SASKIA CALDERÓN
Dead Language


Title: Dead Language
Modality: Video Performance
Duration: 2 minutes 54 seconds
Year: 2021
It takes as a reference several cultures that have passed in the pre-Hispanic era in Imbabura and I analyze the languages that have become extinct in the area.The performance consists of taking the name of several pre-Hispanic cultures that have passed through Imbabura and I use the vowels of the names of these cultures to translate them musically, designating to each vowel a musical note with which a melody sung in two voices is formed, with the painted faces of the Inca, Quitus, Arawacos, Chibchas cultures. The work consists of analyzing the languages that preceded the arrival of the Spaniards in the town of Imbabura, languages that are maintained by a process of miscegenation that are not the original languages and others that have disappeared completely and have become extinct.
The proposal wants to call attention to the importance of the extinct linguistic diversity in a locality. There are many reasons why a language can disappear, but I focus on the Spanish conquest in America, on Hispanization and the strong influence of European culture. My interest is to recover the memory of the dead languages in a locality, but as a means to expand to all the pre-Hispanic languages and think about their extinction and the events that caused their disappearance, and that by several factors the original languages still survive, motivating a reflection to preserve them from their danger of extinction.
Process: System of musical interpretation Vowels of names of cultures
Quitus Arawacos Incas Chibchas
The vowels are A I O U
The melody is formed with the following four notes:
U is Re4 – A is FA4 – I is DO#5 – O is SOL5