Reformed Egyptian is the name given to the characters in which the writers made their record. They said the characters were “called among us the reformed Egyptian” and had been “handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech” (Mormon 9:32).
The writers said they would have written in Hebrew if their plates had been sufficiently large, but “the Hebrew hath been altered by us also.” They stated that “none other people knoweth our language,” and that the Lord had “prepared means for the interpretation thereof” (Mormon 9:33-34).
Jacob wrote that engraving words upon plates was difficult and that he could write “but a little” of his words. He and others labored “to engraven these words upon plates,” while the things written on anything other than plates would “perish and vanish away” (Jacob 4:1-3).