Shakespeare "in the original Klingon"?

Question

In The Undiscovered Country, the Klingons view Shakespeare as one of their own and the Earth versions as adaptations. How on Earth could that be? Shakespeare was certainly human as forehead ridges would have been noticed even in that period of history.

Is this some cosmic coincidence with similar works by two different writers or did the Klingons like the work so much they retconned him as one of their writers?

Shouldnt that be: "How on Qo'Nos could that be?" or possibly - given the story "How on Praxis could that be?" — Steven Wood, Apr 03 '14 at 14:53
Has it crossed your mind that the Klingon in question was joking? That is, the Klingon knew perfectly well that Shakespeare was human, and saying he was originally Klingon is a metaphorical way of expressing how much the Klingons admire him. — Royal Canadian Bandit, Apr 03 '14 at 14:54
Is it also possible that Klingons visited Earth incognito around 1560 and left an English version of their favourite playwright there for an enterprising you Will Shakespeare to copy and pass of as his own? — DJClayworth, Apr 03 '14 at 18:25
Some Klingons looked remarkably human, that might be related. http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/20579/8981 — Mooing Duck, Apr 03 '14 at 19:36
It could also be that it is a reference to the predestination paradox? It seems to often be described as "Imagine we travel back in time, giving that lazy shakespeare guy his own work from our books. So, who wrote those stories". Also macbeth contains something like a contemporary self-fullfilling prophecy version thereof. — PlasmaHH, Apr 03 '14 at 19:55
@MooingDuck Not during Shakespeare's era, see answers to that same question — Izkata, Apr 03 '14 at 23:36
@Damon actually, it is his grandfather: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Worf_%28Colonel%29 — Davidmh, Apr 05 '14 at 13:34
It may be worth noting that the Star Trek universe has duplicate Earth's. Duplicate U.S.A. flags and constitution. A duplicate Roman Empire. Duplicate literature is no longer far fetched in that context. — lucasbachmann, Sep 15 '22 at 04:27
"forehead ridges would have been noticed even in that period of history" maybe he was one of the klingons without ridges like from the tribble episodes.... — komodosp, Sep 15 '22 at 08:55

ilinamorato · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-04T15:46:57.507

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Probably the latter. Star Trek seems to like this joke; Chekov claimed many things as "invented in Russia," Spock attributes Sherlock Holmes quotes and Richard Nixon quotes to ancient Vulcans (though the Sherlock thing could be real, I suppose, since Spock is also half human), Quark claims the phrase "discretion is the better part of valor" as a Ferengi proverb, and Khan says "Revenge is a dish best served cold" is a Klingon saying. I think it was just one point on the line of a running gag. (a running gagh?)

Interestingly, the line became a problem in the shooting of The Undiscovered Country, as Mark Okrand (who invented the Klingon language) recounts:

There is one line of Shakespeare that is spoken in Klingon in the film, though it wasn’t part of the original script. That line is “To be or not to be.” When the film’s director, Nick Meyer, asked me to create a Klingon version of that, I said “okay,” but I thought “oh, no.” The problem was that there is no verb in Klingon that means “to be,” and I make a big deal about that in the book. I thought a bit and asked Nick if the line could mean “to live or not to live.” [But Christopher Plummer didn't like it, so] I thought some more, and suggested that taH replace yIn: taH pagh taHbe’. [...] The syllable taH, up until that moment, had been a suffix meaning “to continue doing” whatever the verb it was attached to was, so “eat” plus taH meant “to continue eating.” I sort of gave it a promotion to full verb status, but keeping the same meaning. So a new word meaning “to go on, to continue, to endure,” was created: “To continue or not to continue, to go on or not to go on.”

edited Apr 04 '14 at 15:46

answered Apr 03 '14 at 14:53

ilinamorato

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Yes, that seems right. Thanks for the informative answer! – Valten1992 Apr 03 '14 at 15:00
Without having really looked too deeply into it -- I always sort of thought it was because the typical old pictures of Shakespeare one sees (that sort of disembodied head in an oblong) vaguely resembles the Klingons of old… this is a better explain though – Stick Apr 03 '14 at 16:39
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I always assumed that quotes above were universal translator bugs. When translated there were similar meaning earth expressions that meant the same thing. – sixtyfootersdude Apr 03 '14 at 16:40
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I think that would be a great in-universe justification for it, sixtyfootersdude. Though it does sound like something the Klingons would do, stealing a violent playwright from a race of ptaQs who don't deserve him. :-) Same with Ferengi. "They think they know cowardice? They've never even seen cowardice!" – ilinamorato Apr 03 '14 at 17:51
I always assumed it meant the original translation but I like this answer much more! – Liath Apr 04 '14 at 10:45
Side note - Mark Okrand developed the language, but the first groundwork for the language was from James Doohan... – Bart Silverstrim Apr 16 '14 at 21:43
Sherlock homes was a fictional character, so he couldn't actually be related to Spock (unless Sherlock was real in the Star Trek universe, but if that were the case, the quote might as well have actually been from a Vulcan). – ApproachingDarknessFish Oct 08 '14 at 00:32
@ValekHalfHeart - Spock's quote could establish Sherlock Holmes as a real person in the Trek universe (that would to imply that the adventures Data and Geordi play in TNG are dramatizations or fictionalizations of a real man's life, not fictional fabrications). This would fit more with Spock's character than playing a running gag. However, it's just as possible that an ancient Vulcan did say words that, translated, are identical to Sherlock's famous maxim - or are close enough that the original translator rendered them so. Still, I like the idea that Sherlock is real in the Trek universe. – ilinamorato Oct 08 '14 at 19:08
Strongly tempted to -1 for "a running gagh"! :) – Wolfie Inu Nov 18 '15 at 05:29
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@WolfieInu I would not think less of you. Over 18 months on, I find myself groaning quite a bit at that pun, but I regret nothing. :-) – ilinamorato Nov 18 '15 at 06:15
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Good point about Chekov, he notably changed British astronomer John Burke to Ivan Burkov. – Robert Columbia Mar 01 '18 at 20:24

score 30 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 03 '14 at 15:00

A wikipedia article claims that in the audio commentary on Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Special Collectors Edition, the director N. Meyer claims the idea for having the Klingons claim Shakespeare as their own was based on Nazi Germany's attempt to claim the Bard as German before World War II.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 15 '23 at 10:05

The wikipedia page on The Klingon Hamlet has this to say:

The introduction also claims that the notion that Shakespeare was a human poet living in the late 16th century was invented after the United Federation of Planets instigated a large propaganda campaign in order to rally the human population against Klingons, "hoping by this falsification of history to discredit the achievements of Klingon culture".
— Introduction, The Klingon Hamlet: Star Trek All Series, Simon and Schuster, 2012.

Which strongly implies, at least in fiction (and if this is considered canon), that at least the Klingon's believe that William Shakespeare (or to use his Klingon name 'Wil'yam Sheq'spir') was Klingon - and thus that the human version did not exist in the Star Trek timeline.

Shakespeare "in the original Klingon"?

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