OED on Necks of Land

Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language appeared just two years before the Book of Mormon. In the early 1980's as FARMS was beginning its contribution to Mormon scholarship, we were excited to see what we could learn about the meanings of Book of Mormon words and phrases from Webster's classic tome. Thirty years later we now know the earliest English version of the Nephite text has a much closer affinity with the older language of Shakespeare and the King James Bible. See the blog article "Early Modern English." The indispensable dictionary for exegesis of Mormon's and Moroni's abridgments can only be the incomparable Oxford English Dictionary commonly called the OED. Textual scholars such as Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack use the OED extensively.

We used the OED to articulate the meanings of the terms "tongue of land," "strip of land," and "isthmus" in the blog article "Romance Languages." We will now plumb the depths of the OED to shed more light on the key Nephite phrases:

• small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward Alma 22:32.
• narrow neck which led into the land northward Alma 63:5.
• by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land Ether 10:20.

Necks of Water
We first note that a "neck" can also refer to a marine feature. Straits, sounds and inlets are sometimes called "necks of water," particularly if they are quite narrow. So the Book of Mormon usage "neck of land" is not redundant given its coastal nature.

Small Necks of Land
The obsolete word "halover" is a variant of "haul over" meaning portage where seafarers had to carry their boats from the ocean over a spit of land before they could launch them again in an inland waterway. Haulover Beach in North Miami, Florida is one place where this word persists. Beginning in 1697 (the Early Modern English era) an English privateer (pirate) and adventurer began publishing memoirs of his voyages and discoveries around the world. Because he was a keen observer and facile wordsmith, William Dampier's writings became very popular. Dampier describes a trip he took in 1676 along the coast of Tabasco. This image is from Captain William Dampier edited by John Masefield, Dampier's Voyages (London: E. Grant Richards, 1906) Vol. 2, pp. 214-5 displayed in Google Books.

Captain William Dampier Voyages (1676)

Dampier's Halover is a coastal sandbar running between the Gulf of Campeche and Laguna Santana aka Laguna Machona and Laguna Redonda. This sandbar is what Dampier called a "small Neck of Land." It is .27 km wide at the point indicated.

Dampier's Small Neck of Land, Tabasco

On modern maps the sandbar is called Barra del Panteon with Barra Tupilco to the east and Barra de Santa Ana to the west. The sense of "haul over" persists on the map above in the Spanish word "arrastradero" which means "portage."

We propose Barra San Marcos on the Pacific coast of Chiapas as the narrow (small) neck of land in the Book of Mormon. It is also a coastal sandbar fronting a series of saltwater lagoons. Barra del Panteon and Barra San Marcos are nearly identical geographic features 270 air kilometers distant from each other in southern Mexico. One was described in Early Modern English as "a small neck of land." Another may be the feature described in an Early Modern English text (the Book of Mormon) as "a small neck of land."

Another Early Modern English usage of the term "small neck of land" comes from the ancient city of Tyre in modern Lebanon. Tyre is on a tiny peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean.

Tyre, Lebanon on a Peninsula .5 km Wide

Anglican clergyman Thomas Fuller published an Early Modern English book entitled The historie of the holy warre (Cambridge: T. Buck, 1639) where he described Tyre "tacked to the continent with a small neck of land."

Between
"Betwixt" is archaic. The sense is "by twin" meaning a third entity (c) in close relationship with two other entities (a & b) where a & b share significant commonalities. So, for instance, in geographic usage a river or plain may lie between two cities. A fence or wall may lie between two farmer's fields. A mountain ridge may lie between two valleys. The word often conveys either a line of movement or communication between a & b, or an obstacle dividing a from b. In Early Modern English, c was adjunct to both a & b, not integral with either of them.

Alma 22:32 and 3 Nephi 3:23 describe the actual border between the land northward (Desolation) and the land southward (Bountiful) as a line. The narrow (small) neck of land was not this line. It was a coastal feature along the west sea in the vicinity of this line. Our correlation of the narrow (small) neck of land with a coastal sandbar fits this scenario nicely. The neck was not the  land northward nor was it the land southward. It was separate from both these lands, but in line with them and a conduit of movement and communication between them.

Narrow
Something is narrow when its breadth or width is small compared with its length. A long lane or street with houses or fields on either side is narrow. Egyptian settlement along the banks of the Nile is narrow. The northern arms of the Red Sea on either side of the Sinai Peninsula are narrow.

Narrow Egyptian Settlement along the Nile, Narrow Arms of the Red Sea

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec as defined by geographers is not narrow. Its width exceeds its length.

