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A New History of Arabia, Written in Stone

32 points| merrier | 7 years ago |newyorker.com | reply

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[+] plinkplonk|7 years ago|reply
"He wrote to professors in Semitic studies around the country asking for guidance. They all replied, “Nobody starts with Akkadian—you need to learn Biblical Hebrew, classical Arabic, and Syriac first,” he said. For two years, he studied those languages on his own in the library. After graduating, he was accepted into Harvard’s doctoral program in Semitic philology."

wow he learned 3 languages on his own. Very impressive.