1 Ne. 3:19; Morm. 9:32-34; Mosiah 1:4; Lehi in the Desert, Nibley, pp. 13, 26; Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon, Ludlow, p. 173; refer to 1 Ne. 3:19
“… reformed Egyptian was a type of shorthand… . It must have required less space to write reformed Egyptian than to write Hebrew… . The Hebrew language is very compact when compared to English and many other western languages. A typical English sentence of fifteen words will often translate into seven to ten Hebrew words.” (Book of Mormon 121-122 Student Manual, p. 4)
“Hebrew is a completely alphabetic language, whereas in Egyptian a symbol can represent an entire concept.” (R. Millet & J. F. McConkie, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 1:20)
“We now realize that the ancient Jews could write quickly and boldly, in an artistic flowing hand, with the loving penmanship of those who enjoy writing. And the Nephites got rid of this to learn in its place the most awkward, difficult, and impractical system of writing ever devised by man! Why all the trouble? Simply to save space. What space? Space on valuable plates… . People who were not crowded for space would not have continued to write Hebrew in the difficult Egyptian characters for hundreds of years, when all the time they might just as well have been writing in the twenty-two simple and practical characters of the Hebrew alphabet.” (Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, p. 16