Post by Hooligan on Sept 6, 2009 21:47:01 GMT -6
HOW TO TURN IN YOUR ASSIGNMENTS
LECTURE PART 1 ASSIGNMENT:
All assignments should be e-mailed to me. Please do not turn in your assignments by posting them here on the class forum.ALL ASSIGNMENTS ARE "OPEN-BOOK"
Please use the class forum only for questions and discussion about the lectures.
Throughout the course, you are free to use any resource at your disposal. Perhaps the most important of these ready-references is the Översteir, which is the online English-Talossan word-translation tool. Familiarize yourself with the features of this Webpage (the ones you can see -- it does a lot of other things you don't know how to tell it to do, such as identify things like "minimal pairs" and other language elements). The Översteir has helped greatly in analyzing the language, and will be of great assistance to you in learning it.
ASSIGNMENTS FOR LECTURE 1
LECTURE PART 1 ASSIGNMENT:
1. Where did the Talossan language mythically originate?LECTURE PART 2 ASSIGNMENT:
2. What mysterious North American culture are the mythical original speakers of Talossan
credited with creating?a. Using Wikipedia, research this mysterious culture and learn more about it. What are some other alternative explanations that were offered concerning the question of who created this culture?3. When the original speakers of Talossan were forced from their homeland by invaders, what general path through Europe does the language show evidence of their having followed?
b. One site where evidence of this culture has been found is located in the U.S. town of Burnett, Wisconsin. How near (in miles or kilometers) is that town to Talossa?
4. Name three other Romance languages. Using www.freetranslation.com (or other material) for these other languages, and using the Översteir for Talossan, determine the words in each of these languages that translate to the English:a. land5. In the lecture, the letter-group "sch" was mentioned as being one piece of evidence of Germanic influence on Talossan. Another characteristic of Talossan that provides evidence of this same influence can be seen in the Talossan words for "enough", "brow", and "peach". Use the Översteir to translate these words, and identify this characteristic.
b. sky
c. house
d. fire
e. water
1. Who "rediscovered" the Talossan language?BASIC VOCABULARY ASSIGNMENT:a. In what year did he do so?2. Watch this video online:
b. What role did he have in the Kingdom of Talossa?
c. What book was one of his inspirations, and what role does this book play in Talossa's government?a. What year was that song issued?3. What is the name of the important scholar of the language who helped to regularize and document the language?
b. What is the name of woman who twirled the baton in the video?
(If you do not know her name, describe what she was wearing,
as proof that you watched the video.)
c. What connection does this song have with the Talossan language?
4. What type of changes in the language did the Arestada of 2007 recommend?
5. When is "Llimbaziua" and what does it commemorate?
Use the Oversteir to translate three specific small sets of related words. Try to have each set contain ten or more words (although something like the "days of the week" would only contain seven, you would expect). Do not worry about whether or not you can even pronounce the Talossan words; simply listing the words with their English meanings is sufficient.INDIVIDUAL TRANSLATION PROJECT ASSIGNMENT:
You may (but you need not) choose from among the following ideas for these sets, but come up with at least one of your own.These will be shared with the class and used next week as example words during the lecture on Talossan pronunciation and stress.
- colors (for example, red, green, blue, etc.)
- numbers (for example, the first twenty numbers -- one, two, three, etc.)
- animals (for example, horse, dog, cat, etc.)
- clothing (for example, shoe, shirt, hat, etc.)
- family relationships (for example, sister, uncle, grandfather, etc.)
- parts of the body (for example, arm, leg, knee, etc.)
- months of the year
- musical instruments
- types of fruit, or vegetables, or cheeses
- etc., etc.
Use this week to choose an existing, published English language text that you will be translating into Talossan. This can be the first few pages of a book you enjoy, or a famous speech, document, or poem. Your text should be at least 500 words in length.COURSE TRANSLATION PROJECT ASSIGNMENT:
I will make myself available to help you with your choice to ensure that the text is something first of all that you are excited about translating, and second that it contains a fair amount of different language elements (such as phrasing in both the present and past tense, etc.).
Do not be intimidated by the challenge of translating your chosen text into Talossan. One phase of the full translation will be accomplished in each week, and I will do my best to make each week's assigned task easy for you to do.
For next week, please email me either a URL where the text you have chosen is available free online, or email me the English text itself.
Those students who wish to translate a work that was originally written in a non-English language are free to choose such a work, but an English-language translation must be provided to me, and it will be this English-language translation that I will use to guide me in assessing your work.
In Week 9, all students (as part of your final project) will be assigned the task of translating a full work of published English literature. (Don't worry; I consider very short works like "The Cat In The Hat" to be literature. We are not talking about translating "War and Peace" here.) This full translation will not be due until the week after week 10, with the other parts of your final exam, so the class will have at least two weeks to work on it.
The exact work that will be translated is something that you, the students, will decide among yourself. I will also leave it to you students how to divide the work into pieces to be translated by each student. The division does not have to be equitable, as if some students wish to be responsible for longer passages than others, this is fine, and will not affect the grade of the student who may choose to be responsible for a shorter amount of text.
Your assignment for this week is simply to begin discussing among yourselves what work you will be translating. Although you do not need to have even chosen the work until Week 9 of the course, if you decide on it early, then those students who wish to get an early start can do so, and help the whole class out by making progress on the assignment using the skills they bring to the class and those they learn along the way.
The class can feel free to use a thread on the course's forum here on Wittenberg to hold this discussion, and even to work on the project throughout the course, if people get an early start.
