The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

“You've not experienced Shakespeare until you've read it in the original …”

I have a feeling that a limited number of readers may find this interesting, but I never know—more could find it interesting than I think. In any case, it's a two part video on an analysis of the play Hamlet. The original Klingon Hamlet!

Part 1 gives the background story for The Klingon Hamlet, giving a context for how it came to exist in the first place (along with a brief history of Klingons—not the fictional history of Klingons but the actual history of how the fictional race of beings known as the Klingons came to exist in Star Trek), as well as the construction of the Klingon language. It's interesting to note that Klingons consider Hamlet's speech in Act IV, scene iv to be (heh) the key speech of the play (“O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!”), not Act III, scene i (“To be, or not to be … ” or in Klingon, “taH pagh taHbe'”).

Part 2 then goes onto a philosophical digression into translation in general. It's known in Geek circles that Klingon does not have the verb “to be,” and thus, the Klingon translation for “to be, or not to be” is literally “to continue, or not continue.” But there are issues with translating Hamlet into Spanish (two verbs for “to be”) or Mandarin (many forms of “to be”) and how difficult it can be to move cultural works across culture.


Oh my god! The radio just went to 11!

♫The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin
That's what I said♫

“What?”

♫The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand
Or so I have read♫

“Wait a second … ”

♫My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo
I like to sink her with my pink torpedo♫

“No! That can't be!”

♫Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about bum cakes, my girl's got 'em
Big bottom, drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?♫

“My God! They're playing Spin̈al Tap on the radio!”

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