Isthmus of Tehuantepec 211 km Long X 216 km Wide

The narrow neck of land as envisioned by John L. Sorenson, V. Garth Norman and many others is not narrow. Its width greatly exceeds its length. In the representation below, the width is 6.75 times greater than the length, the exact opposite of the OED definition of "narrow."

Proposed Narrow Neck of Land 32 km long X 216 km wide

Our proposed narrow neck of land, on the other hand, conforms precisely to the OED definition of "narrow"

Barra San Marcos 52 km Long X 2 km Wide

Narrow Land

In 1640 a farmer in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire was conveyed one "narrow land." At that time in England, fields were often divided into narrow strips. The example shown is .26 km wide.

Strips of Land around Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire

Narrow Necks of Land
"Halse" or "hals" was an old Scottish word for "neck." Hector Boece wrote his celebrated The History and Chronicles of Scotland in Latin in 1527. John Bellenden translated it into Scottish vernacular in 1536. Describing the region of Nidisdail (modern Nithsdale), Boece/Bellenden wrote "It beginnis with ane narow and strait hals, and incressis mair braid." In contemporary English we would render "It begins with one narrow and strait neck, and increases more broad." This 1726 map of Scotland shows the narrow southern neck of Nithisdale (Nithsdale), approximately 5 km wide.

Nithisdale (Nithsdale) in Southern Scotland

During the 1600's when the basic geography of the New World was beginning to be widely understood, the Isthmus of Darien aka Panama was called a "narrow neck of land" or similar. Panama is 52.77 km wide at its narrowest point and 900 km long on its Atlantic coastline from the Colombia border on the south to the Costa Rica border on the north. Panama clearly conforms to the OED definition of "narrow."

Isthmus of Panama 

"America is not unfitly resembled to an Hour-glasse, which hath a narrow neck of land ... betwixt the parts thereof." Thomas Fuller, The holy state, 1642

"America is ... divided by that Isthmus, or necke and narrow passage of Land at Darien, into two parts." Samuel Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimage, 1613

"Next is that necke or narrow extent of Land ... knitting the two great Peninsuls of the North and South America together." Samuel Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimage, 1613

Necks of Land
French maps from the 1600's were the first to name the Niagara Peninsula. The name comes from the Mohawk language and means "neck of land (between the lakes)." The Niagara Peninsula is 37.21 kilometers wide at its narrowest point.

Niagara Peninsula Surrounded by Water on Three Sides

In the late 1700's, a British naturalist called the narrow sandbar fronting Portland harbor a "neck of land." It is .18 km wide.

Neck of Land along the Dorset Coast

"On the neck of land joining Portland to Dorsetshire." William Withering, An Arrangement of British Plants..., 1796

In the late 1600's, the area between the Firth of Forth to the east and the Firth of Clyde to the west was called a "neck of land." This territory is 54.61 km wide on the line indicated.

Neck of Land across Central Scotland

"The Neck of Land between the two Fryths about Sterling and Glasco." William Temple, An Introduction to the History of England, (London: Richard and Ralph Simpson, 1699)

Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay was first colonized in 1631, the earliest European settlement in what is now Maryland. By 1640 about a dozen land patents had been granted on the island and surveyors were busy marking boundaries and certifying claims. Kent Island has three "necks of land" that appear on the modern map: Batts Neck, Cox Neck and Crab Alley Neck. Survey records from 1640 document many other necks of land. For example: "Laid out for Thomas Keyne the Neck of Land called hog penn Neck, lyeing between thicketty Creek on the North, hog pen Creek on the South Chesapeak Bay on the West and a Meridian line drawn from the head of Thicketty Creek, to the head of hog pen Creek on the East Containing 100 acres." Maryland Historical Magazine Vol. 5, 1910 "Land Notes, 1634 - 1665" We would classify Hog Pen Neck 1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt using the system outlined in the blog article "Necks of Land."

The Northern Portion of Kent Island, Queen Anne's County, Maryland

Land Neck

"Land-neck" is an obsolete word meaning isthmus. "At the very entrance of the Isthmus, or land-necke." Florus, translated by Edmund Mary Bolton, The Roman Histories of Lucius Juluis Florus ..., 1619

Neckland
"Neckland" is an obsolete word meaning a neck or narrow strip of land. "The Promontories and necklands which butt into the the Sea, what are they but solide creekes." George Hakewell, An Apologie of the power and providence of God, 1627

Led into
The sense of "lead in" or "lead into" is to conduct or guide along a path. Gates lead into courtyards. Anterooms lead into larger rooms. Footpaths lead into forests. "Passing from hence through the Sala Regia againe, I was led into the great roome hard by." Richard Lassels edited by Simon Wilson, The voyage of Italy, 1670.

