"32 And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech." Mormon 9:32 Over a period of nearly 1,000 years, they had been altering the language that they called reformed Egyptian to suit their purposes. They were not speaking Egyptian. So, they altered this written language to coincide with their spoken language. After nearly 1,000 years of intentional alteration of the written language to fit their needs, I can believe that the written language could have been altered to the point of being unrecognizable.

In short, 'Reformed Egyptian' was a construct of Joseph Smith's creative mind. The best physical evidence of Smith's ability, or inability, to "translate" can be examined in his translation of some ancient Egyptian papyri, understood by Smith to be the writings of the prophet Abraham, into a book: The Book of Abraham. The translations of these papyri, by Egyptologists, suggest that the hieroglyphs, written in hieratic Egyptian, were not correctly translated by Smith. Consequently, the Anthon Transcript, understood within this framework, would suggest that Smith's claims of true Egyptian prowess, reformed or not, are doubtful.

Glenn has hit the nail right on the head. At the very beginning of the Book of Mormon, Nephi describes “the language of [his] father” as “consist[ing] of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1:2, http://tinyurl.com/1nep1-2), so even before they leave Jerusalem, we see that what they’re speaking is not exactly Egyptian. Following a thousand years of physical and cultural separation, Moroni writes that “ the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian” were “handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech”; but also that “if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also” (Mormon 9:32-33, http://tinyurl.com/morm9-32). So by this point we’ve got a language that the Nephites call “Reformed Egyptian,” but which probably isn’t particularly similar, any more. (Think about our own language: while Middle English is sometimes difficult to understand, Old English is nigh unreadable without specific linguistic training. That’s the kind of shift we’re talking about.) What we do know is that “Reformed Egyptian” is more compact than Hebrew (which is a *huge* feat in and of itself), and has been uniquely designed to meet the needs of a constantly dwindling culture. It really shouldn’t be surprising that it wouldn’t directly match any other forms of Egyptian (although it *does* resemble artifacts unearthed in Tlatilco, México; see http://tinyurl.com/5cl9sv for a brief treatment of this). Finally, just an aside… probably the strongest circumstantial evidence surrounding the Anthon transcript is that even though Dr. Anthon later denied authenticating it, Martin Harris returned from their meeting and mortgaged his farm to pay for the Book of Mormon’s publication. If Anthon had indeed marked Joseph Smith as a fraud (as he alleged), why didn’t Harris run away—fast? But of course, this train of though isn’t particularly relevant; the Book of Mormon has never risen nor fallen on the Anthon transcript, but rather on the promise found in its closing chapter (Moroni 10:3-5, http://tinyurl.com/moro10-3). HTH!

Because it's been rather conclusively identified as Ancient Irish. http://www.concernedchristians.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=42&func=view&id=77439&catid=520 IMAGES: ====================== Exhibit A: This small sample of early modern shorthand above is from Jeremiah Rich's 1673 New Testament. The reader will find more than fifteen different characters here which are also found in the "Anthon transcript." Exhibit C: The ogham code symbol on the left is from page 311 of the 14th century Book of Ballymote (the vertical line is merely a divider). The three symbols on the right are from the "Anthon transcript." Exhibit D: The highlighted symbol (left) of four dots below a stem line is from page 312 of the Ballymote manuscript. The "Anthon transcript" symbol to its right is from line four of the transcript. Exhibit E: Naithair fria fraech {"Serpent through the heather"} ogham code letter on left Book of Ballymote, p. 313. Two of several similar "Anthon transcript" symbols on right.