some poems and songs in departed languages
weather: ☀️ was there any june gloom today? i slept late
critters: western bluebird; assorted woodpeckers
dead languages fascinate me and also make me want to tear my skin off. the last native speaker of hupa died in march. i worry about all the stories and music nobody wrote down, or that we can't read (and may never be able to read). now they're gone, forever, never to be heard again. i hate it.
here are some poems and songs you can still experience.
hurrian hymn to the goddess nikkal
text + commentary | peter pringle's interpretation | michael levy's performance based on richard dumbrill's reconstruction
a song of worship addressing the merciful nikkal, mesopotamian queen of the gods. it is the oldest (incomplete) piece of notated music ever discovered.
the hurrian language, spoken by the hurrian people in southwest anatolia, disappeared a few generations after the late bronze age collapse some three thousand years ago, and its cousin urartian disappeared a couple centuries after that. it has no known relation to any language living today.
excerpt (trans. theo j. h. krispijn):
I will nullify them (the sins). Without covering or denying them (the sins), I will bring them (to you), in order to be agreeable (to you).
You love those who come in order to be covered (reconciled).
seikilos epitaph
text + commentary | performance conducted by gabriel garrido
a carpe-diem song in koine greek, for a woman named euterpe. it has the honor of being the oldest surviving complete musical notation.
koine greek was the lingua franca of the hellenic world. it was an indo-european language, so it has thousands of relatives both living and dead, but the closest today are modern greek and the greek of certain orthodox liturgies.
translation by me:
While you live, shine
Do not be grieved at all.
We have a moment to live
Then Time demands his due.
love poem in tocharian B
a poem of love and painful separation written in tocharian B, an indo-european language of the tarim basin (present-day xinjiang). the tocharian languages might be descended from the language spoken by the famous tarim mummies. the tocharian family is related to all other indo-european languages, but has no known close relatives and no living descendants.
excerpt (trans. douglas adams, no relation):
[I thus announce, [here]tofore there was no human being dearer to me than [you]; likewise hereafter there will be no one dearer to [you] than [me].
dispute between a man and his ba
text + commentary | performance by siamun
an ancient egyptian text about wanting the relief of death because humanity sucks, but arguing yourself back into living.1 the closest modern relative of the language is coptic, but as far as i know it only survives as a liturgical language.
excerpt (trans. miriam lichtheim):
Death is in my sight today.
As when a man desires to see home
When he has spent many years in captivity.
i have written before about shifting my conception of myself from one single entity into a bunch of contradictory parts. on these grounds, the egyptian ninefold soul (of which the ba or personality is one part) is appealing to me lately. and sometimes it's a balm to know i'm just one of many to have argued like this with his ba. and for a different approach, there's always dorothy parker's "resumé."↩