One hundred and fifty years later, Jules Verne’s most famous journey is going on another world tour… without ever leaving its starting point!
In a two-and-a-half month-long version of the childrens’ game of “telephone” (aka “Chinese whispers” aka téléphone sans fil), the first chapter of Verne’s Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours will move from language to language each day, as we run successive iterations of the chapter’s text through eighty different languages via Google Translate.
How will each variant of the chapter differ from those preceding it? How will Verne’s original text be changed in the process? Will the opening to the most famous voyage-to-back-where-you-started remain recognisable? What might we learn about the process of machine translation along the way?
