=41. Written Language of the Ancient Americans.=--To these secular, or extra-scriptural, evidences of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon may be added the agreement of the record with recent discoveries regarding the written language of these ancient peoples. The prophet Nephi states that he made his record on the plates in "the language of the Egyptians,"[848] and we are further told that the brazen plates of Laban were inscribed in the same.[849] Mormon, who abridged the voluminous writings of his predecessors, and prepared the plates from which the modern translation was made, employed also the Egyptian characters. His son Moroni, who completed the record, declares this fact; but, recognizing a difference between the writing of his day and that on the earlier plates, he attributed the change to the natural mutation through time, and speaks of his own record and that of his father, Mormon, as being written in the "reformed Egyptian."[850] [848] I Nephi i, 2. [849] Mosiah i, 4. [850] Mormon ix, 32. =42.= Now consider the testimony of Dr. Le Plongeon, announcing his discovery of a sacred alphabet among the Mayas of Central America, which he declares to be practically identical with the Egyptian alphabet. He states that the structure of the Maya sacred language closely resembles that of the Egyptians; and he boldly proclaims his conviction that the two nations derived their written language from the same source.[851] Another authority says:--"The eye of the antiquarian cannot fail to be both attracted and fixed by evidence of the existence of two great branches of the hieroglyphical language,--both having striking affinities with the Egyptian, and yet distinguished from it by characteristics perfectly American."[852] [851] Dr. August Le Plongeon, in _Review of Reviews_, July, 1895. [852] _Quarterly Review_, October, 1836; abstracted in _Millennial Star_, vol. xxi, p. 467. =43.= But the Egyptian is not the only eastern language found to be represented in the relics of American antiquities; the Hebrew occurs in this connection with at least equal significance. That the Hebrew tongue should have been used by Lehi's descendants is most natural, inasmuch as they were of the House of Israel, transferred to the western continent directly from Jerusalem. That the ability to read and write in that language continued with the Nephites until the time of their extinction is evident from Moroni's statement regarding the language used on the plates of Mormon:--"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. And if our plates had been sufficiently large, we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also."[853]