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Melbourne isn’t Sydney, with its really obvious, beautiful sights. It doesn’t really have any obvious, landmark attractions. It’s more atmosphere and aggregate of experience.

In the CBD: walk around the alleyways for the funky graffiti and nouveau restaurants. Stare up, and admire the Victorian and Art Deco goodness of a confident, rich city.

Walk down Southbank, especially in decent weather (when that happens): it’s a lovely, bustling promenade.

Pop up to Lygon Street, Little Italy, for the gelati and coffee culture; less now for the students from Melbourne Uni, because uni students aren’t as interesting as they used to be.

Go down to the St Kilda pier for a stroll along the beach (such as it is, this is Melbourne after all), and take in the self-conscious bohemia of Fitzroy St and Acland St. You didn’t live here in the 90s, so you won’t feel the stabbing pain in Acland St of what it used to be: a slice of the shtetl turned into deracinated hipsterville. Just enjoy the hipsterville show. If it gets too much, the shtetl is still around the corner in Carlisle St.

Walk through the myriad of public gardens and parks. The Botanical Gardens, the Fitzroy Gardens, Flagstaff.

Go to the ethnic enclaves. Little Greece in Oakleigh; Little Vietnam in Richmond; Little Turkey in Brunswick St, Little Spain in Johnston St. Eat, and eat widely: we have a critical mass of culinary diversity, and culinary innovation.

You want an island that’s a little out of the way of mass tourism, so you can see some local music and culture. Or an island that’s big enough that not every part of it is soaked with mass tourism.

You won’t see much, this is 2016 after all. And as I posted here (Nick Nicholas’ answer to What should I know (but don’t) about the culture and history of the Cyclades in general and Syros in particular?), the indigenous dialect of the Cyclades (the most archetypal Greek islands) died out a century ago.

I actually haven’t done the Greek islands, partly because that’s exactly the kind of thing I’d be looking for, myself. I’ll make a wild guess:

• Of the Ionian islands, not Corfu, probably not Zante. Maybe Cephalonia.
• Of the Northern Aegean, Thasos and Samothrace definitely (but why would a tourist want to? 🙂 , likely Lemnos. Lesbos is big enough that there are traditional bits left, and even visible differences within the island (I’ve been there), but you have to hunt them down.
• I don’t even think of Euboea as an island, but: Euboea.
• Of the Cyclades, I’d go with any island you haven’t heard of. Folegandros, maybe, or Amorgos. But I’m guessing here.
• Of the Dodecanese, I suspect all of them; 11 of the 12 are tiny and out of the way, and the 12th, Rhodes, is big enough that something indigenous will have survived the tourists.
• Crete. Of course. Not the coast around Iraklion. Ever. But the hinterland? Yes.

Vote #1 Emre Sermutlu’s answer. Because I’m just some random Greek. Emre Sermutlu’s answer to Why hasn’t Turkey adopted federalism if it is big enough and divided into seven regions?

Turkish Quorans may know me as an interested neighbour (Greek). Being Greek, the para about Turks being forced on the defensive in Emre’s answer is one that of course I’m going to disagree with. The Young Turks were plenty nationalistic on their own. The real point was that both the Young Turks and the Greeks and Armenians were not prepared to live together in a multiethnic Ottoman Empire—even if it was no longer one where the Muslims were privileged.

But with the overall tenor of Emre’s answer, of course I agree:

Different groups must like each other enough to be the part of the same structure, yet they must feel [my edit] different enough to warrant their own sub-structure.

And of course, there’s a third component. The ruling class of the country must not feel threatened by the difference of groups in the structure.

The guys in Trabzon, who Emre says will beat you up if you advocate for their autonomy, would also be sympathetic to the stunting of Turkish dialectology until fairly recently in Turkey: “There are no dialects of Turkish! There is only Turkish!”

And before anyone says anything, Greece has long done exactly the same thing.

Thx4A2A, Irene. I’d say that in Armenian, but my wife doesn’t speak it. 🙁

This is a painful question for me, as I was an Esperantist for a fair while.

But even before the Espereantists split about whether the “final victory” was worth messianically waiting for, they were very careful not to convey a message that Esperanto would displace ethnic languages (even though, if the hegemony of the final victory ever happened, that would be the expected outcome). Esperanto was always meant to be a second language only.

I won’t address the fact that the hypothetical is implausible, that a common language would not unite all people, as proven by every civil war ever.

I will say that my identity as an English-speaker and a Greek-speaker is definitional to me, and I will not wish to relinquish it.

The march of technology means that we’re going to see similar challenges to our identities within our lifetimes, even if not this one. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be on the wrong side of those challenges, myself.

Originally buried in a comment at https://www.quora.com/Was-it-app…

In response to:

Well, if you believe what the cast of Hamilton did was appropriate, then you’d be okay that if henceforth every theatrical performance would include the cast’s comments on the political scene.

… When Aristophanes invented comedy? That’s exactly what he did. Using the chorus to do so. That included making fun of Athenian massacres during wartime. And I’m sure people squirmed then.

If it’s a political play (and of course Hamilton is), of course that’s legitimate. And it’s just as legitimate from the right as the left.

Original Wording: What the fuck are you doing on Quora?

Oh yeah? And the horse you rode in on!

(No, Modbot, that was rhetorical. No BNBR violation here.)

Checking my inbox for interesting questions where I can help, in my own small way, to illuminate the human condition.

And chancing on this question instead.

Next!

The Jahwist, as in the hypothesised earliest source document of the Torah? I’m dismayed to find from Wikipedia that the documentary hypothesis is now falling apart, and increasingly scholars think there was no one unitary Jahwist document. Doesn’t matter to me if the Jahwist was a bunch of bits; that bunch of bits is still more interested in Judah than Israel, and still features Yahweh as a petty anthropomorphic figure.

The classic documentary hypothesis dates the Yahwist to the 10th century BC, although that too is now out of favour. That would certainly be the earliest date for a Yahwist corpus.

So the question becomes, what was the language of 10th century BC Judah?

Still Hebrew, although you can legitimately argue about how distinct palaeo-Hebrew and Phoenecian were at that early time. It’s the time of the Gezer calendar, discovered 20 miles west of Jerusalem.

This guy:

And not the fly-swatting end of it either.

My sister, my mother would have to chase around the house. I just dutifully held out my hand for it to be over and done with.

That may explain some things. I dunno.

Accelerated selection of the fittest. Where being loyal, cuddly, and Neotenous is no longer what makes you the fittest raptor dog. Bye bye labradors.

Dog leash manufacturers go out of business. The civil aviation authorities might need to work out a deal with city councils, in better tagging raptor dogs.

Significant changes in dogfood manufacture.

Significant drop in the popularity of drones. The raptor dogs really will be treating drones like frisbees.

Significant increase in the military’s use of raptor dogs. Helps them deal constructively with the loss of their drone investment.

Une jolie question, Mlle Demoritto!

This has been in my inbox for a while, and I didn’t know how to tackle it.

I want my brain acknowledged. For sure. I want my publications strewn around me, the children I got to have. But they too will be dust eventually. My plan to have them laminated and sent to Svalbard looks to be a non-starter.

So, what to have them say, what to have them say. For me to know that it has not all been in vain.

And then, Habib le toubib came up with what I’d want them to say. In a confoundingly, grotesquely different context.

Habib Fanny’s answer to If you knew you were about to be thrown into the woods, but could only bring one item, what would it be and why?

I was a decent person who by and large tried not to be a dick

Yes. Yes, that will do nicely.