kellokult

Daniel Tammet is a rather famous and inspiring autistic savant. I had come across him before in a documentary in which he learned Icelandic in 7 days:



He just plopped into my lap for a second time in the form of a New Scientist interview. In it he gives us a teasing glimpse at how he sees the world, makes sense of numbers and information in ways that are both exciting and fascinating. In fact - thank you internet - here is the interview I just read. So I won't bore you by explaining what you can enjoy yourself.

There is one bit I want to extract and drop into my blog though: A word belonging to Tammet's made-up language, Mänti. The word is 'kellokult', as Daniel explains, it "means 'clock debt'. It's a way of emphasising that when you are late for something, it incurs a debt, you owe someone that time." Nice.

I just ordered a copy of his new book Embracing The Wide Sky.

Tammet also has a blog, which I'm going to subscribe to.

One thing's for sure, I don't think any of Tammet's material will result in kellokult. It will all be time very well spent.