Quote Originally Posted by tribeguy View Post
I am disheartened by the fact that in the US all of 6 people graduated in 2004 with degrees in Arabic. I am pretty sure that none of them are here, although some seem to have a bit of skill with the language.
I agree. But I think in theatre experience is far more valuable than class room study. I myself learned Arabic in Yemen and quickly discovered that practice far outstrips theory when on a travel to the lawless wild east of hadramout myself and my friend found ourselves not only mis-understood but sometimes not understood at all. Learning on the job in theatre is IMO far better than class room study simply for the reason that context, subtleties et al are often far more important in threat identification than grammar.

As for tribes I apologies if I appeared to denigrate the importance of your project I just think that in some cases Jordan, Saudi, Iraq, Yemen tribes genuinely are more in,portant within the political/military matrix. But that is not always the case. Nonetheless, I find many of your findings fascinating if only as confirmation or negation of previous classroom study.