LOLCat Bible Translation Project | |
---|---|
Full name | LOLCat Bible Translation Project |
Other names | LOLcat Bible: In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez an da Erfs n stuffs |
Complete Bible published | 2010 |
Textual basis | None [note 1] |
Translation type | Complete re-imagining [note 2] |
Reading level | Unknown |
Publisher | Ulysses Press |
Copyright | © 2007, 2010 Martin Grondin |
Website | www.lolcatbible.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 2019-03-27) |
Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz. At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz. So liek teh Ceiling Kitteh lieks teh ppl lots and he sez 'Oh hai I givez u me only kitteh and ifs u beleeves him u wont evr diez no moar, kthxbai!' |
The LOLCat Bible Translation Project was a wiki-based website set up in July 2007 by Martin Grondin, where editors aim to parody the entire Bible in "LOLspeak", the slang popularized by the LOLcat Internet phenomenon. [1] The project relies on contributors to adapt passages. As of March 27, 2008, approximately 61% of the text had been adapted, and Grondin stated that he hoped the entire New Testament would be complete by the end of 2008. [2]
A book version of the website was released in 2010, containing selected extracts such as the stories of the creation of the earth, Adam and Eve, and Noah. [3]
In the process of adaptation, various changes were made to the source material, for example, changing the main characters to cats – e.g., Jesus Christ becomes "Happy Cat", God the "Ceiling Cat", and Satan the "Basement Cat" – while the "gifts" and "blessings" of God have become "cheezburgerz", and people in general have become "kittehs". [2] [note 3] The style of writing employed varies, but the most devoted contributors were described as those who utilized as many as possible of the gags and themes used in the different lolcat images. [2]
Unlike most Bible translation efforts, the LOLCat Bible Translation Project did not depend on one translator or a group of prominent ones, but on crowdsourced translation. Untranslated sections were available for translation by anyone willing to register on the wiki.
The project was praised by Ben Huh, owner of the website that popularized lolcats, [4] icanhascheezburger.com, who noted that the LOLCat Bible had inspired other religious texts to be translated into LOLspeak, such as the Qur'an, and that it has made clear that "the ability to publish is now open to anyone". [2] An editorial in the Chicago Tribune commented, "The effort to translate the Bible into a language full of grammatical errors, hacker acronyms and Internet lingo may appear distasteful or blasphemous to some, but not to worry. Much of the translation only loosely follows the Bible. It's crowded with references to lolcats pictures and to ambiguous Internet humor, and these references can only be understood by people who spend too much time on the Web." [5]
Leet, also known as eleet or leetspeak, or simply hacker speech, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet. It often uses character replacements in ways that play on the similarity of their glyphs via reflection or other resemblance. Additionally, it modifies certain words on the basis of a system of suffixes and alternative meanings. There are many dialects or linguistic varieties in different online communities.
LOL, or lol, is an initialism for laughing out loud, and a popular element of Internet slang, which can be used to indicate amusement, irony, or double meanings. It was first used almost exclusively on Usenet, but has since become widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication and even face-to-face communication. It is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter, as text, including initialisms for more emphatic expressions of laughter such as LMAO and ROFL or ROTFL.
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A lolcat, or LOLcat, is an image macro of one or more cats. Lolcat images' idiosyncratic and intentionally grammatically incorrect text is known as lolspeak.
I Can Has Cheezburger? is a blog-format website featuring videos and image macros. It was created in 2007 by Eric Nakagawa (Cheezburger), from Hawaii, and his friend Kari Unebasami (Tofuburger). The website was one of the most popular Internet sites of its kind receiving as many as 1,500,000 hits per day at its peak in May 2007. ICHC was instrumental in bringing animal-based image macros and lolspeak into mainstream usage and making Internet memes profitable.
Doves, typically domestic pigeons white in plumage, are used in many settings as symbols of peace, freedom, or love. Doves appear in the symbolism of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and paganism, and of both military and pacifist groups.
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Eric Nakagawa is the co-founder of the humor site I Can Has Cheezburger?.
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Fail Blog is a comedic blog website created in January 2008.
Ben Huh is a South Korean-American internet entrepreneur and the former CEO of The Cheezburger Network, which at its peak in 2010 received 375 million views a month across its 50 sites.
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Bible translations into constructed languages that were created as part of a fictional setting include:
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