Klingon language
Encyclopedia
The Klingon language is the constructed language
spoken by the fictional Klingon
s in the Star Trek
universe.
Deliberately designed by Marc Okrand
to be "alien", it has a number of typologically
uncommon features. The language's basic sound, along with a few words, was first devised by actor James Doohan
("Scotty
") for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
. That film marked the first time the language had been heard on screen. In all previous appearances, Klingons spoke in English. Klingon was subsequently developed by Okrand into a full-fledged language.
Klingon is sometimes referred to as Klingonese (most notably in the Star Trek: The Original Series
episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", where it was actually pronounced by a Klingon character as "Klingonee" /klɪŋɡoni/) but, among the Klingon-speaking community, this is often understood to refer to another Klingon language called Klingonaase that was introduced in John M. Ford
's 1988 Star Trek novel The Final Reflection
, and appears in other Star Trek novels by Ford. A shorthand version of Klingonaase is called "battle language", or "Clipped Klingon". The Klingon Christmas Carol
play is the first production that is primarily in Klingon (only the narrator speaks English). The opera 'u' is entirely in Klingon.
A small number of people are capable of conversing in Klingon. Its vocabulary, heavily centered on Star Trek-Klingon concepts such as spacecraft
or warfare, can sometimes make it cumbersome for everyday use.
(1979). For Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
(1984) director Leonard Nimoy
and writer-producer Harve Bennett
wanted the Klingons to speak a proper language instead of made-up gibberish
and so commissioned Okrand to develop the phrases Doohan had come up with into a full language. Okrand enlarged the lexicon and developed grammar around the original dozen words Doohan had created. The language appeared intermittently in later films featuring the original cast - for example, in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
and in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
(1991), where translation
difficulties served as a plot device
.
With the advent of the series Star Trek: The Next Generation
(1987) in which one of the main characters, Worf
, was a Klingon—and successors, the language and various cultural aspects for the fictional species were expanded. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation
episode "A Matter of Honor", several members of a Klingon ship's crew speak a language that is not translated for the benefit of the viewer (even Commander Riker, enjoying the benefits of a universal translator
, is unable to understand) until one Klingon orders the others to "speak their [i.e. 'humans'] language".
The use of untranslated Klingon words interspersed with conversation translated into English was commonplace in later seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
, when Klingons became a more important part of the series' overall plot-arcs.
Worf would later reappear among the regular characters in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
(1993) and B'Elanna Torres
, a Klingon-human hybrid, would become a main character on Star Trek: Voyager
(1995). The pilot episode of the prequel
series Star Trek: Enterprise
, "Broken Bow" (2001) describes the Klingon language as having "eighty polyguttural dialect
s constructed on an adaptive syntax
". However, Klingon as described on television is often not entirely congruous with the Klingon developed by Okrand.
Hobbyists around the world have studied the Klingon language. Four Klingon translations of works of world literature have been published: ghIlghameS (Gilgamesh
), Hamlet
(Hamlet
), paghmo' tIn mIS (Much Ado About Nothing
) and pIn'a' qan paQDI'norgh (Tao Te Ching
). The Shakespearian choices were inspired by a remark from High Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
, who said, "You have not experienced Shakespeare
, until you have read him in the original Klingon". In the bonus material for the DVD, screenwriter Nicholas Meyer and actor William Shatner both explain that this was an allusion to the "German myth" that Shakespeare was in fact German.
The Klingon Language Institute
exists to promote the language.
Paramount Pictures
owns a copyright
to the official dictionary and other canonical descriptions of the language. Additionally, while the validity is disputed by legal scholars, the copyright of the Klingon language is owned by Paramount as well. While constructed languages ("conlangs") are viewed as creations with copyright protection, natural languages are not protected, excluding dictionaries and/or other works created with them. Mizuki Miyashita and Laura Moll note, "Copyrights on dictionaries are unusual because the entries in the dictionary are not copyrightable as the words themselves are facts, and facts can not be copyrighted. However, the formatting, example sentences, and instructions for dictionary use are created by the author, so they are copyrightable."
Features of the Klingon language were inspired by various real Earth languages studied by Okrand, particularly indigenous languages of the Americas
. Okrand himself has stated that a design principle of the Klingon language was dissimilarity to existing natural languages in general, and English in particular. He therefore avoided patterns that are typologically
common and deliberately chose features that occur relatively infrequently in human languages. This includes above all the highly asymmetric consonant inventory and the basic word order
.
or warfare, can sometimes make it cumbersome for everyday use. For instance, while there are words for transporter ionizer unit (jolvoy) or bridge (of a ship) (meH) there is currently no word for bridge in the sense of a crossing over water. Nonetheless, mundane conversations are common among skilled speakers.
One Klingon speaker taught his son to speak Klingon as his first language, with English as a second. The experiment was successful for the first several years, but when the child started school he started talking more in English as this was the more useful language for communication with his peers.
In May 2009, Simon & Schuster, in collaboration with Ultralingua
Inc., a developer of electronic dictionary applications, announced the release of a suite of electronic Klingon language software for most computer platforms including a dictionary, a phrasebook, and an audio learning tool.
In September 2011, eurotalk
released the "Learn Klingon" course in their Talk Now! range of over 130 languages and includes a choice of more than 120 languages to learn from just by changing the help language. The course is broken down into topics and made up of practice and learning games as well as the ability to test your skills with the speech recognition software. The language is displayed in both Latin and pIqaD fonts making this the first language course written in pIqaD and approved by CBS and Marc Okrand. It was translated by Jonathan Brown and Marc Okrand
and uses the Hol-pIqaD truetype
font.
icity. Only words and grammatical forms introduced by Marc Okrand are considered canonical Klingon by the KLI and most Klingonists. However, as the growing number of speakers employ different strategies to express themselves, it is often unclear as to what level of neologism is permissible.
Within the fictional universe of Star Trek, Klingon is derived from the original language spoken by the messianic figure Kahless
the Unforgettable, who united the Klingon home-world of Qo'noS under one empire more than 1500 years ago. Many dialects exist, but the standardized dialect of prestige is almost invariably that of the sitting emperor.
