Klingon language
| Dingon | |
|---|---|
tlhIngan Hol | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈt͡ɬɪ.ŋɑn xol] |
| Created by | Marc Okrand, James Doohan, Jon Povill |
| Setting and usage | Star Trek films and television series (TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery), the opera ʼuʼ and the Klingon Christmas Carol play. |
| Users | (Around a dozen fluent speakers cited 1996)[1] |
| Purpose | |
| Latin script (Klingon alphabet) Klingon script | |
| Sources | Constructed languages A priori languages |
| Official status | |
| Regulated by | Marc Okrand |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | tlh |
| ISO 639-3 | tlh |
| Glottolog | klin1234 |
The Klingon language (tlhIngan Hol, IPA: [ˈt͡ɬɪ.ŋɑn xol]) is a language that was made for the Klingons in the Star Trek universe. It is a constructed language, not one that developed naturally. Only a few people can speak the Klingon language well enough to talk in it. The Klingon Language Institute helps people learn Klingon.
History
[change | change source]The first Klingon words were made by the actor James Doohan in 1979 for the first Star Trek movie. When they made the third movie in 1984, Gene Roddenberry wanted to have a real language for the Klingons. Marc Okrand, a linguist (a language scientist) made the Klingon language. He has written some books about the Klingon language.
Grammar
[change | change source]Marc Okrand wanted the language to be as complicated as possible. He did this to make it sound very alien. The word order in a sentence is always object-verb-subject. This is the opposite of English's word order, which is subject-verb-object. The English sentence "I see the cat" is said as "the cat see I" in Klingon.
This language uses affixation to denote the subject and negation:
| Klingon | English |
|---|---|
| qet | run |
| maqet | we run |
| maqetbe’ | we do not run |
Writing
[change | change source]When writing in Klingon, some letters are always in uppercase and some are lowercase. This never changes because the letters are spoken differently when they are written differently.
| Latin transcription | Klingon script | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| a | 
|
/ɑ/ |
| b | 
|
/b/ |
| ch | 
|
/t͡ʃ/ |
| D | 
|
/ɖ/ |
| e | 
|
/ɛ/ |
| gh | 
|
/ɣ/ |
| H | 
|
/x/ |
| I | 
|
/ɪ/ |
| j | 
|
/d͡ʒ/ |
| l | 
|
/l/ |
| m | 
|
/m/ |
| n | 
|
/n/ |
| ng | 
|
/ŋ/ |
| o | 
|
/o/ |
| p | 
|
/pʰ/ |
| q | 
|
/qʰ/ |
| Q | 
|
/q͡χ/ |
| r | 
|
/r/ |
| S | 
|
/ʂ/ |
| t | 
|
/tʰ/ |
| tlh | 
|
/t͡ɬ/ |
| u | 
|
/u/ |
| v | 
|
/v/ |
| w | 
|
/w/ |
| y | 
|
/j/ |
| ʼ | 
|
/ʔ/ |
References
[change | change source]- ↑ According to Lawrence Schoen, director of the KLI. Wired 4.08: Dejpu'bogh Hov rur qablli!*