Two things are interesting in verse 5’s description of Limhi bringing records to Ammon. The first is that there was a continuous record kept of the people. Mormon will begin quoting from that record in the next chapter. He calls it the record of Zeniff, and he will quote what Zeniff wrote. However, the record clearly continued. Based on the evidence we have from the large plates, the books changed names with changes in dynasties. It is probable that the people of Zeniff continued that tradition. Therefore, the record of Zeniff would have been similar to naming a record the book of Zeniff, and the records of Noah and Limhi would have been on that same record.
The second interesting aspect is that Limhi expects that Ammon could read. It may be that Ammon had some royal or otherwise high-class blood. Literacy was rare in the ancient world and would have been confined to the higher classes.
The ability of Ammon to read leads directly to the question in the next verse. This question about whether Ammon could interpret languages will be the first time Mormon tells the story of Ether’s plates. Mormon will repeat aspects of the story about the plates twice in coming chapters. It was important to Mormon’s underlying thesis for the eventual destruction of the Nephite people, a thesis that will be explored later as more information is accumulated.