Linguistics and the Book of Mormon

The professed doctrine of most denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement is that the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century translation by Joseph Smith of a record of ancient inhabitants of the American continents, written in a script which the book refers to as "Reformed Egyptian". There is no evidence of a language matching this description nor any evidence of Old World linguistic influences in the New World whatsoever.

To support the Book of Mormon's historicity, scholars like Donald W. Parry claim that the text contains unique stylistic forms of Reformed Egyptian that Joseph Smith and his contemporaries were unlikely to have known. What is better attested to is that the Book of Mormon includes language that is anachronistic and reflective of its 19th-century and English-language origins consistent with Smith's upbringing and life experience, as well as the books and other literature published just preceding the time that the Book of Mormon was published.