largeness of the root to which it attaches occurs in languages as familiar as Italian, where the augmentative - one makes padre (father) into padrone (boss, master, big daddy). The -law' ending in the second word belongs to a class of suffixes called evidentials, used in languages such as Turkish, which qualify statements according to how strongly the speaker can attest to their validity. Honorifics (-neS), used to recognize superior social status in the person being spoken to or about, are a part of Korean and Japanese.
The nu- that attaches before the verb “to kill” in the second word is part of a complex verb-agreement system that uses prefixes to show who did what to whom. Most people are familiar with a system that uses word endings that indicate who is doing the verb. For example, in Spanish, the -o ending on a verb like hablar (to speak) indicates a first-person-singular subject (hablo—“I speak”), while the -amos ending indicates a first- person-plural subject (hablamos—“we speak”). Klingon has such affixes, but they attach before rather than after the verb root, and instead of having six or seven of them, like most Romance languages, it has twenty-nine. The prefixes proliferate because they indicate person and number not only of the subject (who is doing) but also of the object (who is being done to). For example, qalegh means “I see you,” and vIlegh means “I see them”; cholegh means “you see me,” and Dalegh means “you see them.” This type of system is unusual in the realm of languages that people typically study, but not as a general possibility for language.
Subject and object agreement by prefix is quite common, for example, in the Native languages of North America. However, it is not a feature of Mutsun, a West Coast language of the Utian family and the subject of Okrand’s dissertation. Many have speculated that Klingon is based on the Native languages that Okrand studied as a linguist. “I used some features from other West Coast languages, like the ‘tlh’ sound, for example,” said Okrand, “but my basic strategy was to switch sources whenever it started becoming too much like any one language in particular.” This strategy explains my reaction, as a linguist, to Klingon: it is completely believable as a language, but somehow very, very odd.
And very, very difficult for the average English speaker to learn. But neither the mind-bending complexity of putting Klingon sentences together nor the uvula-twisting chore of articulating Klingon words prevents the Klingonists from studying, speaking, and writing the language. In fact, the challenge is part of the attraction, maybe the main one. Learning the Klingon language, though mocked as the most absurd thing a person could do, is what makes Klingon speakers feel above the usual Star Trek fandom. Lawrence Schoen, the head of the KLI, recalls how after an article about the Klingon language appeared on the front page of the lifestyle section of the Chicago Tribune, “memberships poured in from people who thought this was all about playing Klingon. You know, the foreheads, the costumes. But when they found out what we really did, they couldn’t hack it. It was too much work.” Those who can hack it feel a haughty pride in their linguistic accomplishments, despite the fact that no one who hasn’t attempted to hack it can understand what they have to be proud of. The difficulty of the language keeps it from being just another part of the costume. The ones who end up sticking with it are in it for the language—and the cachet, the respect, that comes (from however small a group) with showing that you can master it. Anyone can wear a rubber forehead, but the language certification pins must be earned.
When I arrived at the Klingon conference in Arizona, I didn’t know a thing about Star Trek. I hadn’t seen any of the movies. I couldn’t name one Klingon character from the show. But I knew one thing for sure: I wanted one of those pins.
In 1999, the satirical paper the Onion ran a story under the headline “Klingon Speakers Now Outnumber Navajo Speakers.” This is absolutely not true, but it would have been true had they picked nearly any other Native American language. How many speakers are there? It depends on your definition of “speaker.” The Klingon Dictionary, written by Okrand and licensed by Paramount, has sold more than 300,000 copies of its two editions. But a dictionary buyer does not a speaker make. There are probably more than two thousand people who have learned to use Klingon in some way. Many of them have learned a word or two. Others have composed poems, stories, or wedding vows in Klingon without regard to the grammar, simply by popping dictionary words into English sentences. They haven’t done the work. They count only as dabblers, not speakers. At least a few hundred, however, have done the work and are pretty good at written Klingon.
But what about speakers in the sense of people who can carry on a spontaneous live conversation in Klingon? How many of them are there? I would say, oh, twenty or so. Maybe thirty.
This estimate doesn’t sound very exciting, but considering the difficulty of the grammar, and the relatively small vocabulary size, it’s amazing that spontaneous conversations happen at all. The annual qep’a' is one of the few places where such conversations occur.
On the first afternoon of the conference, I stepped timidly into the over-air-conditioned lobby of the hotel with Mark Shoulson. He and I had spent the long flight to Phoenix going over the finer points of Klingon colloquialisms, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to put them to use. I saw a small group gathered around a table, PalmPilots in hand. They were conversing in Klingon, haltingly, and with much use of their PalmPilot dictionaries, but nonetheless getting their points across. No one was in costume. Mark introduced me to the group, and I smiled and waved weakly, not sure what to say or how to say it. I sat and listened for a while. I was privately pleased when I understood my first spoken Klingon sentence: “Ha’DIbaH vISopbe'” (Animal I-it-eat- not)—“I’m a vegetarian.” Not a very Klingon sentiment.
I wasn’t impressed with the fluency level of the conversation. It seemed that nearly every sentence was repeated two or three times to the request of “nuq?” (What?). But because people were out of practice and the group was of mixed skill level, this particular conversation wasn’t the best display of Klingon-speaking potential. I saw that later, as we walked over radiating sidewalks to a Mexican restaurant for the opening banquet, when I witnessed Captain Krankor and his girlfriend holding hands and chatting in Klingon, sans PalmPilots.
Captain Krankor (also known as Qanqor) is a software engineer and musician from Massachusetts known as Rich when he’s in regular clothes. When he wears his Klingon costume, he is Krankor, and he only speaks Klingon. In both of his personas he is round and compact, with a large, appreciative laugh that shows off his dimples. His costume includes a travel guitar, on which he might strum a few bars of his translations of the Beatles or the Stones, or lead the group in the Klingon anthem “taHjaj wo'” (May the Empire Continue), a stirring and complex round of his own composition. He is known for being the first speaker of Klingon, and he speaks as smoothly as one could speak a language with so many glottal stops—especially when he speaks with his incredibly fluent girlfriend, Agnieszka, a delicate, shy linguist from Poland.
But no matter how well one speaks Klingon, he admits, it isn’t easy to “take the vow,” as the Klingonists call it when they make the commitment to speak only Klingon. None of the conference goers took a vow that lasted for the entire weekend. Some, like Krankor, attached the vow to the costume, and wore the costume only for certain events. Daniel, a newspaper deliveryman from Colorado, told me a little sheepishly that he was postponing putting on his costume, because then he couldn’t participate as much in the general socializing, which takes place in English. Others, like Scott, a magician from Florida who, before he discovered the language, “couldn’t give a shit about Star Trek” didn’t have a costume and simply declared they were taking the vow for a particular day.
Scott and I were the early risers of the group, and the first morning we chatted at breakfast (in English). He answered some questions I had about vocabulary, which he was well qualified to do as the current Beginner’s Grammarian, an official title at the KLI for the person who responds to newcomers' questions on the e-mail lists. Having such a title is a mark of distinction and an endorsement of language skill. He said he was having a great time so far, and he was really hoping Marc Okrand would make an appearance, as he sometimes does at the
