Category: Artificial Languages

The Three Friars, in Klingon

By: | Post date: 2017-10-06 | Comments: 4 Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

I mentioned to long-time reader John Cowan, in comments, the joke of the three Finns. (“Did we come here to talk, or did we come here to drink?”) John in turn pointed me to the Old Irish joke of the three friars. Which, as a result, you can now read in Klingon—and you can now […]

What T’Kuvma actually said in the trailer

By: | Post date: 2017-10-03 | Comments: 4 Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

Following up What is T’Kuvma saying in the trailer?, a transcript of the Klingon of Episode 1 of Star Trek: Discovery is now up. (I’m a little surprised it’s up as a Facebook document, but I guess the world has moved on.) So how did I do? Me: Donatu vaghDaq DIvI’ wIlulpu’, ’a qaSpa’ (?) […]

Where I out-T’Kuvma T’Kuvma

By: | Post date: 2017-09-28 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

So, after posting What is T’Kuvma saying in the trailer?… Yes, it really was inevitable:

Kyle Kallgren: An Optimal Audience

By: | Post date: 2017-09-28 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

It’s a curious thing, having been the co-translator of the Klingon Hamlet. Those involved in the enterprise decided to efface our egos, and publish the translation as a group effort back in 1996. My name’s on the inside cover; my name’s certainly underneath the introduction, which I strongly suspected was the only bit that most […]

What is T’Kuvma saying in the trailer?

By: | Post date: 2017-09-28 | Comments: 5 Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

Klingon is back. Not that it ever really went away. And this time, Paramount is no longer massacring the language, like it did on the TV series. No more wij jup shit. Wij jup? That’s the notorious TNG Klingonese rendering of “my friend”. Literally, as “my” + “friend”. Where wIj in Klingon is a possessive suffix. […]

What would it be like to have a made up language as your first language?

By: | Post date: 2017-08-15 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

If you’re being brought up to speak Esperanto or Klingon or Lojban or (in the case of Itamar Ben-Avi) Revived Hebrew [yes, I’m calling Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s work a made up language], the main issue you’d run into is not having anyone but your parents, and maybe occasionally your parents’ weirdo friends, to use the language […]

Is it possible to speak Klingon without sounding aggressive?

By: | Post date: 2017-08-03 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

As Jarno Peschier’s answer says, the brief for Marc Okrand was to create an aggressive-sounding language, that would map onto the “Blakh Vakh Gakh” aggressive sounds James Doonan had made up for the first Star Trek movie. And Okrand accordingly went shopping for gutturals: /x, q, qχ, ʔ/ <H, q, Q, ’>. I guess you […]

Could you do your local rendition of “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”?

By: | Post date: 2017-07-24 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

https://literarydevices.net/my-kingdom-for-a-horse/ So how *would* I render this in Klingon? A battle in Star Trek space opera involves spaceships. Mobility in Star Trek involves spaceships, shuttles, and transporter beams. A quick exit in Star Trek routinely involves the latter. Therefore, obviously, jolpat! jolpat! jolpat vIDIlmeH, wo’ vInobrup! A transporter system! A transporter system! In order to […]

What question could you ask and what postgraduate degree would it nearly get you?

By: | Post date: 2017-06-19 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

http://nypost.com/2017/06/11/inside-gwyneth-paltrows-ridiculous-goop-summit/ What does fluency mean in a conlang like Klingon? Actually “fluency” is something of a misnomer I committed. What does good style mean in a conlang like Klingon? People clearly do differentiate between good Klingon and bad Klingon; on what basis do they do so, when the language is made up, and we don’t […]

What if when it’s time to go to school my son speaks only Klingon and I refuse to teach him English? Would it be considered child abuse or something?

By: | Post date: 2017-06-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

For a less emotive response, let us substitute Klingon with Norwegian, outside of Norway. It is not child abuse to bring up your kid to speak only Norwegian in Australia. As another respondent said, if they arrive at primary school with no English, they will pick up English pretty quickly at school. As is the […]

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