Talk:Klingon language/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Copyright

About the claimed copyright on the Klingon language: How is this possible? Can a language independent of any description of the language constitute a literary work under US or European copyright law? Has this been tested in any court of law? --Damian Yerrick

Damian, I don't know. The only reference I can dig up as to its copyrighted nature is http://higbee.cots.net/~holtej/klingon/faq.htm#2.12, which explain that Paramount claims copyright to the language. I doubt very much it's been tested in a court of law, but from what little I know of copyright law I suspect they might be able to - the alphabet, vocabulary, pronounciation, grammar, and so on of a language sound like a "creative work" to me, and they created it (or paid somebody else to). Of course, IANAL. --Robert Merkel

Yes, Paramount does indeed own a copyright to the Klingon language. This basically means that if anyone were to publish a book with the Klingon language in it, they would have to get permission and pay royalties to Paramount. An artificial language is a creative work unless specified that it is in the public domain. In the long term, it might have been gained more publicity for Paramount if they had not copyrighted the language, but you know how big companies are... --CSS

How can an artificial language be a protected creative work under United States copyright law? Title 17, United States Code, Section 102, defines the scope of United States copyright law, limiting copyrightable works to "literary works; musical works, including any accompanying words; dramatic works, including any accompanying music; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and architectural works." I don't see "artificial languages." Paramount could claim that because the dictionary is a literary work, the language that it describes is copyrighted. However, the Klingon language is a system of communication, and according to the same section of US law: "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work" (emphasis added by DY). How are made-up words different from made-up telephone numbers, which are uncopyrightable under Feist v. Rural|Feist v. Rural]]?

Can you point me to a link where a judge has ruled that the designer of an artificial language has the exclusive right to publish descriptions of the language or works written in the language? If not, "claims" in the parent remains correct. --Damian Yerrick

I don't know, it seems like a pretty valid claim to me, at least in the spirit of copyright law if not the letter. A conlang is generally intended as a work of art and creative expression. It makes sense to me. A lot of work goes into creating languages like this. I think it's only fair that the end result is copyright-protected (even if, as in this case, the copyright would fall to Paramount rather than Okrand, due to rules about works on commission). -Branddobbe

---

Yes, Paramount claims copyright on the language itself, which is probably just hot air. They do, however, have a perfectly valid copyright in all the published source materials--the dictionary, the language description, and so on. You probably could publish your own book on the language if you carefully avoided using any of the actual text from any of their books. They might also claim a trademark on the name "Klingon", but even that would be a stretch, especially after JCB tried doing that with "Loglan" and failed (yes, there are legal precedents on artificial languages). --LDC

I think the precident of programing languages would be relevant. One could copyright or patent BASIC, but not a program or other work written with it. IANAL, TINLA

Klingon Greeting

On the main page is "The typical greeting in Klingon literally translates into English as "I'm speaking to you, deal with it."" Unfortunately, that is incorrect. The literal definition of the Klingon Greeting (nuqneH) is "What do you want?" Go look it up.

Done a quick web search to confirm. Put into article. The Anome

"S" and "tlh"

Moved from the article: (The value of "S" and "tlh" is not certain; can someone confirm or correct?)

--cprompt 07:35, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

James Doohan

This article contends that Doohan is a linguist and came up with Vulcan and Klingon dialogue for ST-TMP. If true, surely there should be at least passing reference to this here? Quill 09:08, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm really not sure how much credence to give to this claim. Nevertheless, James Doohan was certainly skilled with dialects and accents, which I believe is why he made up some phrases for the Klingons and the Vulcans on Star Trek to say. thefamouseccles 09:56, 05 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A linguist is not somebody who know a lot of languages or dialects, but somebody who knows a lot about language in general. If you study linguistics at university, the purpose is not to learn lots of languages but what languages have in common or what sets them apart, how they came to be as they are, what they might become, how they influence and are influenced by each other and how language is stored and computed in the brain. Doohan was not a linguist but certainly was good with accents and dialects of English. --Kaleissin 14:25:19, 2005-08-19 (UTC), who incidentally is a linguist

