Portal:Constructed languages/Language of the month/February 2006

The Klingon language or Klingonese (tlhIngan Hol in Klingon) is a constructed language (an artistic language created by Marc Okrand for Paramount Pictures and spoken by Klingons in the fictional Star Trek universe). He designed the language with Object Verb Subject (OVS) word order to give an alien feel to the language. Klingon is similar to Native American languages in several aspects. The basic sound (and a very few words) were first devised by James Doohan for Star Trek: The Motion Picture; the film marked the first time the language had been heard on screen, all previous appearances of the Klingons being in English (through the in-universe use of universal translators).

Klingon is sometimes referred to as Klingonese (most notably in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles"), but among the Klingon-speaking community this is often understood to refer to another Klingon language that is described in John M. Ford's Star Trek novels as Klingonaase. Find out more...