"Led into" is used four times in a geographic context in the Book of Mormon.

• Alma 52:9 the narrow pass led into the land northward.
• Mormon 3:5 the narrow pass led into the land southward.
• Alma 63:5 the narrow neck led into the land northward.
• Mormon 2:29 the narrow passage led into the land southward.

All three features (narrow pass, neck & passage) were very near the actual border, the line between the lands southward and northward Alma 22:32, 3 Nephi 3:23. The narrow passage was right on the border Mormon 2:29. All three were distinctive enough to function in the role of independent gate or path leading into the much larger and more substantial lands northward and southward. This map shows our correlations,

Proposed Narrow (Small) Neck, Narrow Pass, Narrow Passage
and Bountiful/Desolation Border Line

We propose that:

• the narrow (small) neck of land is Barra San Marcos. The black lines show the modern road traversing the length of the sandbar, intersecting at right angles with Cabeza de Toro road.
• the narrow pass is the Mexican railroad grade shown as the purple line skirting around Cerro Bernal and Laguna de la Joya.
• the narrow passage is the mountain pass at the Agua Dulce River where Mexican Federal Highway 200, shown in light blue, runs today.
• the Bountiful.Desolation line is the red line that runs from a point high in the Sierra Madre westward to Mar Muerto. 

On the map above, the yellow lines are rivers emptying into the Pacific. The white line is the continental divide and the blue lines are rivers in the Mezcalapa - Grijalva drainage basin. Green pushpins represent geographic features mentioned in the text. Yellow pushpins are elevation markers.
These correlations fit the sense of "led into" brilliantly.

• The narrow (small) neck route led only into the land northward.
• The narrow pass, flanking a mountainous ridge that crosses over the Bountiful/Desolation line, can lead either northward or southward depending on one's location at the time. When the Nephites were in land Bountiful, the narrow pass led northward Alma 52:9. When the Nephites were in land Desolation, the narrow pass led southward Mormon 3:5.
• The narrow passage was right on the Bountiful/Desolation border line, so movement could go either way. When the Nephites were in land Desolation, the narrow passage led southward Mormon 2:29.

The fact that three transportation corridors exist today (coast road, railroad, highway) through this area lends credibility to the Book of Mormon account of three geographic features providing access between the lands southward and northward.

We could constructively consult the OED for the terms "narrow pass" and "narrow passage" but our scope in this article is the narrow (small) neck of land.

Necks
A neck is a constriction, a pinch point. Vertebrates have necks. Bottles, flasks and jars have necks. To some degree, the words "neck" and "narrow" are redundant because most necks are longer than they are wide. Necks are usually associated with peninsulas that protrude like a head from a body. Isthmuses that connect two larger bodies are also called necks. The complex topography of the Crimean Peninsula, for instance, has several features that are called necks and/or isthmuses almost interchangeably."The upwold, or high level part of the neck [of the isthmus]." Alexander William Kinglake, The Invasion of Crimea, 1875. The narrowest part of a mountain pass can be called a neck. "Monsieur Medavi...was to advance towards the Neck of the Mountains at Ceurs." The London Gazette No. 4359/2, 1709.

Necks around Mount Hope Bay between Massachusetts & Rhode Island

"Mount-Hope, Pocasset and several other Necks of the best land in the Colony." William Hubbard, A narrative of the troubles with the Indians in New-England, 1677

Divides

The verb "divide" means to partition, cleave or cut into pieces. The narrow (small) neck of land was geographically proximate to a place where the sea divides the land Ether 10:20. This place could not have been an isthmus. An isthmus by definition is a place where the land divides the sea. This place must have been an inlet of the ocean or an outlet (mouth) where an inland saltwater lagoon breaches a sandbar. Along the Pacific coast of Oaxaca and Chiapas, the mouth of a lagoon is called a "boca" which is Spanish for "mouth." The map below shows three of these bocas, highlighted by white circles.

Boca de San Francisco, Boca del Mar Muerto & Boca del Cielo

The Boca del Mar Muerto is large enough (.56 kilometers wide) that ocean-going vessels transit it regularly. It divides the Barra San Marcos to the east from Barra de Tonala to the west in the land/sea/land pattern the text describes. Mar Muerto is home to the largest fishing fleet in southern Mexico.