Detailed reading will bring out that Doohan created specifically the Klingon words spoken by Mark Lenard as the Klingon Commander in Star Trek the Motion Picture. This included things like >cha'< and other things you can transcribe if you like. Marc Okrand wisely used ALL of it when he developed the full language... so Doohan only created the "style" by the few words he developed. Okrand is responsible for 99.9% of it... but indeed Doohan did get the ball rolling. The Vulcan issue is different. Originally the Vulcan scenes were scripted in Vulcan (devised by Doohan, we're told)... but then they decided to not use subtitles, so the actors instead spoke stilted English. Then they changed their mind again: so now similar sounding 'new' Vulcan words were fitted to the actor's lip movements from speaking English. So, I don't think Doohan's original Vulcan made it in, however he probably assisted in devising the 'new'. He was a dialect and accent expert. But he definitely did precede Okrand on beginning Klingon. --Sturmde 03:46, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Klingon language question

How do you say "it could be" in Klingon? For example "you could be an officer"? "You are an officer" is yaS SoH, and "you can be an officer" is, I think, yaS SoHlaH, but how would I write it in the conditional? DuH is apparently a verb meaning "to be possible", but how is it used with a sentence as the subject? For example, is "it is possible that you are an officer" yaS SoH 'e' DuH? — JIP | Talk 07:14, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

That's a good question... but I think you'd just translate it yaS SoHlaH. For "You could be an officer", I think you'd have to resort to an adverb: chaq yaS SoHlaH "perhaps you can be an officer". *yaS SoH 'e' DuH is impossible, because DuH cannot take an object, and 'e' is by its very nature an object pronoun. thefamouseccles 01:51, 11 Oct 2005 (UTC)

But is yaS SoHlaH grammatical? Is it canonical to use verb suffixes when using the prefix trick?

That's not the prefix trick. And there have been other canon uses of verb suffixes on a pronoun. tlhIngan SoH'a'? (Are you a Klingon?) is allowed, so I see no reason that yaS SoHlaH to be ruled out. So you could say yaS SoHlaH'a'? for "Can you be an officer?", that seems to have to same meaning as "Could you be an officer?" to me. - qurgh

Extent?

I'd like to see some discussion of whether Klingon is a real language or not - Did its creators come up with a full vocabulary and grammar, or is it just a rough outline? -Dtcdthingy 21:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Why would we need to discuss that? The article seems fairly clear about it, including noting that it had been used to translate Shakespeare and Gilgamash.--Prosfilaes 03:19, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

ISO 631 code

It's listed as 'tlh' but the wikipedia article does not give tlh as the code for Klingon. In fact, tlh does not appear to exist... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.178.110.53 (talk • contribs) 07:16, 21 October 2005.

It's not ISO 631, ISO 639; and I don't know what list you're looking at, but it does indeed exist if you check Wikipedia's list or the official list.--Prosfilaes 13:42, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Letters used in Klingon words

How can toDsaH be a Klingon word? The letter s is not listed in the phonology section. 193.171.121.30 14:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

This is now fixed; it should be toDSaH. 68.80.152.28 06:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Stress in Klingon vowels.

How is vowel stress handled in Klingon? Is this something that should be addressed? --Funkmaster 801 07:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The info is at Klingonska Akademien; I will add it. -Alpha Omicron 21:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The Name Worf when Klingon has no f sound?

How can Worf be a Klingon name when Klingon does not have an F sound? Is this dialectal Klingon? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.210.229.96 (talk • contribs) 27 October 2006.

The name "Worf" was created before Paramount/Okrand have developped Klingon. Also many other names like Kruge, Grilka, B'Ellana, Kahless, etc. are not valid words in the Klingon language. They were later "retranscribed" into the Klingon syllable system. Thus, Worf becomes wo'rIv, Grilka ghIrIlqa' and Kruge Qugh. For B'Ellana there's not standard spelling (yet), as far as I know. — N-true 21:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

Can somebody add that the characters in Daddy Long Legs used this language? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.168.220.193 (talk) 02:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC).

How many speakers

It would be nice to give a rough indication of how many klingon speakers there are.

While hundreds of thousands have bought the book, only a few dozen have mastered fluency in the language, according to this secondhand report attested to the KLI [1].

I removed the following because it is an opinion and not a fact. --Chuck Smith

It is alleged that it is the most popular artificial language in the world.

I don't see what's wrong with that. Some people do believe that. Now, if it had said Klingon is the most popular artificial language in the world, you'd be right; that is not NPOV. But over a quarter of a million copies of The Klingon Dictionary have been sold; that's pretty darn good considering it's the only book from which one can learn Klingon. I don't see why saying It is believed by some that Klingon is the most popular artificial language in the world is a problem. thefamouseccles

I'll agree to that if you can find a source, like a survey, that suggests that Klingon is the most popular artificial language. Otherwise, we should stick to facts. --cprompt 00:38, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Esperanto article says it is the most widely spoken, therefore the most popular, artificial language. Bawolff 01:25, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to this, [2], Klingon is #5 in popularity.

