Tuesday 5 June 2012

To Be or Not to Be, and the Klingon Language

Here is a demonstration of the various ways that an actor can deliver the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11380973)

Here is another version of the same speech, translated into the Klingon language:

For those who do not know, this language was developed by linguistics professor Marc Okrand for the Star Trek movies, so that the language spoken by aliens would sound like a language, as opposed to baby talk or babble. Interestingly, Dr. Okrand deliberately chose language features that are statistically rare to make the language sound more alien. At any rate, the entire text of Hamlet has been published in Klingon, thanks to the Klingon Language Institute.

Disney later approached Dr. Okrand for help in developing a language for the city of Atlantis, to be used in the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). Learn it from this video:


I could say quite a bit more on invented languages, but later.

No comments:

Post a Comment