Boca del Mar Muerto in Context

We propose that Boca del Mar Muerto at the northwestern end of Barra San Marcos and the southeastern end of Barra de Tonala is the place where the sea divides the land and one of the ports on the extreme eastern end of Mar Muerto is the place Hagoth built and launched his remarkable ships. For additional details supporting these correlations, see the blog article "The Narrow Pass and Narrow Passage."

For an independent validation of this correlation, see the blog article "Sea Divides the Land."

Romance Languages

It is instructive to see how LDS translators have handled the "neck" passages (Alma 22:32, Alma 63:5 and Ether 10:20) in the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian versions of the Book of Mormon.

Portuguese Book of Mormon

Spanish
Alma 22:32     pequeña lengua de tierra     (small tongue of land)
Alma 63:5       estrecha lengua de tierra     (narrow tongue of land)
Ether 10:20     estrecha lengua de tierra     (narrow tongue of land)

Portuguese
Alma 22:32     pequena faixa de terra         (small strip of land)
Alma 63:5       estreita faixa de terra           (narrow strip of land)
Ether 10:20     faixa estreita de terra           (narrow strip of land)

French
Alma 22:32     étroite bande de terre           (narrow strip of land)
Alma 63:5       langue étroite                       (narrow tongue)
Ether 10:20     langue étroite de terre          (narrow tongue of land)

Italian
Alma 22:32      stretta lingua di terra           (narrow tongue of land)
Alma 63:5        stretto istmo                         (narrow isthmus)
Ether 10:20      stretta striscia di terra          (narrow strip of land)

"Tongue of land" appears 6 times in this list, "strip of land" 5 times and "isthmus" once.

A "tongue" of land in any language generally means a peninsula projecting out from the mainland, although it is applied occasionally to an isthmus connecting two much larger land masses. The Oxford English Dictionary (online edition) defines the 13a sense of meaning for the word "tongue" as "a narrow strip of land, running out into the sea, or between two branches of a river, or two other lands." The OED entries for the word "strip" imply something long and narrow of uniform breadth. The 1b sense of meaning for the word "strip" is "a long narrow tract of territory, of land, wood, etc.) The OED also includes the curious and now rare English word "lingula" derived from classical Latin whose 3rd sense of meaning is "a small promontory, projection or tongue of land or rock."The OED entry for "isthmus" deriving from Greek through Latin is "a narrow portion of land, enclosed on each side by water, and connecting two larger bodies of land; a neck of land. Other terminology referenced in the OED include "narrow portions of land," "narrow slip of land," and "narrow passage of land."

The point of all this lexical gyration is that the romance language translators of the Book of Mormon tend toward a peninsular rather than an isthmian interpretation of the English term "narrow neck of land." This agrees precisely with the results we obtained by analyzing 115 necks of land known throughout the English-speaking world. See the blog article "Necks of Land." Our proposed Book of Mormon narrow neck of land, the long and slender Barra San Marcos along the Pacific coast of Chiapas, fits comfortably within this range of meaning.

Necks of Land

Now that we know the Lord's language target for the Book of Mormon (see the blog article "Early Modern English") was the Tudor period into the Stuart period (1500's and 1600's), we are prepared to investigate one of the most contentious phrases in the text, the "small neck of land" Alma 22:32 aka "narrow neck" Alma 63:5 aka "narrow neck of land" Ether 10:20. What would English speakers in the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline eras have considered a "neck" of land? How large would a neck of land have been? Would a neck have been surrounded by fresh water, estuarial water, salt water, some combination of waters or no water at all?

Fortunately, we have a great deal of data to work with that will help us answer these questions. During the Tudor and Stuart periods, waves of English colonists founded settlements from Nova Scotia to Georgia and beyond. They originated thousands of place names including hundreds of "necks" of land whose names still appear on modern maps. We will use Google Earth to analyze a statistically significant (though far from exhaustive) sample of 115 necks of land named by English settlers. Our conclusions will help us determine what kind of geographic feature we should be looking for when we try to locate Mormon's and Moroni's "narrow neck" on the modern map.

This article expands and extends the previous series of blog articles "Isthmuses," "Narrow and Small Things," "Another Geographic Neck," "The Narrow (Small) Neck of Land," and "The Narrow Pass and Narrow Passage."

David R. Ransome published an article entitled "Village Tensions in Early Virginia: Sex, Land, and Status at the Neck of Land in the 1620s" in The Historical Journal Vol. 43, No. 2 (June, 2000), Cambridge University Press. That particular neck of land is a meander in the James River downstream from modern Richmond in contemporary Chesterfield County. The famous Fry-Jefferson map of Virginia (Peter Jefferson was Thomas' father) first published in 1751 calls it simply "Neck of Land."

