Klingon language

constructed language created for Star Trek From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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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.

Quick Facts Dingon, Pronunciation ...
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History

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

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:

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Writing

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.

More information Latin transcription, IPA ...

References

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