Books
Audio tapes
Electronic resources
Other sources
The letters in parentheses following each item (if any) indicate the acronym of each source - used when quoting canon.
that, while based on human natural language
s, is intended to sound alien
to human language. When initially developed, Paramount Pictures (owners of the Star Trek franchise
) wanted the Klingon language to be guttural and harsh and Okrand wanted it to be unusual, so he selected sounds
that combined in ways not generally found in other languages. The effect is mainly achieved by the use of a number of retroflex
and uvular
consonants in the language's inventory. Klingon has twenty-one consonants and five vowels. Klingon is normally written in a variant of the Latin alphabet
(see below). In this orthography, upper and lower case letters are not interchangeable (uppercase letters mostly represent sounds different from those expected by English speakers). In the discussion below, standard Klingon orthography appears in <angle brackets>, and the phonemic transcription
in the International Phonetic Alphabet is written between /slashes/.
. In spite of this, the inventory has many gaps: Klingon has no velar plosives
, and only one sibilant
. Deliberately, this arrangement is quite bizarre by the standards of human languages. The combination of aspirated voiceless alveolar plosive
/tʰ/ and voiced retroflex plosive
/ɖ/ is particularly unusual. For example: The consonants /ɖ/ and (/r/) can be realized as [ɳ] and [ɹ], respectively. Note that the apostrophe
character <'> is not a punctuation mark but a full-fledged letter, representing the glottal stop
(/ʔ/).
The two front vowels, <e> and <I>, represent sounds that are found in English, but are more open and lax than a typical English speaker might assume when reading Klingon text written in the Latin alphabet, thus causing the consonants of a word to be more prominent. This enhances the sense that Klingon is a clipped and harsh-sounding language.
Vowel
s
Diphthong
s can be analyzed phonetically as the combination of the five vowels plus one of the two semivowel
s /w/ and /j/ (represented by <w> and <y>, respectively). Thus, the combinations <ay>, <ey>, <Iy>, <oy>, <uy>, <aw>, <ew> and <Iw> are possible. There are no words in the Klingon language that contain *<ow> or *<uw>.
structure is strict. A syllable must start with a consonant (which includes the glottal stop) followed by one vowel. In prefixes and other rare syllables, this is enough. More commonly, this consonant-vowel pair is followed by one consonant or one of three biconsonantal codas: /-w' -y' -rgh/. Thus, ta "record", tar "poison" and targh "targ" (a type of animal) are all legal syllable forms, but *tarD and *ar are not. Despite this, there is one suffix that takes the shape vowel+consonant: the endearment suffix -oy.
s, the stressed syllable is usually the verb itself, as opposed to a prefix or any suffixes, except when a suffix ending with <'> is separated from the verb by at least one other suffix, in which case the suffix ending in <'> is also stressed. In addition, stress may shift to a suffix that is meant to be emphasized.
In noun
s, the final syllable of the stem (the noun itself, excluding any affixes) is stressed. If any syllables ending in <'> are present, the stress shifts to those syllables.
The stress in other words seems to be variable, but this is not a serious issue because most of these words are only one syllable in length. There are some words which should fall under the rules above, but do not, although using the standard rules would still be acceptable.
language, using mainly affixes in order to alter the function or meaning of words. Some nouns have inherently plural forms, such as jengva' "plate" (vs. ngop "plates"). In other cases, a suffix is required to denote plurality. Depending on the type of noun (body part, being capable of using language, or neither) the suffix changes. For beings capable of using language, the suffix is -pu', as in tlhInganpu', meaning "Klingon
s," or jaghpu', meaning "enemies". For body parts, the plural suffix is -Du', as in qeylIS mInDu', "the Eyes of Kahless". For items that are neither body parts, nor capable of speech, the suffix is -mey, such as in Sarghmey ("sarks") for the Klingon horse, or targhmey ("targs") for a Klingon kind of boar. In certain cases, however, there is a word part that defines gender. The words puqloD and puqbe' (meaning "son" and "daughter" respectively) when referenced with other words, imply that -loD means "male", where -be' is female (puq- meaning "child").
Klingon noun
s take suffixes to indicate grammatical number
. There are three noun class
es, two levels of deixis
, and a possession and syntactic function. In all, twenty-nine noun suffixes from five classes may be employed: jupoypu'na'wI'vaD "for my beloved true friends". Speakers are limited to no more than one suffix from each class to be added to a word, and the classes have a specific order of appearance.
Another important suffix is -ngan, as in romuluSngan. It denotes that someone or something is from the first part of the word (in this case, Romulus). In cases like vereng (Ferenginar) the last ng is dropped in favour of the suffix.
Verb
s in Klingon take a prefix indicating the number and person of the subject and object, whereas suffixes are taken from nine ordered classes, and a special suffix class called rovers. Each of the four known rovers has a unique rule controlling its position among the suffixes in the verb. Verbs are marked for aspect
, certainty, predisposition and volition, dynamic, causative
, mood
, negation
, and honorific
, and the Klingon verb has two moods: indicative
and imperative
.
The most common word order
in Klingon is Object Verb Subject
, and, in some cases, the word order is the exact reverse of analogous word orders in English:
DaH mojaq-mey-vam DI-vuS-nIS-be' 'e' vI-Har
now suffix-PL-DEM 1PL.A.3PL.P-limit-need-NEG that 1SG.A.3SG.P-believe
"I believe that we do not need to limit these suffixes now."
Note that hyphens are used in the above only to illustrate the use of affixes. Hyphens are not used in Klingon.
An important dimension of Klingon grammar is the reality of the language's ungrammaticality. A notable property of the language is its shortening or compression of communicative declarations. This abbreviating feature encompasses the techniques of Clipped Klingon (tlhIngan Hol poD or, more simply, Hol poD) and Ritualized Speech. Clipped Klingon is especially useful in situations where speed is a decisive factor. Grammar is irrelevant, and sentence parts deemed to be superfluous are dropped. Intentional ungrammaticality is widespread, and it takes many forms. It is exemplified by the practice of pabHa', which Marc Okrand translates as "to misfollow the rules" or "to follow the rules wrongly".
as used above, but, on the television series, the Klingons use their own alien writing system. In The Klingon Dictionary, this alphabet is named as pIqaD, but no information is given about it. When Klingon symbols are used in Star Trek productions, they are merely decorative graphic elements, designed to emulate real writing
and create an appropriate atmosphere. Enthusiasts have settled on pIqaD for this writing system.
