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Alas, it’s a very Bard translation!
A Shakespeare fan has published Hamlet in the original English alongside a version which has been passed through Google translate into French – where the title comes out at ‘Jambonlaissé’.
The entire work has been printed on high-quality paper and beautifully bound, even though the translator, Davina Sammarcelli, says it is not really designed to be read. “It’s absurd,” she says. “In places it really makes no sense at all, in others it’s quite poetic, but the point really was to respond to the idea that the internet means the end of printed books. I don’t think it does.”
She also believes that just as the French language learning system Assimil taught people a strange, clunky version of English during the 20th century, Google Translate is now doing much the same. “It’s almost a language of its own,” she says.
However, all sorts of people are fans of the book, from Shakespeare experts to computer geeks. “I’m amazed at the response,” she says.
