Monday, May 22, 2023

Musical Proto-Semitic?

MUSIC MEETS PHILOLOGY: Israeli artist brings ancient language back to life in song. Dor Zlekha Levy's One Tongue audiovisual project revives Proto-Semitic, the ancestral language of Hebrew and Arabic, in song (DEBBIE MOHNBLATT, The Media Line via Jerusalem Post).
Thousands of years after it was last heard in the region, the ancient language of Proto-Semitic is ringing out once again, in a unique audiovisual project at the bell caves at the Beit Guvrin National Park in central Israel.

Israeli multimedia artist Dor Zlekha Levy created One Tongue, an audiovisual display that centers around a musical performance in Proto-Semitic, the ancestor of today’s Semitic languages: Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew.

Great, but I wish the video let us hear more of the song!

For a recent art installation in the Beit Guvrin caves, see here. For ancient art and Greek and Aramaic inscriptions found in the Beit Guvrin-Maresha caves, see here, here, here, here and follow the links.

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