The Astra Image Corporation designed the symbols (currently used to "write" Klingon) for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
, although these symbols are often incorrectly attributed to Michael Okuda
. They based the letters on the Klingon battlecruiser
hull markings (three letters) first created by Matt Jefferies
and on Tibetan writing
because the script has sharp letter formsused as a testament to the Klingons' love for knives and blades.
There are also many in-jokes built into the language. For example, the word for "pair" is chang'eng, a reference to the twins Chang and Eng
, and the word for "fish" is ghotI'
.
' A Christmas Carol
in Klingon language and a Klingon setting. On September 25, 2010, the Washington Shakespeare Company performed selections from Hamlet
and Much Ado About Nothing
in the Klingon language in Arlington, Virginia. The performance was proposed by Okrand in his capacity as chairman of the group's board. This performance was reprised on February 27, 2011 featuring Stephen Fry
as the Klingon Osric and was filmed by the BBC
as part of a 5-part upcoming documentary on language entitled Fry's Planet Word
.
In "Star Mitzvah", a Season 10 episode of the sitcom Frasier
, Frasier Crane
gives a speech in Klingon at the ceremony for his son becoming a Bar Mitzvah — having been fooled by a Jewish colleague he had let down into thinking it was Hebrew.
In "Witch Hunt", an episode of the television crime drama NCIS
, Timothy McGee
, who understands Klingon, communicates with a suspect dressed as a Klingon at a Halloween party, until, his superior, Leroy Jethro Gibbs
, becomes impatient enough to force the suspect to speak in English.
A cryptic message left by a serial killer in Klingon is a plot point in the novel Watch Me by A. J. Holt.
In The Big Bang Theory
there are frequent references to Klingon. In the Third Season episode "The Wheaton Recurrence", Sheldon
actually quotes the Klingon proverb referred to by Khan in Star Trek II: revenge being a dish best served cold.
Google
offers a Klingon interface.
In episode 11 of the twelfth season of The Simpsons
, (entitled Worst Episode Ever
), Comic book guy is tossed out of Moe's bar. Lying in the gutter, he asks himself, "Is there a word in Klingon for loneliness?" Flipping through his handy pocket dictionary, he looks skyward and exclaims, "Garr'dock!". Likewise, he recites a Klingon oath of love in the episode My Big Fat Geek Wedding
when about to marry Edna Krabappel on a Star Trek convention.
In the 2011 film Paul
, the main characters played by Simon Pegg
and Nick Frost
use Klingon as a form of secret communication.
Klingon Language Institute
http://eurotalk.com/klingoneurotalk
Klingon language homepage]
http://www.tlhInganQumnmem.comHomepage of tlhIngan Qummem and qe'San translator who worked with Marc Okrand on the Talk Now! Learn Klingon language course from Eurotalk
]
Klingon and its User: A Sociolinguistic Profile, a sociolinguistics
MA thesis
Klingon as Linguistic Capital: A Sociologic Study of Nineteen Advanced Klingonists (PDF)
Klingonska Akademien
Is Klingon an Ohlonean language? A comparison of Mutsun and Klingon
Omniglot: Klingon Alphabet
Klingon wikia dictionary in Klingon
Eatoni Ergonomics' Klingon page includes BDF, TTF fonts and a Klingon text entry demo
Klingon Book of Mormon
Constructed language
A planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
spoken by the fictional Klingon
Klingon
Klingons are a fictional warrior race in the Star Trek universe.Klingons are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and eight feature films...
s in the Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
universe.
Deliberately designed by Marc Okrand
Marc Okrand
Marc Okrand is an American linguist and is most notable as the creator of the Klingon language, which he speaks.-Biography:Okrand worked with Native American languages. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1972...
to be "alien", it has a number of typologically
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
uncommon features. The language's basic sound, along with a few words, was first devised by actor James Doohan
James Doohan
James Montgomery "Jimmy" Doohan was a Canadian character and voice actor best known for his role as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the television and film series Star Trek...
("Scotty
Montgomery Scott
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott is a Scottish engineer in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by James Doohan in the original Star Trek series, Scotty also appears in the animated Star Trek series, seven Star Trek movies, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics", and in numerous...
") for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
. That film marked the first time the language had been heard on screen. In all previous appearances, Klingons spoke in English. Klingon was subsequently developed by Okrand into a full-fledged language.
Klingon is sometimes referred to as Klingonese (most notably in the Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", where it was actually pronounced by a Klingon character as "Klingonee" /klɪŋɡoni/) but, among the Klingon-speaking community, this is often understood to refer to another Klingon language called Klingonaase that was introduced in John M. Ford
John M. Ford
John Milo "Mike" Ford was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, game designer, and poet.Ford was regarded as an extraordinarily intelligent, erudite and witty man. He was a popular contributor to several online discussions...
's 1988 Star Trek novel The Final Reflection
The Final Reflection
The Final Reflection is a 1984 Star Trek tie-in novel by John M. Ford which emphasizes developments of Klingon language and culture. The novel provided the foundation for the FASA Star Trek role-playing game sourcebooks dealing with the Klingon elements of the game...
, and appears in other Star Trek novels by Ford. A shorthand version of Klingonaase is called "battle language", or "Clipped Klingon". The Klingon Christmas Carol
Klingon Christmas Carol
The Klingon Christmas Carol is the first play to be performed entirely in the Klingon language. It was written by Christopher O. Kidder and Sasha Walloch and was originally translated by Laura Thurston, Bill Hedrick and Christopher O. Kidder...
play is the first production that is primarily in Klingon (only the narrator speaks English). The opera 'u' is entirely in Klingon.