Neck of Land south of the James River settled by the 1620's

The same 1751 map shows at least 2 other necks of land in Virginia. One is Henrico Neck in modern Henrico County.

Henrico Neck north of the James River

The other is Savith (modern Savage) Neck in modern Northampton County on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

Savith Neck jutting into Chesapeake Bay

These are the 115 necks of land in our study:

Name	Location	Type	Width (km)
Arbuckle Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 estuary	1.80
Bailey Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 estuary	0.70
Baylys Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 estuary	1.34
Bell Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	0.63
Big Neck	Brunswick County, NC	1 fresh 2 fresh	15.74
Boone Neck	Brunswick County, NC	1 fresh 2 estuary 3 estuary	1.60
Boston Neck	Suffolk County, MA	1 fresh 2 estuary	1.97
Boston Neck	Washington County, RI	1 fresh 2 salt	1.40
Bradford Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 estuary	0.98
Brickhouse Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary	0.26
Broad Neck (earliest)	Anne Arundel County, MD	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	1.10
Broad Neck Peninsula	Anne Arundel County, MD	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	5.93
Broad Neck	Lancaster & Northumberland Counties, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	15.94
Broadway Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	1.64
Broro Neck	McIntosh County, GA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	0.53
Bush Neck	Jame City County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 fresh	0.37
Cherry Point Neck	Northumberland County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	1.67
Church Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh	0.80
Coles Neck	Westmoreland County, VA	1 estuary 2 salt 3 salt	1.98
Copiague Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	0.99
Cove Neck	Nassau County, NY	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	1.27
Crabtree Neck	Hancock County, ME	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	2.24
Craddock Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	2.40
Crane Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 salt 2 salt	0.78
Curles Neck	Henrico County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 fresh	2.30
Custis Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 estuary	1.72
Eagle Neck	McIntosh County, GA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	1.41
Eaglehawk Neck	Tasmania, Australia	1 salt 2 salt	0.11
East Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	3.00
Eastern Neck	Norfolk County, MA	1 salt 2 salt	0.18
Eatons Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	1.64
Elk Neck	Cecil County, MD	1 salt 2 salt	7.83
Elliotts Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary	1.89
Eyrehall Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	0.89
Eyreville Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	0.92
Finneys Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	0.67
Glebe Neck	Middlesex County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh	0.30
Gravel Neck	Surry County, VA	1 estuary 2 salt 3 salt	2.77
Great East Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	1.05
Great Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary	0.22
Great Neck	Bristol County, MA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 fresh	1.08
Great Neck	Essex County, MA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 estuary	0.75
Great Neck	Nassau County, NY	1 salt 2 salt	3.13
Great Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 salt	0.39
Great Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	1.37
Hacks Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	3.41
Harris Neck	McIntosh County, GA	1 estuary 2 estuary	0.75
Hog Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 estuary	1.72
Holt Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary	0.41
Horton Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	1.07
Houghs Neck	Norfolk County, MA	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	0.31
Indian Neck	Barnstable County, MA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	0.40
Indiantown Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	1.96
Johns Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 fresh 2 salt 3 salt	2.76
Jones Neck	Chesterfield County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 fresh	0.94
Joynes Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 estuary 3 estuary	1.59
Knotts Neck	Suffolk, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	1.23
Little East Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 fresh 2 estuary 3 salt	0.59
Little Neck	Essex County, MA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	0.31
Little Neck	Queens County, NY	1 fresh 2 salt	0.73
Little Neck	Suffolk County (north), NY	1 salt 2 salt	0.52
Little Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	0.76
Lloyd Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	2.36
Long Neck	Sussex County, DE	1 estuary 2 estuary	2.10
Lower Neck	Norfolk County, MA	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	0.18
Machodoc Neck	Westmoreland County, VA	1 estuary 2 salt 3 salt	1.63
Marlborough Neck	Stafford County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 estuary	1.48
Mathias Point Neck	King George County, VA	1 estuary 2 salt 3 salt	2.47
Middle Neck	between Rappahannock & York Rivers, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	19.75
Mill Neck	Nassau County, NY	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	1.36
Milners Neck	Suffolk, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh	1.64
Mondays Neck	Northumberland County, VA	1 fresh 2 estuary 3 estuary	0.48
Narrow Neck (earliest)	Aukland, New Zealand	1 estuary 2 salt	0.11
Narrow Neck	Aukland, New Zealand	1 estuary 2 salt	1.02
Narrow Neck	New South Wales, Australia	knifepoint mountain ridge	0.85
Narrowneck	Queensland, Australia	1 fresh 2 salt	0.09
Newport Neck	Worcester County, MD	1 estuary 2 estuary	1.18
Northern Neck	between Potomac & Rappahannock Rivers, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	12.01
Occohannock Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 salt	2.90
Old Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	0.46
Old Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	0.50
Old Town Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	1.29
Parker Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 estuary	2.06
Pecatone Neck	Westmoreland County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	1.17
Pine Pole Neck	Pender County, NC	1 fresh 2 fresh	5.51
Porters Neck	New Hanover County, NC	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 estuary	2.55
Quaker Neck	Suffolk, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh	1.61
Salem Neck	Essex County, MA	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt`	0.48
Sampawams Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	0.73
Santapogue Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 fresh 2 estuary 3 salt	0.81
Saquish Neck	Plymouth County, MA	1 salt 2 salt	0.13
Savage Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 salt	1.30
Scarborough Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	1.41
Sconticut Neck	Bristol County, MA	1 salt 2 salt	0.33
Scotland Neck	Halifax County, NC	1 fresh 2 fresh	8.29
Scotland Neck	Surry County, VA	1 fresh 2 estuary 3 salt	1.66
Sluitkill Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	2.07
Smith Neck	Bristol County, MA	1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	2.92
Smith Neck	Isle of Wight County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	0.72
Stodders Neck	Plymouth County, MA	1 estuary 2 salt 3 salt	0.15
Stove Point Neck	Middlesex County, VA	1 salt 2 salt	0.19
Strongs Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	0.35
Timber Neck	Middlesex County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	1.01
Timber Neck	Surry County, VA	1 fresh 2 fresh	0.59
Upper Neck	Norfolk County, MA	1 salt 2 salt	0.24
Upshur Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary	0.85
Virginia aka Southern Neck	between York & James Rivers, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	8.31
Walnut Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 salt 2 salt	0.53
Wellington Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary	0.97
West Neck	Suffolk County (north), NY	1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	2.35
West Neck	Suffolk County, NY	1 salt 2 salt	1.16
Weyanoke Neck	Charles City County, NY	1 fresh 2 fresh	2.89
Whites Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	1.57
Wilson Neck	Northampton County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary	2.41
Yeo Neck	Accomack County, VA	1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	1.19
Mean Width			2.00
Median Width			1.18
Minimum Width			0.09
Maximum Width			19.75
Fresh count			80
Estuary count			103
Salt count			109

