The Honors College at FIU
Instructors: Bill Ritzi, David Chatfield, John Bailly, & Bennett Schwartz

POWER OF BABEL PROJECT

This assignment takes two parts. The first part involves a linguistic analysis of the future of language.

1. McWhorter asserts that languages change, and that this change is inevitable. He also describes some of the ways in which languages change. Based on your reading of McWhorter, describe three of the ways in which the English language is likely to change over the next 25 years. These changes you describe MUST be based on linguistic issues raised by the book (e.g., influences of bilingual population, sprachbunds, decay of difficult features, influence of the written word, to name a few). Support your answer with reasons. It is not sufficient to write “there will be a more simple grammar” but why you think English grammar will be less complex in 2032 than it is now. This section should be no longer than 500 words, but no less than 400.

2. How many of you dreaded reading Shakespeare in your high school English class? Do you know that he remains a best seller in Japan, France, and some Spanish-speaking countries (in translation, of course). Some have argued, including McWhorter, that it is time to treat authors such as Shakespeare and Chaucer, as we would authors in foreign languages, and translate them into modern contemporary English. The second part of this assignment is translate one of the two following passages (one from Shakespeare and one from Chaucer) into modern contemporary English. But not just any modern contemporary English. Choose one of the following forms of modern English.

Please include a glossary which translates the original word into its modern equivalent (for at least 10 words).

Slang/Colloquialism/vulgarity is acceptable in this project.

Styles of modern English:

Hip-hop
George W. Bush
Miami Spanglish
Croc Hunter
Madonna
John Bailly
American Southern
Cuban American
Rocky Balboa
Bill Ritzi
Appalachian
Brooklyn
Long Guyland
Valley Girl/Surfer Dude
Bennett Schwartz (a marvelous combination of Long Guyland and Surfer Dude).
Caribbean/Jamaican (e.g. Creole speaker's approach to English)
Inspector Clouseau
David Chatfield
Cockney
Other of your choice (must get prior approval from instructor)

Passage 1 (Shakespeare)

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

Passage 2 (Chaucer): from the Miller’s tale:

This dronke Millere spak ful soone ageyn,
And seyde, "Leve brother Osewold,
Who hath no wyf, he is no cokewold.
But I sey nat therfore that thou art oon,
Ther been ful goode wyves many oon,
And evere a thousand goode ayeyns oon badde;
That knowestow wel thyself, but if thou madde.

The Honors College at FIU          john bailly dot com