I’ve had a bit of fun showing this book to friends at Church since it arrived a couple of weeks ago. I ask them to guess both the language the book is in, and the alphabet used in the last two lines of the title. So far, no one, not even those who speak Spanish or Portuguese, has been able to identify either.
Of course those who have purchased an AMV T-shirt know that the alphabet on the second set of lines in the title is the Deseret Alphabet, the 1860s-era attempt to make it easier for immigrants to learn English. While that misguided effort failed, the alphabet has recently seen a bit of a comeback, both because of its role in the development of unicode, and because of its hobbyist and design uses.
It was the hobbyist community that led me to this book.
I’ve been following the Deseret Alphabet hobbyist community for a while, and when the author, Josep Carles LaÃnez, announced this book, I contacted him and asked for a copy. His book is written in Asturian, a language spoken principally in portions of Spain and Portugal by some 125,000 people.
What is particularly fascinating about this edition is that it represents a first: the first published use of the Deseret Alphabet with a language other than English. LaÃnez adapted the alphabet for use with Spanish and similar languages, such as Asturian, Catalan and Galician.
LaÃnez is from Valencia, and grew up speaking another language similar to Spanish, Catalan. He learned Asturian in 1991 and has written and published extensively in Asturian since. His works include 4 other books of his own poetry, several translations and several plays, two of which have won the Theater prize from the Asturian Language Academy (the Asturian equivalent of the Académie Française). He holds degrees in Catalan and Hispanic Philology from the University of Valencia, and has been a visiting professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Hofstra university and Komazawa University (Tokyo). He is currently managing editor of the magazine Debats.
Since Asturian is just 80% intelligible to Spanish speakers, I can’t really give an assessment of the quality of LaÃnez’ poetry — I have to work at even understanding it. But I think I can give readers an rough idea of what it is like.
The poetry in this volume is clearly and unabashedly Mormon. La Piedra Ente La Ñeve (The Stone in the Snow) refers to Tom Lovell’s well-known painting of Moroni burying the plates in the Hill Cumorah, which Lovell depicts as happening in winter. LaÃnez draws on this image to evoke Moroni’s alienation and loneliness.
The 24 poems in this small volume are grouped into three sections, each preceded by a quotation from the written words of Moroni as found in the Book of Mormon. [Since the Book of Mormon is currently not available in Asturian, these are apparently LaÃnez’ own translations.] Each poem is presented in both the Deseret Alphabet and in traditional Roman script, on facing pages. Most of the poems are short (just 3 are more than 20 lines and only one is longer than a page).
When LaÃnez announced this book to the Deseret Alphabet group, he wrote, speaking of his home:
There is no cultural LDS background here; there is no writers, artists or composers devoted to LDS themes in European languages or art. We only have “future”, and a past shared with all of you, on the other side of the Atlantic.
That does indeed describe the difficulty faced by Church members who don’t speak English. At a minimum, LaÃnez is to be congratulated for making the effort that few others have made in languages with larger populations. And, in my opinion, his work is likely more important than this minimum, because his poetry demonstrates the sophistication of an experienced poet.
A Motley Vision 
This is the coolest, most esoteric, but delightful Mormon narrative art project ever. Thanks for posting this, Kent. I find it amusing and frustrating and intriguing that it’s a work that I couldn’t even begin to approach (being a non-Spanish speaker).
Yep.
IMO, the really interesting thing is whether or not our Mormon institutions will take notice. Will the HBLL or Church libraries acquire copies? Will it get added to the MLCA database or other databases? Will the AML consider it for the poetry award? Will the LDS Church’s PR people in Spain issue a press release about it?
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I hope people pay attention. I feel delirious with joy just contemplating that this book exists!
Poetry whose audience is mostly only God and the angels. I salute him.
So how does one acquire a copy, Kent?
Wow. This might be THE most obscure book on the face of the planet. Good job.
Kent, the library would almost certainly acquire copies if they know about it, but how will they know about something as obscure as this? Am I missing some link to publisher and price information?
Like Ardis, I’m sure the BYU library will get a copy — if they know about it. Ditto the overworked people at MLCA database, eventually. (No Going Back finally showed up there.) Practically speaking, you can’t award something you can’t read, so I doubt the AML would give an award. As for LDS Church PR people: most of them are unpaid grunts with little idea what they’re doing (like the rest of us in our Church callings). I suspect any publicity he gets will be what he — or sympathetic people like yourself — generate.
I found a link to the publisher’s shopping cart for the book at:
http://www.trabe.org/llibru.asp?id=1757
Ardis, Jonathan, I’ve sent notes to the Spanish & Portuguese librarian at BYU and to the Church library through the online form (may not be exactly the right place).
I mentioned the LDS PR people because I did see their counterparts in Chile (I think it was Chile) did report a year or so ago on a local member who won a short story contest.
Surely there are many speakers of Asturian in the Spirit World who could benefit from this work–perhaps more than the total number of living speakers. Since we do not regain our memory of the pre-mortal existence and the Adamic language until the Resurrection, the intensive missionary work going on since the death of Christ is surely carried out in myriad tongues, perhaps via family chains from ancestors or descendants. Since no one can enforce copyright laws against God, I speculate that books like this are copied in the spiritual realms, just as the records we keep in our meetinghouses and temples are also kept in heaven. After all, there’s an awful lot of time to fill.
I will add it to the MLCA if you send me the relevant info.
As a special collections cataloger, this made me smile. (But yes, it’s very cool and relatively obscure. I’d love to be the person who catalogs it for the HBLL.)
Kent,
Thank you again for bringing such delightful creations to us all. I am very interested in obtaining a copy of LaÃnez’s work. Brilliant.