In The Nature of the Original Language [of the Book of Mormon] (hereafter, NOL), Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack indicated that additional research into the language of the Book of Mormon might mean that some of the archaic words, phrases, and expressions identified at the beginning of NOL would eventually be discovered to have also occurred later in the 1700s. They were hampered by an inability to fully use the Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) database. Now, however, much of that difficulty has been overcome, and Carmack has spent the last year or so reviewing the potentially archaic words, phrases, and expressions discussed in NOL. (During the past few months, Skousen has reviewed these potential archaisms as well.)

In what follows—a pre-print of what will appear in part 8 of volume 3 of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project—Skousen and Carmack report on what they have found. Some of the examples given in NOL did not die out as early as they had proposed. But a good many solid examples still hold up as almost certainly or probably archaic.

The results are important. For one thing, they illustrate the care and integrity with which the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project has been conducted since its inception. The Interpreter Foundation is honored to be associated with this effort.

— Dan Peterson

Links to the databases mentioned in this write-up: