Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland (also known under its first title Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) is a 1865 novel written by Lewis Carroll. It is one of the most famous children books. The book has been translated into over 95 languages.

Klingon Translation

On July 1st, 2021, Lieven L. Litaer announced his Klingon translation of the book. Its Klingon title is QelIS boqHarmey, literally "Alice's wonders". The book was published on November 3rd 2021, the Kindle ebook edition followed on November 8th. (1) A German version is announced to be published on November 22nd 2021.

From the back cover

"We are all crazy here. I am crazy. You are crazy. If you were not crazy, you would not have come here!"
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll is without doubt one of the most famous pieces of world literature. Filled with absurd nonsense and lots of hidden wordplays it offers entertainment for both children and adults.

This translation by Klingon teacher Lieven L. Litaer is not just a pure translation, it conveys the wordplays into Klingon, creating all new jokes based on that language. The book is bilingual and comes with an entirely new English backtranslation, providing a better under­standing of the Klingon text. A detailed appendix focuses on several translation steps and explains new words created for this project by Klingon inventor Marc Okrand.

New words

During the making of this book, Marc Okrand provided several new words. Also, many of the new words revealed at qep'a' 2018 and qepHom 2018 had been asked for this translation project, without making the connection obvious. The new words are explained in the appendix of the book. (2)

Klingon	Translation
chotlh	stare at, gaze at, observe
DuHSum	lobster
Dul	sigh; This verb takes no object.
ghI'van	gryphon [mythological animal with the body of a lion with wings]
Halrov	treacle, syrup
Her'IS	bird with a long neck, long legs
HIl	make someone's presence known
HIl'egh	make your own presence known
HIt	think [have an inner conversation]
mel'ogh	chrysalis
mIwba'	trial [the process of what happens at court]
neSngech	dormouse-like animal
ngIbvay	weird animal found on Kronos that looks like a rock
pu'veng	twig; also: cat's whiskers
qer	shrink [get smaller, general]
qerHa'	un-shrink [grow back to original size]
Qa	grow (increase in size) [general term]
QaHa'	un-grow [shrink, get smaller back to original size]
rab	be gigantic, be huge, be humongous
SetqIn	(adverbial) alternatively, instead, rather
woSwa'	armadillo-like animal
woSwa' ghew	rolling bug [like a pillbug]

Expanded definitions and combinations

Klingon	Translation
Durghang qung	keyhole
joqmoH	wave a fan [or anything else]
logh'ob	chest = front of something
(tera') na'ran chang	marmalade (lit. gelatinous orange)
(tera') na'ran HuH	marmalade (lit. orange slime)
pob	animal's hair or fur
qIp	knock, hit (with hand, fist...)
reD	side [of something]
reS	grow (flowers/plant/vegetables) [as in "she grows carrots"]
rewve' mIjDang	fan, handheld fan; also: SuS mIjDang
Sa'Hut	back [of something]
SuS mIjDang	fan, handheld fan; also: rewve' mIjDang
Sut veragh	button [part of clothing]
tIr ngat	bread crumbs
vatlhmoH	roll up [like a scroll]
wuqwI'	juror [literally "decider"]
wuqwI' ghom	jury
'opDIch	nth
'oplogh	several times

Transliterations

The word Qoqe' appears for the name of the "Croquet game", but that is not a real Klingon word. Also, it was not vetted by Marc Okrand.

Product Details

Published:	November 3rd, 2021
Publisher:	Egpyt Verlag
Author:	Lewis Carroll
Translator:	Lieven L. Litaer
Pages:	244
Size:	5″ x 8″ / 127 x 203 mm
ISBN-10:	39823968-3-2
ISBN-13:	978-39823968-3-5

Trivia

In a disussion about the possibility to include pIqaD in Unicode of 2013, Michael Everson said that it was not possible to translate Alice in Wonderland because "there simply aren't enough words devised". (3)

In February 2014, somebody unknown wrote an announcement claiming a Klingon version of the play.(4)(5) The blog post consists of a somehow adequate translation of the Jabberwoky Verse, followed by a useless Bing translation of chapters 1-3. No more is known about this blogpost, not even who created it.

References

1 : shopping page at Amazon.com

2 : QelIS boqHarmey, p. 232-238

3 : Michael Everson: Re: pIqaD in actual use. In: Unicode Mail List Archive of March 2013.

4 : The Klingon Alice in Wonderland, posted Friday, February 21, 2014

5 : The Klingon Alice in Wonderland on Reddit, posted May 27, 2014