Marc Okrand
Encyclopedia
Klingon language
The Klingon language is the constructed language spoken by the fictional Klingons in the Star Trek universe....
, which he speaks.
Biography
Okrand worked with Native AmericanIndigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
languages. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
in 1972. His 1977 doctoral dissertation from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, was on the grammar of Mutsun, a dialect of Ohlone
Ohlone
The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan, are a Native American people of the central California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from San Francisco Bay through Monterey Bay to the lower Salinas Valley...
(a.k.a. Southern Costanoan), which is an extinct Utian language formerly spoken in the north central Californian coastal areas from Northern Costanoan down to 30 miles south of Salinas
Salinas, California
Salinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census...
(his dissertation was supervised by pioneering linguist Mary Haas
Mary Haas
Mary Rosamund Haas was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics.-Early work in linguistics:...
). He taught linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara before taking a post doctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, in 1978.
Okrand took a job at the National Captioning Institute
National Captioning Institute
The National Captioning Institute is a non-profit organization that provides closed captioning for television and films. Created in 1979 and headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, the organization was the first to caption live TV and home video, and holds the trademark on the display icon featuring a...
, where he worked on the first closed-captioning system for hearing impaired television viewers. While coordinating closed captioning for the Oscars award show in 1982, Dr. Okrand met the producer for the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. The plot features James T...
. He was hired by Paramount Pictures
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...
to develop the Klingon language and coach the actors using it in 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:...
, 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...
, 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...
and 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...
. His first work was dubbing in Vulcan
Vulcan (Star Trek)
Vulcans, or sometimes Vulcanians, are an extraterrestrial humanoid species in the Star Trek universe who evolved on the planet Vulcan, and are noted for their attempt to live by reason and logic with no interference from emotion. They were the first extraterrestrial species in the Star Trek...
language dialogue for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, since the actors had already been filmed talking in English. He has since consulted for the 2009 Star Trek film in their use of the Romulan and Vulcan languages.
Okrand is the author of two books about Klingon – The Klingon Dictionary
The Klingon Dictionary
The Klingon Dictionary is a book by Marc Okrand describing the Klingon language. First published in 1985 and then again with an addendum in 1992, it includes pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary...
(first published 1985) and Klingon for the Galactic Traveler (1997). He has also co-authored the libretto of an opera in the Klingon language: 'u', debuting at The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
in September 2010. The tlh sound that he incorporated into Klingon, unusual to speakers of North American English, is common in other English accents, and in North and Central American indigenous languages, in which it is usually transcribed as tl, tł or ƛ (a voiceless alveolar affricate
Voiceless alveolar affricate
The voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩ . The voiceless alveolar affricate occurs in such languages as German, Cantonese, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Mandarin...
with lateral release); this is the sound at the end of the word "Nahuatl
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...
". He speaks Klingon, but notes that others have attained greater fluency.
Okrand taught undergraduate linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
courses at the University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
, from 1975 to 1978.
More recently, Okrand created the Atlantean language
Atlantean language
The Atlantean language is a constructed language created by Marc Okrand for Disney's film Atlantis: The Lost Empire. The language was intended as a possible "mother language" and was therefore crafted to include a vast Indo-European word stock with its very own grammar, which is at times described...
for the Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
film Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a 2001 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. Written by Tab Murphy, directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and produced by Don Hahn, it is the first science fiction film in the Disney animated features canon and the 41st overall. The film...
.
Okrand currently serves as one of the directors for Live Captioning at the National Captioning Institute
National Captioning Institute
The National Captioning Institute is a non-profit organization that provides closed captioning for television and films. Created in 1979 and headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, the organization was the first to caption live TV and home video, and holds the trademark on the display icon featuring a...
and as President of the board of directors of the Washington Shakespeare Company in Arlington, Virginia. The WSC planned to stage "an evening of Shakespeare in Klingon" in 2010.
External links
- Marc Okrand on creating Klingon
- a press release about Marc Okrand at the National Captioning Institute's website
- Marc Okrand at startrek.com
- Interview with Marc Okrand in the Wall Street Journal