How To: Speak Klingon

I attended a private party last night that was held in the wine room of a fancy restaurant. At first, I didn’t know what to expect. Judging from the guest list, I knew I would meet some very interesting people, but what about the conversation? I’m a geek, and I was worried that there might not be any other geeks there to talk to about technology, cool apps, and all the other geeky things that I like to talk about.

Wow, I was wrong. There were a couple of guys there that spoke Klingon. For real. I couldn’t believe it when I first heard it. Of course, I’m a trekkie like any respectable geek; however, I didn’t know until last night that Klingon is a real language with real grammar and letters. Even Webster views Klingon as an official language. Did you know this? Now that I’ve heard Klingon for myself, I’m motivated to learn a few words and phrases. If you would like to join me, here are some steps we can take.

First of all, learning Klingon is easier if you understand the absolutely fascinating history of the language. Marc Okrand created it, and he tells the behind the scenes story of how it all came about on his YouTube page. There are five videos in the short series, and I’ve included the first one for you below. Next, if you speak English, I recommend downloading a free copy of this Klingon-English Dictionary (which is approved by the Klingon Institute) here.

I also suggest becoming very familiar with The Klingon Language Institute website. It’s an in-depth website dedicated to only one thing… “facilitating the scholarly exploration of the Klingon language and culture.” There are two pages on that site that I found particularly interesting. The first one is the page of “Everyday Klingon Phrases” and the second one is the page that teaches “How To Write Klingon.”

Next, to learn any language, it is essential to hear the pronunciation so you can hear how it sounds. There are a few audio clips on this page, which can help you with that. And last but not least, for the super geeks out there, I found a site with a really cool collection of Star Trek fonts. Not only are there Klingon fonts, but also a Borg font, Romulan fonts and even StarFleet fonts. You can access all of those here.

This guy in this video is such a huge trekkie, I couldn’t resist including it. He teaches us how to say one very important word in Klingon… Success. Enjoy!