I'm delighted to see something of a review (finally) of Stubbs' thesis. And it's optimistic that the reviewer considers Stubbs' book, on the whole, as "sound."

Still, the bulk of this review is merely descriptive, presenting the layout of Stubbs' book. Only in a couple places does Dirk Elzinga offer actual assessment of important claims. Such little assessment and discussion was disappointing.

Also, I agree with Elzinga's lament: "My greatest complaint is that this book did not go through the standard academic editorial and review process."

Just to be clear, Elzinga says this, at least in part, because he thinks the book has "sore need of careful editing." I would say this, because I want to see at least a half dozen linguists with the relevant training assess Stubbs' data and methodology.

I received a preliminary copy of Brian's proposal a couple of years ago and it truly is intriguing. I shared your desire to hear from professional linguists regarding Brian's data and methodology so I contacted one of the world's foremost experts in comparative linguistics, Lyle Campbell, who is also a well-recognized expert in Uto-Aztecan.

Lyle's books on historical comparative linguistics in general and on long-range language proposals like what Brian is presenting are particularly noteworthy and highly regarded by main-stream historical linguists. Lyle was kind enough to respond and when I asked if I could post parts of our email exchange to online forums like this he gave me permission. Here are some of the things he mentioned that are relevant to your desire to know more about Brian's level of expertise and professionalism:

"Brian kindly sent me his work a few months ago, and I haven't had time to do more than scan parts of it. Brian's UA Comparative Vocabulary (Here
Lyle is referring to an important previous UA book published by Brian) is excellent, the major source for checking UA cognates. It's based on sound principles and rigorous scholarship. I refer to it often, and am grateful to Brian for sharing it with me."

Lyle went on to cite several things that are uphill challenges for proposals like Brian's, including geographic improbability, chances of coincidences between language families, language patterns of Uto-Aztecan languages in particular, and other topics, but related to Brian's "data and methodology" that you are interested in, he said:

"There is, of course, much more that could be said on the topic, but I suspect this is enough. From what I see of Brian's data, he tries very much to stay with sound methodology, and the examples he presents are very interesting. For some of the reasons mentioned here, I doubt that his case will be able to reach the level of confidence needed to persuade skeptics, who will be looking at alternative explanations for the forms he cites. I think, though, that it will definitely be interesting to see what happens."

Agreed.

As mentioned in the book, Professor Cyrus Gordon had noted the resemblance between Native American "teo-calli" and the Greek word meaning the same thing.

I don't understand the reviewers comment (apparently based on Stubbs research) about the two separate Semitic intrusions. If he means the Lehites and Mulekites, I don't think they were separated enough in either time or space to result in two distinct intrusions. If he meant the Jaredites and the later groups, I don't think the Jaredites were Semitic speakers.

I think the Nephites were better able to preserve their language because of their records. At least, that's the impression I get from what little is written about the Mulekites' history in the BoM. Apparently there was enough of a difference between the two cultures that they couldn't understand each other at first contact. According to Brant Gardner this was primarily due the idea that the Mulekites mixed more readily with the indigenous cultures than the Nephites did -- who were a little more finicky about such things.

Brian's proposal is that the parent (proto) language of Uto-Aztecan languages was heavily influenced by two old-world dialects. Each of these two vectors of influence underwent sound changes between the time they diverged from known old-world dialects and the time that they influenced proto-Uto-Aztecan. He is further proposing that the speakers of one of those vectors of influence not only spoke a Northwest Semitic dialect, but that they also spoke or were heavily influenced by the Egyptian language and he demonstrates this with many hundreds of examples from each of the languages. He proposes that the second vector of influence also diverged from Northwest Semitic and that the two vectors were isolated from each other long enough that different sound changes happened within each group before they influenced proto-Uto-Aztecan.

How can the rest of us tie this in to the Book of Mormon?

We know that Lehi taught Nephi "the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians" and that Lehi's descendants spent roughly 400 years in the new world before describing contact with the Mulekites.

The records of the Nephites describe the Mulekite language as being corrupted because they did not bring any records with them. While the lack of records probably had a significant effect on the Mulekite language, it is HIGHLY unlikely that the language spoken by the Nephites would not also undergo significant change in the span of 400 years, whether they had written records or not, although speakers of the language(s) of the Nephites would not likely be aware that they spoke and pronounced their own language differently than how Nephi, Lehi, Laman, etc. pronounced it.

The result seems to be that natural sound changes in their languages made the Nephite and Mulekite languages somewhat unintelligible to each other. Without a working knowledge of how languages naturally change over time, the two groups seem to blame the language problem entirely on the lack of records.

Brian's proposal is that at some point these two language vectors heavily influenced (possibly via creolization, but this is uncertain) some prehistoric Native American language, resulting in what scholars refer to as proto-Uto-Aztecan.

Got it. I think I was confused because the Lehites and Mulekites both arrived at a similar time and location.

I'm not sure where I heard this, but I think the idea is that the Mulekites actually spoke a different dialect. Maybe with Phoenician influence, considering the likelihood that Phoenicians were responsible for the Mulekite's transportation.

One of the vectors of language influence in Brian's proposal (the vector that did not include Egyptian speakers) shows several indications of Phoenician influence on the language. I think that this, combined with the fact that the Phoenicians were the only people who were known to have vessels that might have been able to survive a trans-oceanic journey, makes it highly likely that the Mulekites arrived in the Americas aboard one or more Phoenician ships.

So the reason for the distinctiveness would have been because of differences that existed between the Mulekites and Lehites before they crossed the ocean? Okay, that makes sense. As an aside, the Mulekite group might well have included some Egyptians, which woild help explain the Egyptian intrusion into Uto-Aztecan.
Incidentally, my senior year of college (1997-1998) there was a report of Egyptian mummies found with traces of cocaine and marijuana in their bodies, suggesting Egyptian contact with the New World. It sounded odd to me at the time. Anyone know if that was determined to be a hoax?

I'm not absolutely sure that either of them is being led by the Book of Mormon in that case. The hypothesis is driven by the linguistic data.

Right. However, the reviewer said that Mormons could easily imagine a cause for two distinct Semitic intrusions into the language, and that threw me.

This is what I also got from reading the reviews of this work. Setting the Book of Mormon history aside completely, Stubbs proposes that the linguistic evidence suggests two separate intrusions. Could someone interpret that to mean that there was at least one non-scriptural contact between the Ancient Americas and the Ancient Middle East? Maybe.

The second intrusion was from the lessor well known voyage of Nehi. They also came and brought their language and culture. They were particularly skilled in growing artificial vineyards that are still used to produce a fizzy non-acoholic wine in some areas of the country.

Okay, that was funny.

My understanding is that the main distinction between the Nephites and the Nehites is one of physical stature. To remember which one is which I simply associate the giant Nephilim with Nephi (who was large in stature) and the diminutive Kneehighs with Nehi (who, not unlike Mulek, would claim his ancestral right to rule by lineage, being a direct descendant of Napolean). And that brings me to the second distinction. The former was a pre-Columbian society and the the latter a post-Columbian society which is still extant in parts of Columbia, I believe -- and still cooking up some interesting elixirs in their artificial vineyards.