A small number of people are capable of conversing in Klingon. Its vocabulary, heavily centered on Star Trek-Klingon concepts such as spacecraft
Klingon starships
In the Star Trek franchise, the Klingon Empire makes use of several classes of starships. As the Klingons are portrayed as a warrior culture, driven by the pursuit of honor and glory, the Empire is shown to use warships almost exclusively. This contrasts with the exploration and research vessels...
or warfare, can sometimes make it cumbersome for everyday use.
History
Though mentioned in the original Star Trek series episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", Klingon first appeared on-screen in Star Trek: The Motion PictureStar Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
(1979). For Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a 1984 motion picture released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the third feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the center of a three-film story arc that begins with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and concludes with Star Trek IV:...
(1984) director Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
and writer-producer Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett is an American television and film producer and screenwriter.-Early years:...
wanted the Klingons to speak a proper language instead of made-up gibberish
Gibberish
Gibberish is a generic term in English for talking that sounds like speech, but carries no actual meaning. This meaning has also been extended to meaningless text or gobbledygook. The common theme in gibberish statements is a lack of literal sense, which can be described as a presence of nonsense...
and so commissioned Okrand to develop the phrases Doohan had come up with into a full language. Okrand enlarged the lexicon and developed grammar around the original dozen words Doohan had created. The language appeared intermittently in later films featuring the original cast - for example, in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a 1989 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fifth feature in the franchise and the penultimate to star the cast of the original Star Trek science fiction television series...
and in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the sixth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the last of the Star Trek films to include the entire main cast of the 1960s Star Trek television series. Released in 1991 by Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Nicholas Meyer and...
(1991), where translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
difficulties served as a plot device
Plot device
A plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
.
With the advent of the series Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
(1987) in which one of the main characters, Worf
Worf
Worf, played by Michael Dorn, is a main character in Star Trek: The Next Generation and in seasons four to seven of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He also appears in the films based on The Next Generation. Worf is the first Klingon main character to appear in Star Trek, and has appeared in more Star...
, was a Klingon—and successors, the language and various cultural aspects for the fictional species were expanded. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
episode "A Matter of Honor", several members of a Klingon ship's crew speak a language that is not translated for the benefit of the viewer (even Commander Riker, enjoying the benefits of a universal translator
Universal translator
A universal translator is a device common to many science fiction works, especially on television. First described in Murray Leinster's 1945 novella "First Contact", the translator's purpose is to offer an instant translation of any language...
, is unable to understand) until one Klingon orders the others to "speak their [i.e. 'humans'] language".
The use of untranslated Klingon words interspersed with conversation translated into English was commonplace in later seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe...
, when Klingons became a more important part of the series' overall plot-arcs.
Worf would later reappear among the regular characters in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe...
(1993) and B'Elanna Torres
B'Elanna Torres
B'Elanna Torres is a main character in Star Trek: Voyager played by Roxann Dawson. She is portrayed as a half-human half-Klingon born in 2349 on the Federation colony Kessik IV. Torres joined the Maquis in 2370 and was serving on the Val Jean when brought to the Delta Quadrant...
, a Klingon-human hybrid, would become a main character on Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while...
(1995). The pilot episode of the prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
series Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series. It follows the adventures of humanity's first warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001...
, "Broken Bow" (2001) describes the Klingon language as having "eighty polyguttural dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s constructed on an adaptive syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
". However, Klingon as described on television is often not entirely congruous with the Klingon developed by Okrand.
Language
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...
), Hamlet
The Klingon Hamlet
The Klingon Hamlet was a project to translate William Shakespeare's Hamlet into Klingon, a constructed language first appearing in the television series Star Trek....
(Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
), paghmo' tIn mIS (Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
) and pIn'a' qan paQDI'norgh (Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching
The Tao Te Ching, Dao De Jing, or Daodejing , also simply referred to as the Laozi, whose authorship has been attributed to Laozi, is a Chinese classic text...
). The Shakespearian choices were inspired by a remark from High Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the sixth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the last of the Star Trek films to include the entire main cast of the 1960s Star Trek television series. Released in 1991 by Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Nicholas Meyer and...
, who said, "You have not experienced Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, until you have read him in the original Klingon". In the bonus material for the DVD, screenwriter Nicholas Meyer and actor William Shatner both explain that this was an allusion to the "German myth" that Shakespeare was in fact German.
The Klingon Language Institute
Klingon Language Institute
The Klingon Language Institute is an independent organization located in Flourtown, Pennsylvania, USA. Its goal is to promote the Klingon language and culture.- General :About 2500 members in over 50 countries all over the world have joined the KLI...
exists to promote the language.
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
owns a copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
to the official dictionary and other canonical descriptions of the language. Additionally, while the validity is disputed by legal scholars, the copyright of the Klingon language is owned by Paramount as well. While constructed languages ("conlangs") are viewed as creations with copyright protection, natural languages are not protected, excluding dictionaries and/or other works created with them. Mizuki Miyashita and Laura Moll note, "Copyrights on dictionaries are unusual because the entries in the dictionary are not copyrightable as the words themselves are facts, and facts can not be copyrighted. However, the formatting, example sentences, and instructions for dictionary use are created by the author, so they are copyrightable."
Features of the Klingon language were inspired by various real Earth languages studied by Okrand, particularly indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
. Okrand himself has stated that a design principle of the Klingon language was dissimilarity to existing natural languages in general, and English in particular. He therefore avoided patterns that are typologically
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
common and deliberately chose features that occur relatively infrequently in human languages. This includes above all the highly asymmetric consonant inventory and the basic word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
.
Speakers
A small number of people are capable of conversing in Klingon. Its vocabulary, heavily centered on Star Trek-Klingon concepts such as spacecraftKlingon starships
In the Star Trek franchise, the Klingon Empire makes use of several classes of starships. As the Klingons are portrayed as a warrior culture, driven by the pursuit of honor and glory, the Empire is shown to use warships almost exclusively. This contrasts with the exploration and research vessels...
or warfare, can sometimes make it cumbersome for everyday use. For instance, while there are words for transporter ionizer unit (jolvoy) or bridge (of a ship) (meH) there is currently no word for bridge in the sense of a crossing over water. Nonetheless, mundane conversations are common among skilled speakers.