During the colonial era, English speakers used the word "neck" to identify small to medium-sized peninsulas or land bridges surrounded by any combination of rivers, inlets, tidal basins, bays, sounds or oceans. Some necks in our sample (41/115) have 2 sides terminating in a point such as Crane Neck on Long Island.

Crane Neck, Suffolk County, New York

We classify Crane Neck as type 1 salt 2 salt meaning it has 2 sides, both exposed to salt water. The yellow line on the map above shows the point at which we took our width measurement, .78 km.

Other necks (74/115) have 3 sides such as Gravel Neck jutting into Chesapeake Bay.

Gravel Neck, Surry County, Virginia

We classify Gravel Neck as type 1 estuary 2 salt 3 salt meaning it has 3 sides with the first bounding an estuary and the other two exposed to salt water. Gravel neck is 2.77 km wide at the point indicated.

Most necks in our sample (113/115) are peninsular land forms protruding from a larger land mass such as Eastern Neck near Weymouth, Massachusetts which has Lower Neck protruding from it and Upper Neck protruding from Lower  Neck.

Eastern Neck, Norfolk County, Massachusetts

Two necks in our sample are isthmian land forms bridging two much larger land masses. One of those is Eaglehawk Neck in extreme southern Australia. Eaglehawk Neck, .11 km wide, is the second narrowest neck in our sample.

Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania

The other is Narrowneck Beach on Australia's famed Gold Coast near Brisbane. Narrowneck Beach is a .09 km wide tongue of land between the Pacific Ocean to the east and a small branch of the Nerang River to the west. Narrowneck Beach is the narrowest neck in our sample.

Narrowneck, Queensland

Both examples of isthmian necks are from Australia whose English settlement began in 1788 when the First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay (modern Sydney) and founded a penal colony.

One of our sample necks is not surrounded by water. Narrow neck near Katoomba, Australia is a cliff-lined sandstone peninsula less than 1 km wide separating Jamison Valley on the east from Magalong Valley on the west.

