Translation Rules

CT Translation Rules 

Introduction

The rules for reading the Caractors Transcript (CT) are quite simple and can be mastered by almost anyone who will take the time to learn and apply them.   The translator has been able to train others to interpret the basic message, using a ‘dictionary’ (see image below, left) with only a couple of hours of one-on-one instruction.

The correct interpretation of the CT text requires following a few, simple rules which will follow this introduction.

Dictionary 20 Roots

Click image for larger version

(A printable copy of the Dictionary can be found HERE.)
(A printable Bibliography reference document can be found HERE.)

In the entire CT, there are only 20 basic Egyptian characters (called ROOTS) and each Root conveys a meaning.[1]  The translator has assigned a single keyboard (ASCII) character, or a simple combination of two different keyboard characters, to represent each of the 20 Egyptian Root characters.  This allows a person to use a word processing system to search for each keyboard character (that represents a specific Egyptian character) and replace it with a word that represents the English equivalent meaning of the original Egyptian hieroglyph.

The Nephites modified the meanings of the Egyptian words by combining the Roots to make composite characters with slightly different (but related) meanings.  Thus, a single composite character might consist of up to 10 Roots, and could convey:

  • the added meanings to make new words
  • simple and sometimes very complex phrases,  and
  • in the ‘spellings’ of names.

Ten such names have been identified with specific Bible and Book of Mormon people and those names are in some way, an identifiable characteristic of the people involved.

Basic Rules

There are THREE basic rules for reading (or writing) the CT:

  1. Recognize the SHAPES and associated MEANINGS of the 20 Root characters.
  2. Read each line from right-to-left. Thus, the beginning of the message is at the upper-right of the CT and the end of the message is at the bottom-left.
  3. Read each individual character from left-to-right.[2]  Within a composite, individual character, the reading is from top to bottom, left-to-right.  If one part of a composite character is clearly above the rest of the character, the top-most Root is where the character reading starts.  Otherwise, the reading starts at the first Root at the upper-left of the character and progresses to the right and downward.

Interpretation of the CT text requires one to be able to match each of the Egyptian characters’ dictionary meaning to the CT Root character.

While it is NOT required to learn the Egyptian or Nephite Roots (for the dictionary is always available), being generally familiar with their shape-meaning match-ups would certainly facilitate the ability to decipher the intent of the original message.

By following these simple rules, we can determine almost ALL of the key words in the message.  Occasionally, our understanding of the message is improved by inserting an occasional ‘the’ or ‘and’ and rearranging the key words as we would use them in English.

The author has developed an Automatic Translation using word processing capabilities, which combines the 20 Root characters according to the above rules and yields MOST of the information required in interpreting the message.  SOME of the information needs to be evaluated by a human mind to provide the ‘correct’ interpretation, but the Automatic Translation provides the key words and names.  At the end, however, the human mind must interpret those words in the structure of the English language to convey the intended message, because the original message was not written in English.

Automatic Translation: 5 steps

There are FIVE steps in the Automatic Translation process which change the keyboard characters to their English meanings.  (Because the Egyptian script is NOT using alphabetic sounds, we do not need to know the Egyptian words that were used—we simply interpret them in English that WE do know.)

  1. STEP ONE:  Change KEYBOARD characters to their Egyptian meanings (in the English language).
  2. STEP TWO:  For those Egyptian characters whose meanings were modified by the Nephites, change the Egyptian meanings to the more-restricted, Nephite meanings.
  3. STEP THREE:    For composite characters, combine the Nephite Roots to make new WORDS and PHRASES.
  4. STEP FOUR:   Continue the process of STEP THREE in identifying the TEN names in the CT.

[At this point MOST of the key words have been identified but there remain two Roots (SPOKEN and the-to-for), that have alternate possible meanings and we need to determine which of the possible meanings was actually intended by the authors.  This requires human interpretation of the context of the surrounding message and STEP FIVE assists us in making these determinations.]

5. STEP FIVE:   Change all remaining instances of SPOKEN to LANGUAGE/ACCOUNT (it will be one or the other but human intervention is necessary to determine which meaning is intended at each location).  For instances of ‘the-to-for’, we need human intellect to ascribe the word most appropriate for the context of the message.

We can easily instruct a computer to go through the first FOUR steps to make an Automatic Translation from the keyboard (Egyptian) meanings.  We simply use a ‘Find/Replace’ function in our word processing system to automatically search for ALL instances of each of the 20 Roots and change them to their Egyptian meanings for Step One.  We then proceed through the other steps by making word processing exchanges that show how the Nephites modified the Egyptian hieroglyphics, combined the Roots to make new Nephite words, phrases, and names and give us all of the key words of the message.  And we end up after Step FOUR with all of the key words necessary for making an interpretation.

View a video which demonstrates the application of the first four steps of the Automatic Translation. [future link]

A printable Bibliography of the 20 Roots are at Roots&Origins.

Footnotes

[1]   Some of the Roots were alphabetic, that is, they represented sounds.  The adaptation of these characters by the Nephite authors, however, did NOT convey those Egyptian sounds.  Rather, the spoken Egyptian language sounds were adapted by the Nephites to represent the definite article (‘en’=the); as prepositions (e.g., ‘em’=of, to, by, from, for) and the conjunction ‘and’ (‘huh’), just as the Egyptians used them.  The rest of the 20 Roots were derived from hieroglyphics that Egyptologists call ‘determinatives’ which were frequently not even pronounced, but were added to the alphabetic spelling of a word to show the specific category of that word to ensure that words which sounded alike took on specific meanings depending on what determinative was used.

[2]   This ‘right-to-left/left-to-right’ rule seems to be inconsistent, but there is ample precedence for it.  The same rule applies to today’s Chinese characters dating to 3000 BC or earlier; to all three kinds of Ancient Egyptian scripts; and to the square block form of Hebrew writing of today.