Yes, but that table is based merely on hits on that site. Notice, too, that that table includes Parseltongue, which isn't even a proper constructed language AFAIK. I think this table may be somewhat skewed by the inclusion of languages such as that.

It would be bad to say that It is believed by some that Klingon is the most popular artificial language in the world because it's not true. A commonly cite estimate of number of speakers of the languages of the world came up with over a million speakers of Esperanto. There have been three books translated into Klingon, and [3] lists that many in the year 2000 alone. There are confrences held all in Esperanto and even articles in peer-reviewed journals in Esperanto. I think it's clear that Klingon is not the most popular in use.--Prosfilaes 20:55, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Haven't parts of the Bible been translated into Klingon?

Here is the text from Klingon Language Institute Projects, but from what I know about the project, only the Gospel of Mark and a few other passages like the Lords Prayer have been translated into Klingon and of those nothing has been published. --Chuck Smith

Co-ordinated by Kevin Wilson, the KBTP's has assumed the immense task of translating the books of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, into Klingon. Obviously the KLI's goals do not include missionary work, but this is a project worthy of our efforts for purely secular reasons. Interested members can find out more by sending a SASE to:

Klingon Bible Translation Project

5405 Willowmere Way

Baltimore, MD 21212 USA

e-mail: kwilson@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu

It could be noted that there exist another (among klingonists infamous) bible "translation" into Klingon, translated by Glen Proechel of Interstellar Language School fame. However Proechel's unique take on the Klingon language makes it a very difficult read. Among other things he creates new (often non-obvious, e.g. literal translations of existing English idioms) expressions and extrapolating the usage of existing words (e.g. using a known verb, as a noun). (See also: http://www.kli.org/wiki/index.php?Glen%20Proechel) /Zrajm 16:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

According to a current conversation on the KLI discussion list, there are 16 known fluent Klingonists. Alpha Omicron 02:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting! Would a link to this conversation help in the article? If not, at least I'd be interested... can this discussion be linked? If yes, gimme please! ;) — N-true 11:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the article needs this info. No, it can't be linked to; the web archive has been down for some time. You could add it in with a fact tag or something, though. Alpha Omicron 01:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Writing System

Klingon speakers, in the main, use the romanisation rather than the native "alphabet" (called pIqaD) simply because there is little to no support for the pIqaD system (particularly in Unicode), not because we prefer the romanisation. We Klingon speakers tend to know what the values of pIqaD characters are, and use them whenever we can (which isn't often). thefamouseccles

Under Writing System in the article it mentions Tibetan and Devanagari being the sources for pIqaD letterforms. Is this attested in any way or is it a guess? The pIqaD looks a bit like Tibetan all right, but not at all like Devanagari.

The Tibetan script is one of many refined variants of Devanagari, ergo... --Kaleissin 10:06:04, 2005-08-30 (UTC)

Hospital Klingon Interpreter story

As for the Klingon Interpreter thing... "http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/05/10/offbeat.klingon.interpreter/index.html"

Where is the source that says it was taken out of context? WhisperToMe 09:31, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

See this page, currently linked in the "Language" section of the article. --Lph 15:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki links

Why are the links to Klingon Wikipedia not treated as interwiki links (i.e. they appear in the message body rather than in the "other languages" box? e.g. tlh:tlhIngan Hol Ausir 20:04, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Klingon interwiki links are not allowed on any Wikipedia as a result of a compromise on the mailing list. Angela. 13:41, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The link is stuck onto the end of the same line as the last external link (currently Klingon Rock). Is there any way to force it to appear on its own line? --Lph 18:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I see it has been moved to the "See also" section. --Lph 15:44, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Categories in Wikipedia:Babel

I have made categories for Klingon speakers in Wikipedia:Babel. They can be used with {{user tlh}} and the usual variations. I wonder when we'll have the first user to claim "tlhIngan Hol lo'wI'vam SungHol"? — JIP | Talk 08:01, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Never, I should hope, as that phrase is ungrammatical. }}:-)

The correct way to say Klingon is the native language of this user is lo'wI'vam Sung Hol 'oH tlhIngan Hol'e'; I have changed the relevant pages accordingly, as well as those of the other levels which also contained various grammatical errors. --LRC 16:36, 22 May 2005 (UTC), tlh-2.5

Why no Klingon version of the Wikipedia

I'm surprised that the Wikipedia doesn't have a Klingon version

• Klingon edition of Wikipedia

Duomillia 15:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why is the Klingon edition of Wikipedia locked?

