Herb Dean Explains the Russian Alphabet to Joe Roan

So when you go to Russia, you take that attitude. Like, let's just see what the experience is. You have your own experience of what Russia's doing. Yeah, I'm going to have my own experience and not let it be what anyone else is. And also, I had been to Russia before. I went in 1995. I used to work for a company that made documentaries, these guys. I ended up going along to help them out. It was the first time I'd ever left the US. It had a big effect on me. So I... Do you not speak it? No, no, no. I can do my instructions in it. And I know some words. I mean, I took some time to learn how to use the alphabet so I can get around. The alphabet's crazy. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know... What is that? It's like Celtic, like ancient Cyrillic. Cyrillic is what it's called. Is that what it is? Cyrillic? It's a guy named Cyril. So I thought, how's it Cyrillic? Yeah, but it's actually named after a guy who made it. That's the Russian stuff. What is that Celtic stuff that, you know, that... Oh yeah, those runes, the runes or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it looks like. Yeah, yeah. Some of the letters in Russia, like, why would they do it backwards? Like, it's the same letter that we have, but it's backwards? Right, right. Yeah, yeah. That's a yah you're talking about. Is that what it is? Yeah, the one that looks like a backwards r. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what the... What does that stand for over there? This means yah. Yah. And we use it like I too, right? Oh yeah, right? Yeah. Look at that chaos. So that's how you say I. You say yah. Look at their fucking language, man. What's up with that h? What's up with that upside down h? The h is the n. The h is the n. What? That's how you use an n. Oh my god. So once you get used to reading, so you always see pecto pie everywhere you go, right? What's that literally... What's that upside down little h? It looks like a candle holder. Yeah, right there. What's that? Yeah. That's an upside down h. Uh-huh. What happened there? Looks like a y. So it took that h and dumped it on its head. But it looks like an h, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if you flipped it upside down, it's like, look at the e below that. Like what the fuck is that thing? And so that's a yah, that backwards r? Yeah, yeah. So you would say, you would use it like yah? Yeah. You would say that word when you... And use it like, like just how we use i. Oh. I, and we use it like i, and then we might use it in another reason too, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, I mean, it is kind of amazing how different the way we write is to the way Asian folks do. That's the real freak out. That's, and I think you just have to learn it, right? Each and every one of those, it seems like it's pretty hard to learn. Well, especially if it's not completely ingrained in your memory as a child. Yeah. Because I get up late in life. I know there's some people who speak Mandarin, but they can't write it. Yeah, they can't write it. They can't read it or write it. Yeah. Fuck, man, it's alien. Yeah. It looks alien. I mean, the fact that a whole different side of the world writes that way in these little characters. I'm going to help when I go over there. I'm going to tell you something. I got married a few years ago and my wife is Russian. Ah, there you go. Yeah, and she speaks Chinese. So, when I go to the Chinese region, right Chinese. So when we go to these countries, it's easier. Reads and writes Chinese? Yeah, yeah, it's easier to learn. Wow. In English or no? English, yeah, yeah. That's how we get along. Some people are good with languages, man. That's incredible. Her Spanish is better than mine already. Just got here. To have Russian, which has its own use of the alphabet, and then Chinese, which is another whole deal. And English. Does she have room in her head for anything else? I know, yeah, yeah. Seems like her hard drive would be full. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Just those three languages. Like, fuck. Three hard languages, right? Probably the hardest. I heard the Russians hard and English. I'm not going to say heard. I've been trying to learn it. It's hard. There's so many ways to say something because they conjugate a lot. I think they're a lot more than Spanish. Really? And that's what I have problems with. We all get Spanish. Where as we live in LA. But conjugating verbs, you know. But she can do it easy because she's like, oh. Because they conjugate so much more. Hmm. Yeah, this might be the three hardest languages to learn outside of maybe the other Asian languages. Japanese is probably pretty difficult to learn. Yeah, I heard the Vietnamese is tough. Yeah. And then you got those languages that you look at, wow, that's crazy. And then you see ancient Hebrew. Yeah. You look at Hebrew language, the way they write. Like, what the fuck? I don't know. I bet Arabic's tough. Arabic's got to be tough. I mean, how many languages are there if you had a guess? Yeah. Hundreds of languages. Yeah. Hundreds of languages. Yeah. And dialects. And depending on where you are, even in Mexico, there's different. Right. They don't speak the same Spanish down there. Really? Yeah. Even in Spanish, yeah. Because I took a couple of Spanish classes, right? But I can understand people from Spain easier for some reason. And I grew up right here. It's harder for me to understand the way they speak Spanish. My friend lives in, my friend Adam Greentree, he lives in Australia. And he has a lot of experience with the indigenous people that live there because he works in a mining company. And they deal with a lot of the Aborigines. And they have, the groups of people, they call them mobs. That's what they call themselves. Okay. Instead of a village or a clan, they call themselves a mob. That's what Aborigines use. And they have different languages for different mobs. So there might be hundreds of mobs in this area. And they all have different languages. So you drive. I go, how close? He's like a few miles. I go a few miles. He would say kilometers. So it might be 20, 100 kilometers. So you go 100 kilometers and you got a totally different language. Oh, what? That's all the different languages. This is a map of all the... But maybe they're similar, right? Areas of mobs. I don't believe so. I think they don't know what the fuck each other are saying. Right, right. Yeah. That's why we can't understand Australians, right? Right. If you look at that, that's crazy. I don't know who's documenting all this stuff and whether or not they've saved these languages. And they haven't... Because it's very likely that little ones of them will just go... If these people assimilate to other populations or move out... Like you might lose these languages. There's so many... That's what I like about going to Russia too, because there's so many different cultures and so many people. And I like that. I like people. I get to go to Grozny and I've been to Dagestan. Grozny is in Chechnya. Yeah. What's that like? It was a really cool place. I want to show you some pictures. Went and looked around. Well, because for me, what's really cool about it is the energy that people have about developing over there right now, because the place... There was a war there. You know about that, right? Yeah, there was a war. And right now they're really building up and they're really excited about it. So I think it's just... It's cool to go and see people who are really... See a kind of a group mentality about moving forward. So where exactly is this and what was their war? You've heard of Chechnya? Yeah. Yeah, so they had a war with Russia. Right. Civil war. Yeah, see that's what it used to look like. Yeah, now you got a picture of it now, right? Yeah. Ah, there it is now. They're in the middle of rebuilding. Yeah. And then as I rebuilt there, they're energetic about it and there's pride in it and it's cool. It's cool to be able to go there and get to see it. That is cool to see something in the middle of a rebirth like that, right? Yeah. It's beautiful. And in that area, a lot of places, yeah, there's a lot of rebirth energy going on. Oh, wow. So that's what it looked like right after the war. God damn. Wow. That's a crazy image.