSPOKEN=WORD} The name of Nephi is a double of WORD (WORDWORD — Nephi wrote two records), and thus, wherever WORDWORD appears, the word processing program changes it into Nephi.

The name of Jesus is at C6 and the Nephite character for Jesus literally means WORDOFGOD (Egyptian: causedtobetongueofLord).

The character analysis shown here has been applied throughout the 216 characters of the Caractors Transcript, to give the translation shown at The Translation, (future page and link) which documents a complete character-by-character literal translation, as well as the corresponding English translation.

A computer can be instructed (programmed) to consistently change a given ASCII character into an Egyptian word, which is then changed into its Nephite meaning through a five step process. This is a wholly objective process, and is not the result of the translator trying to bend some presumed reading into the characters. The rules which govern the computer’s word processing exchanges were discovered through detailed analysis, by making many intermediary hypotheses, checking them to insure that the supposed meanings were consistent in all areas of the text, and then identifying the rules which led to those consistencies.

The consistency of application of meaning of a character in multiple locations makes the connections much more plausible than if the meaning were to be applied to only a single set of characters. Statistically, a multiple set of characters in a cryptic message cannot make sense in multiple areas without signifying that there is significant meaning associated with that grouping of characters.

At present, the serious critic will take issue not with WHETHER I have found a message, but rather HOW CLOSELY have I understood the correct interpretation of what the original author(s) was trying to say.

The critic may also question the authenticity of the original document. I leave that question in the hands of others {but will cover it in other portions of this blog}.

What I do know, and what every serious critic who studies this work can see, is that there IS a message there, and that I didn’t create it. I believe that I have also found the heart, if not the full intent, of that message.

I believe that I was guided by the Spirit of God in all of these areas. Where I have failed to reach the authors’ intended meaning, it is because I was not close enough to that Spirit to receive a full insight. I lay it to my human frailty, and my almost fear of approaching the Almighty too closely, which has kept me from a more perfect interpretation. I deeply regret my human deficiencies in this, but I know that God works with people the way they are, and that no matter how close I could get my humanity to approach God, I still couldn’t get it perfectly. I may have had a BETTER interpretation, but it would still be less than perfect. Thus, I present this work to the world, even with its imperfections, as being an inspired gift by the power of God for His Covenant People, the Lamanites, the Jews, all other Israelites and, indeed, for the entire human race.

There IS a message in those unique characters. How adequately I have interpreted that message may well be open to debate.

Anyone who will take the time to study my work will find that by following the rules of reading the characters, the message comes through, not in English language structure, but the words of the message ARE there. When scholars have established the grammatical structure, analyzed the text, and corrected my errors, we may well be able to come to a complete and dependable understanding of what that message says.

Until that time, the content of my English translation should not be cited as having the exact meaning that I now say I think it has. To treat it as an authoritative translation would assume that I possess a level of understanding that I do not claim.

As the Book of Mormon title page says, ‘if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God.’  I willingly acknowledge that it was as a GIFT OF GOD which led me to the translation, but any mistakes are MINE. I don’t know what my errors are, because I simply do not have the background required to fully comprehend the text.

{Note my use of brackets to update this 1999 testimony.  You will find that changes are mainly to clarify obscurities or inaccuracies in my original writing or to point out a new insight as to the intended meaning.  Otherwise, this article is basically unchanged since 1999.

AT NO POINT HAVE I FOUND THAT THE ORIGINAL GIFT OF THE MEANINGS OF THOSE TEN ORIGINAL WORDS IN 1994 WERE INCORRECT.  THIS TRANSLATION, EVEN IN ITS UPDATED FORM, STILL BEARS THE SAME BASIC MESSAGE FROM GOD, THAT I HAD DISCOVERED BY 1999!  IT IS A GIFT FROM GOD: A TESTIMONY THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST, AND WAS GIVEN TO US BY WAY OF THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY AND REVELATION.  AND IT WAS PREPARED BY GOD’S SERVANTS, MORMON AND MORONI FOR ALL OF MANKIND.  PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!}

{I do not boast of my discovery.  I know the interpretation is still flawed and take full responsibility for my human fallibility.  Nevertheless, I feel a great sense of awe in the awareness that this discovery was GIVEN to me–Why me?  I did not seek the key–it was a GIFT to me.  But it was a gift that I willingly acknowledge.  I accept the responsibility for the translation, and even in its imperfection, I give praises to God for the message it brings!  The experience that night was AWESOME, and I am simply reporting what happened to ME!  This is MY testimony and I am trying to share it with the world!  I wish I could shout it to the hill tops!  The Greatest meaning of that Message to me, is that GOD STILL REVEALS HIMSELF TO ANYONE WHO WILL OPEN HIS/HER EARS AND LISTEN–AND OBEY!  Blair Bryant, 9/6/16md}