One Klingon speaker taught his son to speak Klingon as his first language, with English as a second. The experiment was successful for the first several years, but when the child started school he started talking more in English as this was the more useful language for communication with his peers.
In May 2009, Simon & Schuster, in collaboration with Ultralingua
Ultralingua
Ultralingua is a single-click and drag-and-drop multilingual translation dictionary, thesaurus, and language reference utility. The full suite of Ultralingua language tools is available free online without the need for download and installation....
Inc., a developer of electronic dictionary applications, announced the release of a suite of electronic Klingon language software for most computer platforms including a dictionary, a phrasebook, and an audio learning tool.
In September 2011, eurotalk
Eurotalk
EuroTalk is a company that develops interactive language learning software, based in London.Their product is a set of CD-ROMs that are all essentially the same in their own level except that each disc has been altered to the language it's made for. At present 131 languages are offered, including...
released the "Learn Klingon" course in their Talk Now! range of over 130 languages and includes a choice of more than 120 languages to learn from just by changing the help language. The course is broken down into topics and made up of practice and learning games as well as the ability to test your skills with the speech recognition software. The language is displayed in both Latin and pIqaD fonts making this the first language course written in pIqaD and approved by CBS and Marc Okrand. It was translated by Jonathan Brown and Marc Okrand
Marc Okrand
Marc Okrand is an American linguist and is most notable as the creator of the Klingon language, which he speaks.-Biography:Okrand worked with Native American languages. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1972...
and uses the Hol-pIqaD truetype
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
font.
Canon
An important concept to spoken and written Klingon is canonCanon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
icity. Only words and grammatical forms introduced by Marc Okrand are considered canonical Klingon by the KLI and most Klingonists. However, as the growing number of speakers employ different strategies to express themselves, it is often unclear as to what level of neologism is permissible.
Within the fictional universe of Star Trek, Klingon is derived from the original language spoken by the messianic figure Kahless
Kahless
In the fictional Star Trek universe, Kahless the Unforgettable is a legendary Klingon portrayed in Star Trek: The Original Series by Robert Herron and in Star Trek: The Next Generation by Kevin Conway.-History of Kahless:...
the Unforgettable, who united the Klingon home-world of Qo'noS under one empire more than 1500 years ago. Many dialects exist, but the standardized dialect of prestige is almost invariably that of the sitting emperor.
Sources
The Klingon Language Institute regards the following works as canon Klingon; they serve as sources of Klingon vocabulary and grammar for all other works.Books
- The Klingon Dictionary (TKD)
- The Klingon Way (TKW)
- Klingon for the Galactic Traveler (KGT)
- paq'batlh, an expanded libretto of the opera 'u'
- SarekSarek (Star Trek novel)Sarek is a novel by A. C. Crispin, set in the fictional Star Trek universe. It is set shortly after the motion picture Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country...
, a novel which includes some tlhIngan Hol - Federation Travel Guide, a pamphlet from Pocketbooks
Audio tapes
- Conversational Klingon (CK)
- Power Klingon (PK)
- The Klingon Way (TKW)
Electronic resources
- The Klingon Language Suite, language-learning tools from Ultralingua with Simon & Schuster
- Star Trek: KlingonStar Trek: KlingonStar Trek: Klingon is an interactive movie/computer game set in the Star Trek universe. It was written by Hilary Bader, directed by Jonathan Frakes, and featured music by Gregory Smith...
, a CD-ROM game (KCD, also STK) - Talk Now! Learn Klingon a beginners language course for the Earth based Klingon by eurotalkEurotalkEuroTalk is a company that develops interactive language learning software, based in London.Their product is a set of CD-ROMs that are all essentially the same in their own level except that each disc has been altered to the language it's made for. At present 131 languages are offered, including...
and translated by Jonathan Brown (a.k.a. qe'San) and Marc OkrandMarc OkrandMarc Okrand is an American linguist and is most notable as the creator of the Klingon language, which he speaks.-Biography:Okrand worked with Native American languages. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1972...
. (2011)
Other sources
- certain articles in HolQeD (the journal of the KLI) (HQ)
- certain Skybox Trading Cards (SKY)
- a Star Trek Bird of Prey poster (BoP)
- on-line and in-person text/speech by Marc OkrandMarc OkrandMarc Okrand is an American linguist and is most notable as the creator of the Klingon language, which he speaks.-Biography:Okrand worked with Native American languages. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1972...
(mostly newsgroup postings)
The letters in parentheses following each item (if any) indicate the acronym of each source - used when quoting canon.
Phonology
Klingon has been developed with a phonologyPhonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
that, while based on human natural language
Natural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...
s, is intended to sound alien
Alien language
Alien language is a generic term used to describe a possible language originating from a hypothetical alien species. The study of such a hypothetical language has been termed xenolinguistics, although alternative terminology such as exolinguistics has found its way into use through the medium of...
to human language. When initially developed, Paramount Pictures (owners of the Star Trek franchise
Media franchise
A media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...
) wanted the Klingon language to be guttural and harsh and Okrand wanted it to be unusual, so he selected sounds
Articulatory phonetics
The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics. In studying articulation, phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures....
that combined in ways not generally found in other languages. The effect is mainly achieved by the use of a number of retroflex
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
and uvular
Uvular consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...
consonants in the language's inventory. Klingon has twenty-one consonants and five vowels. Klingon is normally written in a variant of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
(see below). In this orthography, upper and lower case letters are not interchangeable (uppercase letters mostly represent sounds different from those expected by English speakers). In the discussion below, standard Klingon orthography appears in <angle brackets>, and the phonemic transcription
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
in the International Phonetic Alphabet is written between /slashes/.
Consonants
The inventory of consonants in Klingon is spread over a number of places of articulationPlace of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
. In spite of this, the inventory has many gaps: Klingon has no velar plosives
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
, and only one sibilant
Sibilant consonant
A sibilant is a manner of articulation of fricative and affricate consonants, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the sharp edge of the teeth, which are held close together. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, chip,...
. Deliberately, this arrangement is quite bizarre by the standards of human languages. The combination of aspirated voiceless alveolar plosive
Voiceless alveolar plosive
The voiceless alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t...
