Feb. 6, 1922.

Mr. William E. Riter,

Logan, Utah.

Dear Sir:

Your letter of Aug. 22nd to Dr. Talmage with accompanying enclosure from Mr. Couch, was referred to me for consideration owing to the necessary absence of Dr. Talmage from the state, shortly after your letter was received. I regret that it has not been possible until now for me to send you the following reply to the questions submitted by Mr. Couch.

It must be admitted that the questions of Mr. Couch respecting American languages and the Book of Mormon present a problem, but not one that may be unsolvable. The solution seems to hinge upon the time element necessary for the production of the differentiation in the language stocks of the American race as now known. Mr. Couch holds that the time period allowed by the Book of Mormon, which he states to be 2,700 years, is not sufficient to produce this variation from some common source. This becomes then a question of the rapidity or slowness with which languages may change.

It should be held in mind that the Book of Mormon notes the changes that had taken place in the language of Book of Mormon peoples even while there were those among them capable of reducing it to written form, a thousand years previous to the discovery of America. This, however, respecting the written languages (see the Book of Mormon - within the Book of Mormon - ch. IX:32). Changes in oral language, unaccompanied by written language - which, so far as known, was the case with American peoples in the thousand years following the closing up of the Nephite period to the coming of Columbus - would take place more rapidly and could be more pronounced. An illustration of this is given in the Book of Mormon. It tells of a colony leaving Jerusalem about eleven years after the Lehi colony left that city, and who for two hundred or two hundred and fifty years were settled in the New World before coming into contact with Lehi's people. This colony, known as the colony of Mulek, had brought no records with them from Jerusalem, no books, had no written language, and when discovered by their race kindred, the Nephites, their language had been so changed in that two hundred or two hundred and fifty years, that they could not understand each other (see Book of Omni in the Book of Mormon - ch. I:14 - 19).

Authorities are not agreed upon the time element required for producing diversity in languages. The Marquis de Nadaillac in his "Pre-Historic America," in discussing the character of American language says: "Their diversity may be accounted for by the constant crossing of races, migrations, and by the new customs and ideas which gradually become introduced even among the most degraded peoples; still more by the well recognized instability and mobility of many aboriginal languages." Then he adds that which seems <al>most improbable: "Some missionaries say they have found the language of tribes revisited after an absence of ten years completely changed in the interim," (Pre-Historic America," pp. 6, 7).

John Fiske, on the same subject, says: "The speech of uncivilized tribes when not subject to the powerful conservative force of widespread custom or permanent tradition, changes with astonishing rapidity. Referring to the case of a group small enough to use but one language, and then breaking <up> under such circumstances he notes that "the dialects," resulting from such breaking up, "would change so rapidly as to lose their identity within a couple of centuries it would be impossible to detect any resemblance to the language of the primitive tribe." He remarks further that "the facility with which savage tongues abandon old expressions for new has no parallel in civilized languages, unless it be in the more ephemeral kinds of slang. It is sufficiently clear, I think, under such circumstances, that a language will seldom or never acquire sufficient stability to give rise to mutually resembling dialects." If the habits of primitive men were in general similar to those of modern savages, we need not wonder that philologists are unable to trace all existing languages back to a common origin." (41) In evidence of this tendency among savage tribes to changes in language quickly, he first cites the fact that in civilized speech "no words stick like the simple numerals; we use the same words today, in counting from one to ten, that our ancestors used in central Asia ages before the winged bulls of Nineveh were sculptured; and the change in pronunciation has been barely sufficient to disguise the identity. But in the language of Tahiti, four of the ten simple numerals used in Captain spread custom or permanent tradition, changes with astonishing rapidity.

Cook's time have already become extinct:--

Two was rua; it is now piti.

Four was ha; it is now maha.

Five was rima; it is now pae.

Six was ono; it is now fene.

(Excursion of An Evolutionist, p. 156-6).

In addition to this evidence for the rapidity with which language may change, there is a thousand years from the close of what may be called the Book of Mormon period to the coming of Columbus, in which period there may have been immigrations to the American continents of other peoples from Europe or Africa, or from Asia or the Polynesian Islands; and it will not be necessary to remind Mr. Couch that the literature of American race origins abounds with the urgency of such infusions; and I may assure him that there is nothing in the Book of Mormon that pronounces against the possibility of infusions of such peoples, and the consequent modifications of native American languages, or even the creation of language stocks and dialects in the New World, by reason of such immigrations.

