Royal Skousen

Royal Jon Skousen^[1] (born August 5, 1945)^[2] is a professor of linguistics and English at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he is editor of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. He is "the leading expert on the textual history of the Book of Mormon"^[3] and the founder of the Analogical Modeling approach to language modeling.

Biography

Skousen was born in Cleveland, Ohio to a Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) family, and was one of ten children.^[4] He graduated from Sunset High School in Beaverton, Oregon. After his father's unexpected death from lung cancer in 1964,^[5] Skousen served as a missionary in Finland^[6] from 1965 to 1967.^[7] He is fluent in Finnish.^[2]

Skousen received his B.A. degree from BYU, with a major in English and a minor in mathematics. Skousen went on to study linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, there earning his Ph.D. degree in 1972. He was then an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin until 1979, when he joined the faculty of BYU. Skousen was also a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego in 1981, a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Tampere in Finland in 1982, and a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Netherlands in 2001.^[2] In 1999, BYU presented him the Karl G. Maeser Excellence in Research and Creative Arts Awards.^[8]

Since 1999, Skousen has served as the president of the Utah Association of Scholars, an affiliate of the National Association of Scholars.^[2][9] He has also been associate editor of the Journal of Quantitative Linguistics since 2003.^[2]

Family

Skousen married Sirkku Unelma Härkönen in 1968.^[2] They had seven children and lived in Orem, Utah.^[7] They now live in Spanish Fork, Utah.

Skousen is the oldest in a family of eight brothers and two sisters. His parents, Leroy Bentley Skousen and Helen Louise McCarty Skousen, are deceased.

Publications

Books

• Skousen, Royal (1975). Substantive Evidence in Phonology: The Evidence From Finnish and French. The Hague: Mouton. 
• —— (1989). Analogical Modeling of Language. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 0-7923-0517-5. 
• —— (1992). Analogy and Structure. Dordrecht; Boston; Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 0-7923-1935-4. 
• —— (2001). The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon: Typographical Facsimile of the Extant Text. Critical Text of the Book of Mormon 1. Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University. ISBN 0-934893-04-7. 
• —— (2001). The Printer's Manuscript of the Book of Mormon: Typographical Facsimile of the Entire Text in Two Parts (2 vols.|format= requires |url= (help)). Critical Text of the Book of Mormon 2. Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University. ISBN 0-934893-05-5, v.2 ISBN 0-934893-06-3 Check |isbn= value (help). 
• ——; Deryle Lonsdale; Dilworth B. Parkinson (2002). Analogical Modeling: An Exemplar-Based Approach to Language. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ISBN 1-58811-302-7.  Cite uses deprecated parameters (help)
• —— (2004–09). Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon (6 vols.|format= requires |url= (help)). Critical Text of the Book of Mormon 4. Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University. ISBN 0-934893-07-1, v.2 ISBN 0-934893-08-X, v.3 ISBN 0-934893-11-X, v.4 ISBN 0-934893-12-8, v.5 ISBN 0-934893-13-6, v.6 ISBN 0-934893-78-0 Check |isbn= value (help).  Check date values in: |date= (help)
• —— (2009). The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-14218-8. 

Articles and papers

• Skousen, Royal (Fall 1986). "Through a Glass Darkly: Trying to Understand the Scriptures". BYU Studies 26 (4): 3–20. 
• —— (Summer 1988). "[Book review of] The Book of Isaiah: A New Translation With Interpretive Keys From the Book of Mormon, by Avraham Gileadi". BYU Studies 28 (3): 124–127. 
• —— (Winter 1990). "Towards a Critical Edition of the Book of Mormon". BYU Studies 30 (1): 41–69. 
• —— (1992). "Book of Mormon Editions (1830-1981)". In Daniel H. Ludlow. Encyclopedia of Mormonism 1. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-879600-4. 
• —— (1992). "Book of Mormon Manuscripts". In Daniel H. Ludlow. Encyclopedia of Mormonism 1. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-879600-4. 
• —— (1992). "The Original Book of Mormon Transcript". In John W. Welch. Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book. ISBN 0-87579-600-1. 
• —— (May 1992). "Piecing Together the Original Manuscript". BYU Today 46 (3): 18–24. 
• —— (1994). "Textual Analysis of Zenos's Allegory of the Olive Tree". In Stephen D. Ricks; John W. Welch. The Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, The Bible, and Jacob 5. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book. p. 28–39. ISBN 0-87579-767-9. 
• —— (1994). "The Original Language of the Book of Mormon: Upstate New York Dialect, King James English, or Hebrew?". Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 3 (1): 28–39. 
• —— (1994). "Critical Methodology and the Text of the Book of Mormon". Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6 (1): 121–144. 
• —— (1994). "The Bible II". Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6 (2): 1–2. 
• —— (1997). "Translating the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript". In Noel B. Reynolds. Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins. Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies. ISBN 0-934893-25-X. 
• —— (1998). "Joseph Smith's Translation of the Book of Mormon: Evidence for Tight Control of the Text". Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7 (1): 22–31. 
• —— (2000). "John Gilbert's 1892 Account of the 1830 Printing of the Book of Mormon". In Stephen D. Ricks; Donald W. Parry; Andrew H. Hedges. The Disciple as Witness: Essays on Latter-day Saint History and Doctrine in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson. Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies at Brigham Young University. ISBN 0-934893-45-4. 
• —— (2000). "Introducing the Dead Sea Scrolls to an LDS Audience". FARMS Review of Books 12 (2): 441–44. 
• —— (2001). "Was the Path Nephi Saw "Strait and Narrow" or "Straight and Narrow"?". Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10 (2): 30–33. 
• —— (2002). "'Scourged' vs. 'Scorched' in Mosiah 17:13". Insights 22 (3): 2–3. 
• —— (2004). "The Pleading Bar of God". Insights 24 (4): 2–3. 
• —— (2005). "The Earliest Textual Sources for Joseph Smith's 'New Translation' of the King James Bible". FARMS Review 17 (2): 451–70. 
• —— (2005). "The Archaic Vocabulary of the Book of Mormon". Insights 25 (5): 2–6. 
• —— (2006). "Conjectural Emendation in the Book of Mormon". FARMS Review 18 (1): 187–231. 
• —— (2006). "Translating and Printing the Book of Mormon". Oliver Cowdery: Scribe, Elder, Witness. Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. pp. 75–122. ISBN 0-8425-2661-7. 

Notes

External links

• Royal Skousen's Profile at Brigham Young University
• "Royal Skousen FAIR Interview" video (Discussing the Italics in the KJV Bible and Book of Mormon)
• Skousen speaking on "The Critical Text Project of the Book of Mormon" (video and audio)