/tʰ/ and voiced retroflex plosive
Voiced retroflex plosive
The voiced retroflex plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d`. The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter d with a rightward-pointing tail protruding...
/ɖ/ is particularly unusual. For example: The consonants
Apostrophe
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
character <'> is not a punctuation mark but a full-fledged letter, representing the glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
(/ʔ/).
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Dental or alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
Postalveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate... or palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central | Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
||||||||
| Plosive Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
p /pʰ/ | t /tʰ/ | q q | ' ʔ | ||||
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
b /b/ | D ɖ | |||||||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
tlh t͡ɬ | ch t͡ʃ | Q /q͡χ/ | |||||
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
j d͡ʒ | ||||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
S ʂ | H x | ||||||
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
v /v/ | gh ɣ | |||||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m /m/ | n /n/ | ng /ŋ/ | ||||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r /r/ ([ɹ]) |
||||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
w /w/ | l /l/ | y /j/ | ||||||
Vowels
In contrast to its consonants, Klingon's inventory of vowels is simple, and similar to those of many human languages, such as Spanish. There are five vowels spaced evenly around the vowel space, with two back rounded vowels, and two front, or near-front, unrounded vowels.The two front vowels, <e> and <I>, represent sounds that are found in English, but are more open and lax than a typical English speaker might assume when reading Klingon text written in the Latin alphabet, thus causing the consonants of a word to be more prominent. This enhances the sense that Klingon is a clipped and harsh-sounding language.
Vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s
- <a> /ɑ/ open back unrounded vowel (in English spa)
- <e> /ɛ/ open-mid front unrounded vowel (in English bed)
- <I> /ɪ/ near-close near-front unrounded vowel (in English bit)
- <o> /o/ close-mid back rounded vowel (in FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
eau) - <u> /u/ close back rounded vowelClose back rounded vowelThe close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
(in Spanish tu)
Diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s can be analyzed phonetically as the combination of the five vowels plus one of the two semivowel
Semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:...
s /w/ and /j/ (represented by <w> and <y>, respectively). Thus, the combinations <ay>, <ey>, <Iy>, <oy>, <uy>, <aw>, <ew> and <Iw> are possible. There are no words in the Klingon language that contain *<ow> or *<uw>.
Syllable structure
Klingon syllableSyllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
structure is strict. A syllable must start with a consonant (which includes the glottal stop) followed by one vowel. In prefixes and other rare syllables, this is enough. More commonly, this consonant-vowel pair is followed by one consonant or one of three biconsonantal codas: /-w' -y' -rgh/. Thus, ta "record", tar "poison" and targh "targ" (a type of animal) are all legal syllable forms, but *tarD and *ar are not. Despite this, there is one suffix that takes the shape vowel+consonant: the endearment suffix -oy.
Stress
In verbVerb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s, the stressed syllable is usually the verb itself, as opposed to a prefix or any suffixes, except when a suffix ending with <'> is separated from the verb by at least one other suffix, in which case the suffix ending in <'> is also stressed. In addition, stress may shift to a suffix that is meant to be emphasized.
In noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s, the final syllable of the stem (the noun itself, excluding any affixes) is stressed. If any syllables ending in <'> are present, the stress shifts to those syllables.
The stress in other words seems to be variable, but this is not a serious issue because most of these words are only one syllable in length. There are some words which should fall under the rules above, but do not, although using the standard rules would still be acceptable.
Grammar
Klingon is an agglutinativeAgglutination
In contemporary linguistics, agglutination usually refers to the kind of morphological derivation in which there is a one-to-one correspondence between affixes and syntactical categories. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative languages...
language, using mainly affixes in order to alter the function or meaning of words. Some nouns have inherently plural forms, such as jengva' "plate" (vs. ngop "plates"). In other cases, a suffix is required to denote plurality. Depending on the type of noun (body part, being capable of using language, or neither) the suffix changes. For beings capable of using language, the suffix is -pu', as in tlhInganpu', meaning "Klingon
Klingon
Klingons are a fictional warrior race in the Star Trek universe.Klingons are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and eight feature films...
s," or jaghpu', meaning "enemies". For body parts, the plural suffix is -Du', as in qeylIS mInDu', "the Eyes of Kahless". For items that are neither body parts, nor capable of speech, the suffix is -mey, such as in Sarghmey ("sarks") for the Klingon horse, or targhmey ("targs") for a Klingon kind of boar. In certain cases, however, there is a word part that defines gender. The words puqloD and puqbe' (meaning "son" and "daughter" respectively) when referenced with other words, imply that -loD means "male", where -be' is female (puq- meaning "child").
Klingon noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s take suffixes to indicate grammatical number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
. There are three noun class
Noun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es, two levels of deixis
Deixis
In linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place...
, and a possession and syntactic function. In all, twenty-nine noun suffixes from five classes may be employed: jupoypu'na'wI'vaD "for my beloved true friends". Speakers are limited to no more than one suffix from each class to be added to a word, and the classes have a specific order of appearance.
Another important suffix is -ngan, as in romuluSngan. It denotes that someone or something is from the first part of the word (in this case, Romulus). In cases like vereng (Ferenginar) the last ng is dropped in favour of the suffix.
Verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s in Klingon take a prefix indicating the number and person of the subject and object, whereas suffixes are taken from nine ordered classes, and a special suffix class called rovers. Each of the four known rovers has a unique rule controlling its position among the suffixes in the verb. Verbs are marked for aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
, certainty, predisposition and volition, dynamic, causative
Causative
In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
, mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
, negation
Negation
In logic and mathematics, negation, also called logical complement, is an operation on propositions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. Intuitively, the negation of a proposition is true when that proposition is false, and vice versa. In classical logic negation is normally identified...
, and honorific
Honorific
An honorific is a word or expression with connotations conveying esteem or respect when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term is used not quite correctly to refer to an honorary title...
, and the Klingon verb has two moods: indicative
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
and imperative
Imperative mood
The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
.
