The Klingon Hamlet

An astonishing effort on the part of the leading Klingon scholars of today, telling a story of blood, honour and vengeance in true Klingon tradition. With the English-language version printed on the left and the Klingon on the right, this best-known of Shakespeare's plays, a tour-de-force of Elizabethan theatre, can now be read and understood in the great warrior tongue even by non-Klingon speakers. As General Chang (Christopher Plummer) was heard to remark in the movie Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country: "Shakespeare is better in the original Klingon." Building on the groundwork of linguist Marc Okrand, author of The Klingon Dictionary, who constructed a fully spoken language out of what began as little more than a background prop, the Klingon Language Institute in Flourtown, Pennsylvania, is dedicated to the study and teaching of Klingon as a living tongue. Translating the great works of literature, Hamlet among them, is central to their philosophy of education and discovery.

An astonishing effort on the part of the leading Klingon scholars of today, telling a story of blood, honour and vengeance in true Klingon tradition. With the English-language version printed on the left and the Klingon on the right, this best-known of Shakespeare's plays, a tour-de-force of Elizabethan theatre, can now be read and understood in the great warrior tongue even by non-Klingon speakers. As General Chang (Christopher Plummer) was heard to remark in the movie Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country: "Shakespeare is better in the original Klingon." Building on the groundwork of linguist Marc Okrand, author of The Klingon Dictionary, who constructed a fully spoken language out of what began as little more than a background prop, the Klingon Language Institute in Flourtown, Pennsylvania, is dedicated to the study and teaching of Klingon as a living tongue. Translating the great works of literature, Hamlet among them, is central to their philosophy of education and discovery.