This has been a slow news day.  On such days, my mind tends to drift somewhat.  Combining the science of linguistics with the philosophical notion of multiple parallel universes leads to some very strange notions.  You may not think it is science, but I hope you think it's fun.

If there are infinite universes parallel to ours, there must be at least one in which Hamlet was written by an orangutan.

"What a piece of work is an orangutan,
how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties,
in form and moving how express and admirable,
in action how like an angel,
in apprehension how like a god!"

Wikimedia commons.


In a multiverse, there would be many and strange variants of all of our best known and best loved books.

Somewhere, in a parallel universe, people are arguing that their scripture is infallible. 
In that universe, democracy arose about 10,000 years before the discovery of fire, and writing was invented shortly afterwards, by King Lear of Babel, to cater for the huge bureaucracy without which freedom can never truly flourish.

The scripture of that world consists of about 3,000 volumes, 99% of which is an inventory of tax payments to the Royal Society of Scriveners and to the Keepers of the Royal Archives.   Of the 3,000 volumes, 0.55% is entirely unreadable due to the natural evolution of the language, 0.35% consists of words which have come to mean the exact opposite of the original, and 9% has been torn out by priests who have sold the scraps to make magic potions to keep everybody safe from attack by butterflies.

The remainder, when assembled into a continuous script, appears to have some connection with a global flood myth and the performance of a miracle:

"The boat was painted blue with green spots, and the sail was yellow with red stripes: and, when they set off, they only took a small Cat to steer and look after the boat, besides an elderly Quangle-Wangle, who had to cook the dinner and make the tea; for which purposes they took a large kettle
...
but as they had no tea-leaves, they merely placed some pebbles in the hot water; and the Quangle-Wangle played some tunes over it on an accordion, by which, of course, tea was made directly, and of the very  best quality.
"