Klingon language

Klingon
tlhIngan Hol
tlhIngan Hol
Pronunciation[ˈt͡ɬɪ.ŋɑn xol]
Created byMarc Okrand, James Doohan, Jon Povill
Setting and usageStar Trek films and television series (TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and Discovery), the opera ʼuʼ, the play A Klingon Christmas Carol, and The Big Bang Theory
Users(Around a dozen fluent speakers cited 1996)[1]
Purpose
Latin script (Klingon alphabet)
Klingon script
SourcesConstructed languages
 A priori languages
Official status
Regulated byMarc Okrand
Language codes
ISO 639-2tlh
ISO 639-3tlh
Glottologklin1234
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The Klingon language (Klingon: tlhIngan Hol, pIqaD:  , pronounced [ˈt͡ɬɪ.ŋɑn xol]) is the constructed language spoken by a fictional alien race called the Klingons in the Star Trek universe.

Described in the 1985 book The Klingon Dictionary by Marc Okrand and deliberately designed to sound "alien", it has a number of typologically uncommon features. The language's basic sound, along with a few words, was devised by actor James Doohan ("Scotty") and producer Jon Povill for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The film marked the first time the language had been heard. In all previous appearances, Klingons spoke in English, even to each other. 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" /ˈklɪŋɡɒni/), but among the Klingon-speaking community, this is often understood[2][3][4] to refer to another Klingon language called Klingonaase that was introduced in John M. Ford's 1984 Star Trek novel The Final Reflection, and appears in other Star Trek novels by Ford.[5]

The play A Klingon Christmas Carol is the first production that is primarily in Klingon (only the narrator speaks English). The opera ʼuʼ is entirely in Klingon.

A small number of people are capable of conversing in Klingon. Because its vocabulary is heavily centered on Star Trek-Klingon concepts such as spacecraft or warfare, it can be hard for everyday use because of the lack of words for a casual conversation.

  1. ^ According to Lawrence Schoen, director of the KLI. Wired 4.08: Dejpu'bogh Hov rur qablli!* Archived 2013-05-12 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ "Klingonaase". docs.verbix.com. Retrieved 2024-10-11.
  3. ^ "The KLINGONAASE Guide". www.khemorex-klinzhai.de. Retrieved 2024-10-11.
  4. ^ "Klingonaase". afrodita.rcub.bg.ac.rs. Retrieved 2024-10-11.
  5. ^ Ford, John M. (1999). The Final Reflection. Simon and Schuster. pp. 138–139. ISBN 9780671038533. Retrieved November 23, 2018.