I've looked at the Klingon edition of Wikipedia, but the database has been locked (since 2005, I think). The administrator who locked it said: "This wiki has been closed for now. (Move to WikiCities?)" I've got three questions about this:

1. How can we agree or disagree with the move when the database is locked?
2. How long is this decision going to take?
3. Why can't Wikipedia unlock the database (and still make a decision on moving it to WikiCities later if they want to)?

Big Mac 03:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, but this looks pretty dumb. For great justice. 21:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

1. The Klingon Wikipedia has now moved to a klingon wikia (formerly known as wikicities). You can leave a message there if you like.
2. This decision is definite. They will not re-open tlh.wikipedia.org. They even intend to remove it one day, as soon as the new tlhIngan Hol wikia is set up.
3. There has been some long discussion about that, but I don't remember the page name. Perhaps somebody can add this.

Lieven 09:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Klingonaase?

Someone proposed to merge these two articles. Frankly, I don't think that's a good idea. It's two completely different languages we're talking about, and the notability of Klingonaase can hardly be disputed. --IJzeren Jan 17:53, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. The Klingon language section would not be improved by the merge, and the Klingonaase would suffer too. --80.202.221.146 14:05, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Disagree. Ford wasn't canon, but there's an argument for it: he used a different transliteration system, like the difference between Pinyin & Wade-Giles. No? Trekphiler 15:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. They really are two different languages, though Klingon fans are fond of both. ••• Trekphiler, the difference is not only transliteration, but also vocabulary. First came James Doohan's short Klingon commands (in the first movie, 1979); those helped inspire John M. Ford's Klingonaase (1984) and Marc Okrand's tlhIngan Hol (1984), but these two versions developed independently of each other. ••• As an alternative, consider making Klingon language a central or disambiguation page, leading to separate pages for tlhIngan Hol (which now is only a redirect) and Klingonaase (pretty much as is). -- SAJordan 13:47, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Klingon language should be a disambiguation page. It's a lot like the issue for Italian language; there are many languages natively spoken in Italy, but there's only one known as Italian. There's two Klingon languages, but one is known as Klingon and the other is known by Klingonaase. Furthermore, the Klingon language is well-defined, well-known and publicized, whereas Klingonaase is not well-defined, not canon, and is limited to two books by John M. Ford and a long out of print roleplaying game. Even if it were known as the Klingon language, I'd push for a disambig tag at the top of this page, not a full disambig page.--Prosfilaes 14:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

"There's two Klingon languages..." — My point precisely. That's why the Klingon language page should disambiguate, list and link to each (at unambiguously named pages), not be about just one of them. ••• "... but one is known as Klingon and the other is known as Klingonaase." — That "one" is known unambiguously as tlhIngan Hol, just as the "other" is known unambiguously as klingonaase. Each should be discussed in detail at a page using its unambiguous name. At present, the "one" is not, only the "other" is. This is inconsistent structuring. -- SAJordan 05:36, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's a quick-and-dirty Google check on "Klingon language" with any of (klingonaase, John M. Ford, FASA, Final Reflection) minus (tlhingan, Okrand, Wikipedia), yielding 463 hits right now — just to show that "Klingon language" often refers to klingonaase. I will cheerfully agree that the inverse search, for "Klingon language" with any of (tlhingan, Okrand) minus (klingonaase, etc.), would get many more hits, i.e. "Klingon language" more often refers to tlhIngan Hol. The point is that both languages are called "Klingon language". Wikipedia is supposed to describe, not prescribe; and to give a neutral point of view, not take one side of a controversy — even if one side's more popular than the other. In this case, I think neutrality means making Klingon language a disambiguation page, neutrally listing and linking to both languages, rather than assigning it to just one of them and thereby excluding the other. -- SAJordan 06:36, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The disambiguation topic is continued below. -- SAJordan 20:49, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

More pIqaD

Why is a set of trading cards used as a source for pIqaD when the community uses a set with letters for all the tlhIngan phonemes (? I had never heard about this Skybox-thing before I found this page so it smells of original research. Just try "klingon alphabet" in Google and see what happens. --Kaleissin 10:06:04, 2005-08-30 (UTC)

Why? Because the set used by the community is made up... ok, so is the skybox letter set in terms of letter assignments and all that, but it has a few points over the KLI's well known alphabet:

