After giving a brief history concerning the circumstances surrounding the discovery of twenty-four gold plates filled with engravings, King Limhi asserts that "there is no one in the land that is able to interpret the language or engravings that are on the plates [the 24 plates of Ether]" (Mosiah 8:11) Moreover, he asks Ammon if he knows anyone that can translate these records. Ammon replies,
I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man that can translate the records; for he has wherewith that he can look, and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the things are called interpreters, . . . behold, the king of the people who are in the land of Zarahemla is the man that is commanded to do these things, and who has this high gift from God. (Mosiah 8:13)
This commentary leads to conjectures about intercultural contact and literacy between the Jaredites, Mulekites, and Nephites:
1. Perhaps there had been no contact between the Jaredites , the people of Zarahemla or the people of Mosiah. A Mesoamerican setting would make the absence of contact difficult because between 600 B.C. and 200 B.C., there was established trade between the Olmec areas (proposed Jaredite locations) and the Highland Maya areas near Kaminaljuyu (proposed local land of Nephi).
2. Perhaps Ether wrote in an ancient language on the 24 plates which could only be understood by other prophet-historians by means of special instruments, or "interpreters." For example, the Lord instructed the brother of Jared concerning his experiences: "ye shall write them and shall seal them up, that no one can interpret them; for ye shall write them in a language that they cannot be read" (Ether 3:22). This is similar to the Nephite prophet-historians Mormon and Moroni (see Mormon 9:34 -- "none other people knoweth our language").
3 If the ability to read and write records was reserved for royal Jaredite kings or historians (including Ether and Coriantumr, then perhaps the people of Zarahemla (assuming they knew the Jaredites) were never given the opportunity to learn the official Jaredite scribal language. For example, after the final battles of the Jaredites, Ether and Coriantumr were apparently the only royal survivors. Omni 1:20 refers to a large stone which was brought to Mosiah with engravings. This stone "gave an account of one Coriantumr and the slain of his people and "Coriantumr was discovered by the people of Zarahemla and he dwelt with them for the space of nine moons" (Omni 1:21), yet it was not the people of Zarahemla who apparently wrote on the stone, nor translated the stone. The engravings were translated by the Nephite king Mosiah, who translated them "by the gift and power of God" (Omni 1:20).
4. Perhaps over some 400 years, the people of Zarahemla had lost the skills of reading and writing (see Omni 1:17 -- "their language had become corrupted and they had brought no records with them").
[Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes] [See the commentary on Omni 1:20-21; Mosiah 28:20; Ether 3:22-28; 4:5]