Narrow Neck, New South Wales shown with 3X vertical exaggeration

The other 114 necks of land in our sample are surrounded by some combination of fresh, estuarial and salt water. We have classified 16 different combinations:

Neck Type	Count
1 fresh 2 fresh	9
1 fresh 2 fresh 3 fresh	4
1 fresh 2 estuary	3
1 fresh 2 fresh 3 estuary	8
1 fresh 2 estuary 3 estuary	3
1 fresh 2 salt	3
1 fresh 2 fresh 3 salt	13
1 fresh 2 estuary 3 salt	3
1 fresh 2 salt 3 salt	1
1 estuary 2 estuary	10
1 estuary 2 estuary 3 estuary	9
1 estuary 2 salt	5
1 estuary 2 estuary 3 salt	13
1 estuary 2 salt 3 salt	5
1 salt 2 salt	12
1 salt 2 salt 3 salt	13
Total	114

It is obvious from these counts that our sample tends strongly toward estuarial and salt waters.

Nine of the necks of land in our study carry diminutive names (the words "little" or "narrow") implying small size. As we would expect, the mean width of these nine is significantly smaller (.55 km) than the mean width of the entire sample set (2.0 km).

Thirteen of the necks of land in our study carry augmentative names (the words "big," "broad," "great," or "long) implying large size. As we would expect, the mean width of these thirteen is significantly larger (3.88 km) than the mean width of the entire sample set (2.0 km).

Of course we're interested in any neck of land that includes the word "narrow" in its name. Two examples from Australia are illustrated above. A third is from Devonport Peninsula on Aukland, New Zealand's north shore. Originally this peninsula had a very narrow (.11 km wide) causeway and beach separating its north and south components, with a large mangrove swamp to the west. This small strip of land was called "Narrow Neck. In the 1850's, the swamp was drained and a racetrack constructed. Today the reclaimed land is a golf course, Narrow Neck is an Aukland suburb with about 3,600 inhabitants and a popular urban beach.

Narrow Neck, Aukland. The width measures the causeway before
the swamp was drained and the land to the west reclaimed

Conclusions.
Based on our analysis of 115 geographic features English-speaking colonists called a "neck of land" we answer the three questions posed at the beginning of this article and posit three characteristics we will likely find in the Book of Mormon narrow (small) neck of land.

1. It will be a peninsula rather than an isthmus. 113/115 of the examples in our study are peninsulas and only 2 are isthmuses.
2. It will be on the order of 2.0 km wide. Our 115 examples average 2.0 km in width.
3. It will front salt water and estuarial water. 101/115 examples in our study have an exposure to the sea or an estuary

Correlations.
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec fails 2 of our 3 criteria.

1. It is an isthmus.
2. It is 216 km wide.
3. It fronts both the open ocean and estuaries.

Barra San Marcos near Tonala, Chiapas, our proposed narrow (small) neck of land, fits all 3 criteria beautifully.

Barra San Marcos, Tonala, Chiapas

1. It is a peninsula.
2. It is 2.0 km wide.
3. The seaward side fronts the Pacific Ocean, while the landward side fronts an extensive network of estuarial lagoons.

Furthermore, a number of the necks of land in our study have physical characteristics quite similar  to Barra San Marcos. Examples include:

Bell Neck, Accomack County, Virginia

Bradford Neck, Accomack County, Virginia

Brickhouse Neck, Northampton County, Virginia

Great Neck, Accomack County, Virginia

Harris Neck, McIntosh County, Georgia

Holt Neck, Northampton County, Virginia

Saquish Neck, Plymouth County, Massachusetts

Upshur Neck, Accomack County, Virginia 

Early Modern English

Scholars of English demarcate eras in the evolution of the language. The date ranges below reflect the fact that not all scholars agree on the precise beginning and ending points.

• A.D. 450 was the beginning of Old English which continued until A.D. 1100 - 1170.
• A.D. 1100 - 1170 was the beginning of Middle English which continued until A.D. 1300.
• A.D. 1300 was the beginning of Late Middle English which continued until A.D. 1470 - 1500.
• A.D. 1470 - 1500 was the beginning of Early Modern English which continued until A.D. 1670 - 1700. (Some even put the end of Early Modern English as late as A.D. 1800 e.g. The History of English.)
• A.D. 1670 - 1700 was the beginning of Modern English aka Late Modern English which has become Earth's lingua franca.

Some milestones along the way:

• Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were written in Late Middle English about 1380.
• The first book in English printed on a printing press appeared in Late Middle English in 1475 in Bruges (now Belgium). The first printing press on English soil began operation in 1476.
• Between 1590 and 1613 William Shakespeare wrote the 37 plays in his canon in Early Modern English.
• In 1611 the first edition of the King James Version of the Bible was published in Early Modern English. Predecessors included the Tyndale New Testament in 1526 and the Coverdale Bible in 1535.
• In 1755 Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language helped standardize the Modern English we use today.
• The first edition of the monumental Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1928 in ten bound volumes. The most cited work in the OED: various editions of the Bible. The most cited author: William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's most cited play: Hamlet. 