• The Skybox alphabet only uses letters seen on the TV show, in fact it only uses the ten letters which commonly represent the language on the show.
• Unlike the KLI alphabet, it is little known, and so deserves a mention at the very least.
• It was used on at lesat nine Skybox trading cards, probably more, which are of importance to the Klingon speaking community because these cards contain actual klingon texts written by the language creator, Mark Okrand.
• Paramount authorised the cards production.
• Probably not a valid point but the Skybox alphabet makes it hard to read anything written in it, and one of the Star Trek films (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) states that reading klingon is hard ("Damage control is easy, reading Klingon... that's hard!" Montogomery Scott).

If you want to see (most of) the cards in question, see here at qurgh's Skybox cards page. In particular, see the cards S7, S8 and card S9. Runic code 23:19 2005-09-22 (GMT)

(This is a side note) I'm glad I'm not hosting those cards on bandwidth I have to pay for. I never expected them to be linked to wikipedia - qurgh

But the set that is in use by the community is the set that is in use by the community! The community set only gets a mention that seems negatively biased to me, and not even a picture. What is so wrong with having both the Paramount-backed, canonical, fictional language, and the in-use, spoken, to a certain degree living conlang in wikipedia? I though wikipedia was for general knowledge, not just true believer dogma? Still confused, Kaleissin 11:46, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Aye there's that as well. You're right, it's too biased, I was wrong, it was my bad and I'm sorry! The section should have more on KLI's pIqaD, as such, I'll get right on it right away, might even put something else about the Mandel set as well. I'm sorry if I;'ve upset or offended anyone. Runic code 2005-09-23 13:45 (GMT)

Who's d'Armond Speers?

The article all of a sudden mentions that d'Armond Speers raised a child in a bilingual English/Klingon environment. Who's d'Armond Speers and what's the relevance? There needs to be some sort of explanation in the article. Theshibboleth 18:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

The relevance is there is a native speaker of Klingon.--Prosfilaes 02:03, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

"native speaker of Klingon"? What's he, Kang's half-brother? Trekphiler 15:26, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Rather, that it could have been... =S It seems the baby gave up Klingon when he realized his father could understand English. 85.226.122.205 17:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I personally think it was terrible for them to manipulate their child like that. -Unknownwarrior33 23:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Why you think so? Did he try to raise up his child in Klingon only? I think he raised the child bilingually from the start, which is not a disadvantage for the child. --N-true 00:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Bilingually from the start, yes. He spoke only in Klingon and the baby's mother spoke only in English, if memory serves. • WarpFlyght (talk) 01:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

There now appears to be a section about Dr.Speers here. He has his own article. I am therefore removing said section. Alpha Omicron 17:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Not anymore. The article about Dr. Speers is now a redirect to this article. The text about him was in fact moved here from its previous version. In other words, I'm gonna undo your edit if you don't mind. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 17:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No, that's cool. I didn't think to check to see if it was a redirect. Mabey It would be better to have a section of notable speakers with just a few sentences about each. Alpha Omicron 18:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

John M. Ford and "Klingonaase": forgotten?

Am I the only one left who mourns for the representation of Klingons in John Ford's brilliant ST novel "The Final Reflection"? Its portrayal of Klingon family life, society, and language are thoughtful, philosophical, and ring very true to me. It saddened me very deeply when, starting with the first ST movie, and continuing with TNG, those handling ST's future decided to throw away this fine effort, and go with a much more brutal and crude culture for what I always saw as cultured (if backstabbing) adversaries.

I'm aware that some will point out that Paramount has declared the Pocket Books novels to be non-canon. This issue of canon has always confused me, as I don't see the point; ST is already rife with parallel universe, why not just believe in whichever version has the episodes and stories you like, and treat the others as being from the Dimension of Bad TV Writers? *cough* Spock's Brain *cough* Canon it's not, but doesn't Ford's effort at least deserve a mention?

-Kasreyn 07:00, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Klingonaase has it's own article. --Funkmaster 801 19:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

But is unlinked from the main article. Perhaps I could add a link under See Also, to "Klingonaase, an earlier, non-canonical Klingon language put forth by author John M. Ford"? Would that work? -Kasreyn 05:38, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

sure that would work or put it under trivia --Funkmaster 801 06:34, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

... or under "See also". Generally, I agree Klingonaase should be mentioned somewhere in this article. —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 06:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. How's it look? -Kasreyn 08:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 08:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)