Talk:Klingon language

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 aricle says it is the most widely spoken, therefore the most populur, 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)[reply]

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

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

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

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)

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)

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)[reply]

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)

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)[reply]

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[reply]

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)~~

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)

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)[reply]

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)