In 1994 Royal Skousen, Professor of Linguistics and English Language at BYU, published an article entitled "The Original Language of the Book of Mormon: Upstate New York Dialect, King James English, or Hebrew?" in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 3.1. He was beginning to ask the right questions about the translation's target language. In August, 1998, Renee Bangerter entertained the hypothesis that the language of translation was Early Modern English in her BYU master's thesis entitled "Since Joseph Smith's Time: Lexical Semantic Shifts in the Book of Mormon." On September 25, 2003 Christian Gellinek suggested to Royal Skousen that "pleading bar" may be a good reading for the problematic "pleasing bar" in Jacob 6:13. It took him some time to get used to the idea, but gradually based on his meticulous research with the earliest manuscripts, Skousen came to the startling conclusion that the original language of the first edition of the Book of Mormon was Early Modern English. Skousen's revolutionary discovery first appeared in print in 2005 in his discussion of "pleading bar" in Jacob 6:13. He re-iterated it in 2006 when he discussed "sermon" in Mosiah 19:24. When the Yale edition appeared in 2009, the Early Modern English nature of the text was featured prominently in Skousen's editor's preface. I am indebted to a personal communication from Royal Skousen for many of the details in this paragraph.  

Four years after his 1994 paper, Skousen published another important article entitled "How Joseph Smith Translated the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript" in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7.1 (1998). Skousen argued the Prophet Joseph was not at liberty to articulate ideas in his own vernacular, but rather the translation process was under divine "tight control." This was Royal Skousen's second revolutionary discovery with profound implications for textual exegesis.

Between 2004 and 2009 Skousen published his important 6 volume Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon. They were followed by the seminal The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), the version of the text we now commonly refer to as the "Yale edition." The Yale edition attempts to reconstruct the text as it fell from the lips of the Prophet at the moment of translation. As such, it has quickly become the de facto standard for scholarly analysis of the Book of Mormon.

Through close reading of the Yale Edition, the Oxford English Dictionary, and many of the 125,000 titles in Early English Books Online EEBO, linguist Stanford Carmack has now found significant new evidence supporting Skousen's ground-breaking theses:

• The language spoken by the Prophet to his scribes during translation was in large degree Early Modern English.
• The translation process was carefully controlled by a higher power.

Carmack, son of Emeritus General Authority John K. Carmack, received his bachelor's degree in linguistics from Stanford. He then got his J.D. from Stanford and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literature from UC Santa Barbara. He has worked professionally as a technical writer and editor.

His article is entitled "A Look at Some 'Nonstandard' Book of Mormon Grammar" in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture Vol. 11 (2014). Skousen came to his conclusions largely through a painstaking analysis of Book of Mormon vocabulary. Carmack's second witness comes from his study of grammar and syntax.

In January, 2015 Carmack published another article entitled "What Command Syntax Tells Us About Book of Mormon Authorship" in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture Vol. 12 (2015). It significantly reinforces his thesis. Carmack has still other blockbuster publications in process (personal communication from Stan Carmack) that should convince even the skeptics.

Why did the Lord render the text of the Book of Mormon in a vocabulary and syntax that predated the translation by approximately 120 - 350 years? One likely reason was so the text sounded Biblical with an affinity to the King James Version. Another likely reason was to grace the already awe-inspiring Nephite masterpiece with yet another miracle. The Book of Mormon got a great deal of Old World culture right (a convenient survey of the data is in Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, and John W. Welch, editors, Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon, (Provo, UT: BYU and FARMS, 2002). It got hundreds of Mesoamerican cultural nuances right (the best current summary is in John L. Sorenson, Mormon's Codex: An Ancient American Book, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2013). And, as we are showing in this series of blog articles, it got hundreds of points of Mesoamerican geography right. That's a lot to ask of a prophet who was only 24 years, 3 months old when the book went on sale for the first time in Palmyra, NY on Friday, March 26, 1830. Now add the fact that the text was in a language not spoken by Joseph Smith, Jr. or any of his father's or grandfather's generation. One is left spell-bound with respect for the prodigy of it all. This is another powerful witness that the Nephite corpus did in fact come forth "by the gift and power of God" As Moroni₂ says on the Title Page.

More information is in the blog article "English in the Book of Mormon."
Article last updated April 10, 2020