A friend explained some of the intricacies of Arabic to me the other night; I thought I’d write down the most striking aspects:
* Status in the ancient Arab world was greatly influenced by your language abilities. Ancient heroes were language experts, not usually warriors or political leaders.
* The Koran, in fact, was especially notable due to its masterful Arabic language. The quality of the writing was what gave it authenticity.
* Perhaps because of this, the ancient vocabulary was much bigger than today’s.
* Arabic generally uses a single, unique word to express even complex subjects. It does not use prefixes or suffixes to build word, so words with similar meaning can sound very different.
* The written language mostly omits vowels.
* Objects (“table”) have gender and verbs depend on which gender the person you’re speaking about is.
* Plurals have a special case when there’s exactly two of something.
* Students generally enter university without any formal training in grammar. Most take an introduction to it just to experience how difficult it is.
* The meaning of a word depends on its position in the sentence and its pronunciation.
* Ancient writing can still be read, as the script is much the same.
* Poets would battle each other – just meet and try to impress each other with their command of language. One famous story tells of a poet who amazed his challenger by responding with a sentence that was a complete palindrome and still fit the conversation.
* When a line doesn’t work, the phrase “it won’t rhyme” means it doesn’t match one of the [traditional 13 poem templates](http://awzan.com/bu7oor/bu7oor1.html).
* Every line has to fit [that pattern](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_prosody#A_-_The_original_fifteen).
> Projects that are future oriented, that despite their political difficulties can be completed only in some distant decade, are continuing reminders that there will be a future. – [Carl Sagan](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wJYpRJQVbo)
[Niall Ferguson explains the key elements that make a society prosperous](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpnFeyMGUs8):
1. Competition
2. The Scientific Revolution
3. Property rights
4. Modern medicine
5. The consumer society
6. The work ethic
Comparing political and economic proposals by how they impact these metrics seems like a good way to keep your society on track. He makes a good point that the West pioneered many of these but has been steadily abandoning them as the rest of the world picks them up.
> Let my house not be walled on four sides. Let the windows be open. Let all the cultures blow in. But let no culture blow me off my feet – [Mahatma Gandhi](http://thomasdrissen.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/a-word-of-wisdom/)
It’s a special treat to be able to leave your house at 9am, travel to another country, watch the world’s greatest cyclist win the most difficult Grand Tour in recent memory in one of Europe’s most picturesque cities, and be home to sleep in your own bed that night.
Some powerful words by [John Jay, a real-life Don Draper](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpfYPVzJohc):
How does a consultant help a company?
> Understand the truth of who they are, understand their soul, and then make that soul relevant to a greater number of people.
How do you stay fresh?
> One of the great challenges for all of us…is to put yourself into unusual cultures, where you don’t belong…out of your comfort zone…
> The longer you work, the more people want to put you in a silo…so they can define you by their terms. Our job is to never let people define you by their terms.
I can hardly believe that today [there are still people living completely uncontacted by the global society](http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/brazilfootage).
I know the “noble savage” concept is out of favor these days, but wow. It’s a beautiful thing to see a completely independent culture.
Like the [“one-minute vacations”](http://quietamerican.org/vacation.html) I [previously discovered](http://www.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=1413), the Radio Aporee project collects ambient audio clips from around the world and plays them while displaying satellite photos of the location. They even have [an Android app](http://aporee.org/maps/mobile/info/) so you can take the experience mobile, and make your own recordings.
I like to record ambient audio and video from places I visit; playing the clips back later is a great way to transport your mind to another time and place.
[The Western Soundscape Archive](http://www.westernsoundscape.org/) is another great collection, containing natural sounds from the American West.
