What is Translation Density?
Translation density is a metric that indicates the difference in space required between a source language and its translation into a target language. In other words, translation density tells us how many words or characters are needed to say something from one language to another. It is particularly relevant in determining the surface area needed for the text on the plates. Languages with high translation densities convey meaning more concisely, requiring significantly fewer characters than their target language translations.
For example, Chinese has a high translation density, with each Chinese character requiring approximately 3.9 English characters to translate. This means an English translation of a Chinese text requires about 3.9 times more space than the original. Conversely, Spanish has a low translation density relative to English, requiring about 1.1 English characters per Spanish character, which means that a Spanish book typically requires a similar number of pages as its English translation.
Below are translations of the first verse of Genesis which illustrate the different character densities of languages.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
En el principio creó Dios los cielos y la tierra. Y la tierra estaba desordenada y vacía, y las tinieblas estaban sobre la faz del abismo, y el Espíritu de Dios se movía sobre la faz de las aguas.
起初，神创造天地。地是空虚混沌，渊面黑暗；神的灵运行在水面上
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם
In the case of reformed Egyptian, no direct translations to English are available for evaluation. To overcome this limitation, the translation densities of other languages to English must be used as potential analogues.
By examining these comparative translation densities, it becomes possible to estimate a plausible range for the translation density of reformed Egyptian. This estimation is required to determine which physical configurations of the plates could feasibly contain the full text of the Book of Mormon and the lost 116 pages.
To determine the approximate translation density of a source language and a target language, an adequate amount of source and target language text must be evaluated. For the purposes of the calculations in this paper, the source text of the fifty chapters in the book of Genesis from the Old Testament (198,948 characters in the English translation) was used to evaluate the densities of Spanish, Chinese, and Hebrew. To evaluate the densities of Demotic, the third century BCE source text of First Tale of Setne Khaemwas was used (10,242 characters in the English translation), and for Hieratic, the thirteenth century BCE source text of the Tale of Two Brothers was used (22,127 characters in the English translation).
Because the primary motivation for using the Translation Density metric is to compare the approximate space requirements for a particular language, the important unit of measurement is not the number of words but, rather, the number of characters required for a translation.
| Source Text | Number of Source Characters | Number of English Translation Characters | Translation Density |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis 1-50 (Hebrew) | 83,168 | 198,948 | ~2.4 |
| Genesis 1-50 (Spanish) | 184,501 | 198,948 | ~1.1 |
| Genesis 1-50 (Simplified Chinese) | 50,612 | 198,948 | ~3.9 |
| Column Three of First Tale of Setne Khaemwas (Demotic) | ~3,320 | 10,242 | ~3.1 |
| Tale of Two Brothers (Hieratic) | ~8,634 | 22,127 | ~2.6 |