Moreover, there is also the possibility that other peoples may have inhabited parts of the great continents of America, contemporaneously with the peoples spoken of by the Book of Mormon, though candor compels me to say that nothing to that effect appears in the Book of Mormon. A number of our Book of Mormon students, however, are inclined to believe that Book of Mormon peoples were restricted to much narrower limits in their habitat on the American continents, than have generally been allowed; and that they were not in South America at all.

If this be true, it might allow of other great stretches of the continents to be inhabited by other peoples, with other cultures and languages, which would still further tend to solve the difficulties of the Book of Mormon in regard to the existence of the great diversity of language stocks among the American races.

In relation to iron and steel among Book of Mormon peoples, and the existence of the horse in America, matters referred to by Mr. Couch, I refer to my consideration of those subjects in "New Witnesses for God" (vol. III ppe 524-543), a copy of which I am sending under separate cover, as part of this communication, and which I ask you to forward to Mr. Couch with the report you make to him of this letter.

Relative to the word "cimeter" in the Book of Mormon, no great difficulty attaches to that at all for the reason that it is a word used in the translation by Joseph Smith in the early decades of the 19th century, and may have been used by him as a descriptive term for a peculiar shaped sword among the Nephites, which may or may not have been after the shape of the Mohammedian weapon of post Christian times.

Mr. Couch's remarks in relation to "silk" among Book of Mormon peoples, also presents no serious difficulty. The manufacture of silk is of great antiquity. It was an industry in China before the empress Se-ling-she encouraged the cultivation of the mulberry tree in aid of it - 2,640 B.C.-; about which time also she invented the silk weaving loom. If this Chinese chronology be allowed then silk was known even before the Jaredites - the earliest Book of Mormon people - left the Old World for the New, and they may have brought knowledge of the fabric and its manufacture with them. Silk was also known to the Hebrews a thousand years before Christ. Of the good wife, the writer of Proverbs says, "Her clothing is silk and purple" (Proverbs 31 : 22). This according to Usher in 1015 B.C.

It will be said, however, that silk in unknown among the American races, and it must be conceded that generally that needs to be taken for granted, and chiefly for the reason, I would say, of the absence of the fabric from among the natives when discovered by Europeans, and for lack of evidences of its existence among their discovered antiquities. The absence of silk among the natives when discovered by the Europeans could be accounted for by the debacle which overtook the Nephite civilization at the close of the fourth century A. D., when the art of producing silk, together with many other arts, may have been lost. And the lack of its existence in native American antiquities could be accounted for by the perishable nature of the fabric, as I am assured, by those competent to speak on the matter, that the chemical elements of silk are such that when compared with cotton, for instance, the former might perish while the latter would persist. Of this, however, I am not competent to speak from my own knowledge.

There seems to be no room for doubt but that the native races had the necessary skill to weave silk. Of the weaving art in South America Mr. Wisaler, author of "The American Indian," says that taxes, fines, and tributes were levied in fine cloth. As to qualities, we have not only the testimony of early observers, but in the desert burial grounds of Peru we have immense storehouses of prehistoric cloth preserved completely in the original form and colors. Recent studies of mummy collections by a textile expert have shown that the fineness of weave exceeds that of any other part of the world. As to forms of weave, we find the same techniques as in the Old World, even to pile and gauze."

Mr. W. H. Holmes, speaking of the Maya-Quiche area says of textiles' "Few traces of the textile art have been spared, but judging by the sculptural and pictorial representations, the costumes of the people were among the most elaborate that the world has ever known." From this it would appear that weaving skill was not lacking among native races to produce even silk. Prescott in a footnote discussing the supposed knowledge of silk among the natives, says:

"It is doubtful how far they were acquainted with the manufacture of silk. Carli supposes that what Cortes calls silk was only the fine texture of hair, or down, mentioned in the text. (Lettres Americ., tom. I. let. 21). But it is certain they had a species of caterpillar, unlike our silkworm, indeed which spun a thread that was sold in the markets of ancient Mexico." (Conquest of Mexico, Vol. I p. 117).

Believing that this, with the enclosed printed matter I send you, covers the problems suggested in the note of Mr. Couch,

I am most truly yours,