Loudspeakers

Preface

I was building a studio, some years ago, in the Basque region of Spain, close to Bilbao. We were using local labour, but I used a Portuguese foreman who had previously worked with me on other constructions in order to provide some experienced guidance on the specialised day-to-day work. He understood Castilian Spanish quite well, but many of the people working on the construction were speaking Euskera, the Basque national language. After a few days, the foreman said to me, “This language is very similar to Arabic” (In fact, apart from ‘Coca Cola’ and ‘Windows’ there are probably no other words or structures in common), I asked how he came to this conclusion, and he replied, “A few years ago I was working in Morocco, where they speak ...