Anti-Nephi-Lehies

[Solon]

I think this business of reading the prefix "anti" as if it were an English term meaning "opposed to," instead of an an English transliteration of a Reformed Egyptian word, has lots of possibilities. Just look at other BofM nouns using it:

Antiparah: A town full of people who are opposed to parah.

Antipus: A man deeply opposed to...infection, I guess.

antion of gold: An amount of gold that is the opposite of an "on" of gold?

FWIW, In ancient Greek, "anti" is a prefix that has meanings other than "against" or "opposite."

One such meaning is "as good as" or "equal to" or "like".

Another meaning is "instead" or "in place of"

There are plenty more, but these are the main ones.

BTW - Antipas is a form of the Greek "anti-patros," "equal to his father" (rather than "opposed to his father", or "opposite of his father")

[LA Ute]

FWIW, In ancient Greek, "anti" is a prefix that has meanings other than "against" or "opposite."

One such meaning is "as good as" or "equal to" or "like".

Another meaning is "instead" or "in place of"

There are plenty more, but these are the main ones.

BTW - Antipas is a form of the Greek "anti-patros," "equal to his father" (rather than "opposed to his father", or "opposite of his father")

Oh, sure, go ahead -- ruin my uneducated layman joke with scholarly information.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I think this business of reading the prefix "anti" as if it were an English term meaning "opposed to," instead of an an English transliteration of a Reformed Egyptian word, has lots of possibilities. Just look at other BofM nouns using it:

Antiparah: A town full of people who are opposed to parah.

Antipus: A man deeply opposed to...infection, I guess.

antion of gold: An amount of gold that is the opposite of an "on" of gold?

I think people are begging if they think something like the anti prefix in this context is some remnant from Reformed Egyptian. If he indeed translated the BoM from Reformed Egyptian to English then I don't see why remnants of the original language should remain that would provide bizarre connotations to the name. I wonder what the editions of the BoM in other languages have-- if anti is really part of the name and not simply a prefix-- then it should be in the BoM editions where where the letters "anti" don't mean anti.

[LA Ute]

I think people are begging if they think something like the anti prefix in this context is some remnant from Reformed Egyptian. If he indeed translated the BoM from Reformed Egyptian to English then I don't see why remnants of the original language should remain that would provide bizarre connotations to the name. I wonder what the editions of the BoM in other languages have-- if anti is really part of the name and not simply a prefix-- then it should be in the BoM editions where where the letters "anti" don't mean anti.

I really have no idea, but I have always allowed for the possibility that "anti" sounds odd to me only because I was reading it as an English word.

FWIW, in the Spanish translation of the BofM the word is "anti-nefi-lehitas." That tells us nothing, because "anti" has the same meaning in Spanish as in English.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I really have no idea, but I have always allowed for the possibility that "anti" sounds odd to me only because I was reading it as an English word.

FWIW, in the Spanish translation of the BofM the word is "anti-nefi-lehitas." That tells us nothing, because "anti" has the same meaning in Spanish as in English.

I actually looked up the translations into Tagalog, Hungarian, Tongan and Finnish which are perhaps the languages the furthest from English that still use our same alphabet and they actually all use anti with the exception of Samoan which uses something that sounds maybe similar (anitai). I don't know much about Tagalog, I don't know if it's a native Filipino tongue mixed with a lot of Spanish or what. Hungarian and Finnish are nothing like other European languages but the location of both countries could mean that a strong Latin prefix like anti (or is it Greek) could have made its way into the languages over time. The Tongan translation was the most divergent.

[UtahDan]

Oh, sure, go ahead -- ruin my uneducated layman joke with scholarly information.

FWIW, I thought it was very clever/funny.