The most common word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
in Klingon is Object Verb Subject
Object Verb Subject
In linguistic typology, Object–verb–subject or object–verb–agent is a rare permutation of word order. OVS denotes the sequence object–verb–subject in unmarked expressions: Oranges ate Sam, Thorns have roses. While the passive voice in English may appear to be in the OVS order, this is not an...
, and, in some cases, the word order is the exact reverse of analogous word orders in English:
DaH mojaq-mey-vam DI-vuS-nIS-be' 'e' vI-Har
now suffix-PL-DEM 1PL.A.3PL.P-limit-need-NEG that 1SG.A.3SG.P-believe
"I believe that we do not need to limit these suffixes now."
Note that hyphens are used in the above only to illustrate the use of affixes. Hyphens are not used in Klingon.
An important dimension of Klingon grammar is the reality of the language's ungrammaticality. A notable property of the language is its shortening or compression of communicative declarations. This abbreviating feature encompasses the techniques of Clipped Klingon (tlhIngan Hol poD or, more simply, Hol poD) and Ritualized Speech. Clipped Klingon is especially useful in situations where speed is a decisive factor. Grammar is irrelevant, and sentence parts deemed to be superfluous are dropped. Intentional ungrammaticality is widespread, and it takes many forms. It is exemplified by the practice of pabHa', which Marc Okrand translates as "to misfollow the rules" or "to follow the rules wrongly".
Writing systems
Klingon is often written (transliterated) to the Latin alphabetLatin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
as used above, but, on the television series, the Klingons use their own alien writing system. In The Klingon Dictionary, this alphabet is named as pIqaD, but no information is given about it. When Klingon symbols are used in Star Trek productions, they are merely decorative graphic elements, designed to emulate real writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
and create an appropriate atmosphere. Enthusiasts have settled on pIqaD for this writing system.
The Astra Image Corporation designed the symbols (currently used to "write" Klingon) for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
, although these symbols are often incorrectly attributed to Michael Okuda
Michael Okuda
- Work in Star Trek :In the mid-1980s, he designed the look of animated computer displays for the Enterprise-A bridge in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. This led to a staff position on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987 as a scenic artist, adding detail to set designs and props...
. They based the letters on the Klingon battlecruiser
Klingon starships
In the Star Trek franchise, the Klingon Empire makes use of several classes of starships. As the Klingons are portrayed as a warrior culture, driven by the pursuit of honor and glory, the Empire is shown to use warships almost exclusively. This contrasts with the exploration and research vessels...
hull markings (three letters) first created by Matt Jefferies
Matt Jefferies
Walter Matthew Jefferies — known as Matt Jeffries — was an aviation and mechanical artist, set designer and writer, best known for designing the original Starship Enterprise for the Star Trek television series....
and on Tibetan writing
Tibetan script
The Tibetan alphabet is an abugida of Indic origin used to write the Tibetan language as well as the Dzongkha language, Denzongkha, Ladakhi language and sometimes the Balti language. The printed form of the alphabet is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday...
because the script has sharp letter formsused as a testament to the Klingons' love for knives and blades.
Vocabulary
A design principle of the Klingon language is the great degree of lexical-cultural correlation in the vocabulary. For example, there are several words meaning "to fight" or "to clash against," each having a different degree of intensity. There is an abundance of words relating to warfare and weaponry and also a great variety of curses (cursing is considered a fine art in Klingon culture). This helps lend a particular character to the language.There are also many in-jokes built into the language. For example, the word for "pair" is chang'eng, a reference to the twins Chang and Eng
Chang and Eng Bunker
Chang and Eng Bunker were the conjoined twin brothers whose condition and birthplace became the basis for the term "Siamese twins".-Life:...
, and the word for "fish" is ghotI'
Ghoti
Ghoti is a constructed word used to illustrate irregularities in English spelling. It is a respelling of the word fish: i.e., it is supposed to be pronounced...
.
Example Sentences
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | jIl moH ghajjaj jaghHomlIj |
| English: | May your little enemy have an ugly neighbor |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | vIt'e' naD lalDan 'e' tIv |
| English: | He enjoys religion praising Truth |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | tlhab 'oS 'Iw HoHwI' So' batlh |
| English: | Blood represents freedom; honor hides the killer |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | romuluSngan Hol yIjatlh. He'So' QIchlIj. |
| English: | Speak Romulan! Your accent stinks. |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | vavlI' quv Say'moHmeH nuj bIQ vIlo'chugh, nuj bIQ vIlammoH. |
| English: | If I use spit (mouth water) to clean your father's honor, I only dirty the spit. |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | nov nay qoj neH. nav noy nej qoH. |
| English: | The cliff merely marries the alien. The fool searches for famous paper. |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | rut lo' chav meb. lot ru' mev chab. |
| English: | Somtimes a guest achieves a use. The dumpling stops a minor catastrophe. |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | pu'chaj buSlaH ngotlhwI'. cha'puj ngoSlaH butlhwI'. |
| English: | The fanatic can think only about his phaser. The dirt under my fingernails can melt dilithium. |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | mo'Dajvo' pa'wIjDaq je narghpu' He'So'bogh SajlIj. |
| English: | Your stinking pet has escaped from its cage and appeared in my quarters. |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | qajunpaQHeylIjmo' batlh DuSuvqang charghwI' 'It. (a pangram) |
| English: | Because of your apparent audacity the depressed conqueror is willing to fight you. |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | nobwI''a'pu'qoqvam'e' nuHegh'eghrupqa'moHlaHbe'law'lI'neS SeH'eghtaHghach'a'na'chajmo'. |
| English: | The so-called great benefactors are seemingly unable to cause us to prepare to resume honorable suicide (in progress) due to their definite self control.. |
| Klingon: | |
| tlhIngan Hol: | be'HomDu'na'wIjtIq'a'Du'na'vaD ghureghqangqa'moHlaHqu'be'taH'a' Somraw'a'meyna'wIj'e'. |
| English: | Is it not that my many, large, scattered muscles are quite capable of swelling for the benefit of the hearts of many scattered little women?. |
Appearances in other media
In 2010, a Chicago Theatre company presented a version of Charles DickensCharles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
' A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
in Klingon language and a Klingon setting. On September 25, 2010, the Washington Shakespeare Company performed selections from Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
and Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
in the Klingon language in Arlington, Virginia. The performance was proposed by Okrand in his capacity as chairman of the group's board. This performance was reprised on February 27, 2011 featuring Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
as the Klingon Osric and was filmed by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
as part of a 5-part upcoming documentary on language entitled Fry's Planet Word
Fry's Planet Word
Fry's Planet Word is a documentary series about language. Written and Presented by Stephen Fry, the first of five, hour-long episodes was broadcast on 25 September 2011 on BBC HD and two days later on BBC Two. The series is produced and directed by John-Paul Davidson who worked with Fry on two...
