In “Far From the Trees,” (“Lejos de los árboles”) Meritxell Colell asks viewers to listen before they try to understand. Premiering in Locarno’s international competition, the Spain-Italy-Peru production from Allegra Films follows Adela, a 50-year-old Mexican sound artist who travels from the Peruvian jungle to the Andes recording endangered languages. Accompanied by a guide and
The Rosetta Stone helped experts learn to read Egyptian hieroglyphs.Credit: Juan Naharro Giménez/Getty Humanity may have once spoken many more languages than today, with tens of thousands in use between 3,000 and 1,000 years ago. This far exceeds the more than 7,500 unique languages currently used around the world. The findings, published July 23 in