Look Who it Was Random video

Kelvin Jackson, Philip Newton: Introduction to Klingon [EN] - PG 2017

959 views · Published 14 January 2018 · 43:27 · Indexed 5 October 2026

Channel: Polyglot Gathering · 2018 · Education

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If you’ve watched Star Trek (and even if you haven’t), you are probably already familiar with Klingons – warlike, humanoid aliens with ridged foreheads. Although the Klingon species is fictional, their language – tlhIngan Hol – is very real, and has a small but vibrant speaker community that hangs out on various internet fora, as well as organizing meetups in the USA and Germany.

Linguistically, Klingon draws from several natural language sources, and also incorporates numerous puns in its vocabulary (i.e. QeD “science”, from “QED”; ’Iw “blood”; ’uH “to be hungover”). Marc Okrand, the creator of Klingon, intentionally designed the phonology and syntax to be as alien (to anglophones) as possible, while remaining usable by humans. Thus, the default word order is OVS, and there are numerous suffixes indicating modality (-laH “can”), qualification (-qoq “so-called”), and other categories traditionally expressed analytically in European languages.

This workshop will be accessible to Star Trek fans and non-fans alike. Come sharpen your linguistic bat’leth by learning a bit of the Warrior’s Tongue! ghojlu’meH QaQ jajvam! Qapla’!

This video was recorded at the Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava 2017 (www.polyglotbratislava.com).

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