.
In "Star Mitzvah", a Season 10 episode of the sitcom Frasier
Frasier
Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993, to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Grammnet and Paramount Network Television.A spin-off of Cheers, Frasier stars...
, Frasier Crane
Frasier Crane
Frasier W. Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A. is a fictional character on the American television sitcoms Frasier and Cheers. He was played by Kelsey Grammer for 20 years, tying the record for the longest-running character on prime-time American television, which was set by James Arness, who played Marshal...
gives a speech in Klingon at the ceremony for his son becoming a Bar Mitzvah — having been fooled by a Jewish colleague he had let down into thinking it was Hebrew.
In "Witch Hunt", an episode of the television crime drama NCIS
NCIS (TV series)
NCIS, formerly known as NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is an American police procedural drama television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducts criminal investigations involving the U.S...
, Timothy McGee
Timothy McGee
Timothy "Tim" McGee is a fictional character from the CBS television series NCIS. He is portrayed by Sean Murray. Timothy McGee is a special agent investigating crime in this police procedural show...
, who understands Klingon, communicates with a suspect dressed as a Klingon at a Halloween party, until, his superior, Leroy Jethro Gibbs
Leroy Jethro Gibbs
Leroy Jethro Gibbs is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the CBS TV series NCIS. He is portrayed by Mark Harmon.-Background:...
, becomes impatient enough to force the suspect to speak in English.
A cryptic message left by a serial killer in Klingon is a plot point in the novel Watch Me by A. J. Holt.
In The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom serve as executive producers on the show, along with Steven Molaro. All three also serve as head writers...
there are frequent references to Klingon. In the Third Season episode "The Wheaton Recurrence", Sheldon
Sheldon Cooper
Sheldon Lee Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D. is a fictional character from Texas on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Jim Parsons...
actually quotes the Klingon proverb referred to by Khan in Star Trek II: revenge being a dish best served cold.
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
offers a Klingon interface.
In episode 11 of the twelfth season of The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, (entitled Worst Episode Ever
Worst Episode Ever
"Worst Episode Ever" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons twelfth season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 4, 2001. In the episode, Bart and Milhouse are banned from The Android's Dungeon after stopping Comic Book Guy from buying a box of priceless...
), Comic book guy is tossed out of Moe's bar. Lying in the gutter, he asks himself, "Is there a word in Klingon for loneliness?" Flipping through his handy pocket dictionary, he looks skyward and exclaims, "Garr'dock!". Likewise, he recites a Klingon oath of love in the episode My Big Fat Geek Wedding
My Big Fat Geek Wedding
"My Big Fat Geek Wedding" is the 17th episode of The Simpsons fifteenth season, first aired on April 18, 2004. The episode was originally planned to air on April 4, 2004, but due to the voice actors going on strike, FOX aired a rerun instead....
when about to marry Edna Krabappel on a Star Trek convention.
In the 2011 film Paul
Paul (film)
Paul is a 2011 science fiction comedy film directed by Greg Mottola, written by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It stars Pegg, Frost, and the voice of Seth Rogen as the title character...
, the main characters played by Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer, and director. He is best known for having co-written and stared in various Edgar Wright features, mainly Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the comedy series Spaced.He also portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the 2009 Star Trek film...
and Nick Frost
Nick Frost
Nicholas John "Nick" Frost is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter. He is best known for his work with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in the role of Mike Watt in the television comedy Spaced, as well as the film characters Ed in Shaun of the Dead, PC/Sgt...
use Klingon as a form of secret communication.
See also
- Alien languageAlien languageAlien language is a generic term used to describe a possible language originating from a hypothetical alien species. The study of such a hypothetical language has been termed xenolinguistics, although alternative terminology such as exolinguistics has found its way into use through the medium of...
- Klingon cultureKlingon cultureKlingon culture describes the customs and practices of Klingons in the fictional Star Trek universe.-Portrayal over time:In the original series the conflict between the Federation and Klingon Empire was modelled on the Cold War between the Western countries and the Soviet Union...
- Klingon Language InstituteKlingon Language InstituteThe Klingon Language Institute is an independent organization located in Flourtown, Pennsylvania, USA. Its goal is to promote the Klingon language and culture.- General :About 2500 members in over 50 countries all over the world have joined the KLI...
- StovokorStovokor (band)Stovokor is a death metal band from Portland, Oregon . Its five members are Bill Salfelder , vocals; Merlin Carson , lead guitar; Ward Young , rhythm guitar, Jason Lewis , bass guitar; and Jason Johansen , drums.-About:The band is named for Sto-vo-kor, the afterlife of Star Trek's fictional aliens...
, a heavy metal band who sing in Klingon - ’u’’u’’u’ is the first opera in the Klingon language, billed as "The first authentic Klingon opera on Earth". It was composed by Eef van Breen to a libretto by Kees Ligtelijn and Marc Okrand under the artistic direction of Floris Schönfeld...
, the first Klingon opera performed on Earth
External links
Eurotalk
EuroTalk is a company that develops interactive language learning software, based in London.Their product is a set of CD-ROMs that are all essentially the same in their own level except that each disc has been altered to the language it's made for. At present 131 languages are offered, including...
Klingon language homepage]
Eurotalk
EuroTalk is a company that develops interactive language learning software, based in London.Their product is a set of CD-ROMs that are all essentially the same in their own level except that each disc has been altered to the language it's made for. At present 131 languages are offered, including...
]
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...
MA thesis