This chat was part of the live coverage of Paramount's official celebration of Star Trek's 30th anniversary, held in Huntsville, Alabama. These chats were held at http://startrek.msn.com, and were attended by fans from around the world.

Question: Do you have a background in linguistics?
John

Marc Okrand: Yes, I have a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Berkeley, specializing mostly in California Indian languages.

And I also studied Southeast Asian languages. So I suppose there's influence from all those things in Klingon, but I did not intentionally copy anything to come up with Klingon.

Klingon is based on the six or so Klingon phrases heard in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. Those were invented by James Doohan.

I started with STAR TREK III, when Harve Bennett, writer and producer, asked me to create Klingon dialogue for the film.

Harve thought the Klingons would seem much more realistic and the scenes would be more fun if they spoke a real language.

So I came up with the grammar and vocabulary and phonetics, but the reason there's a Klingon language at all is due to Harve's idea.

Q: I heard that you wrote a new book. what's it about ?
Javier

MO: Yes, there's a new book called "The Klingon Way: A Warrior's Guide."

It came out a couple months ago. It's a collection of Klingon proverbs, aphorisms and other wise sayings in English and Klingon along with little discussions of how the phrase came to be said,...

...or why it's difficult to translate, or how it tells us about Klingon culture.

And there's lots of pictures.

Q: I know you're at Huntsville now, do you have any upcoming conventions
Sonja

MO: Yes, at the end of September I'll be Toronto at the Ontario Science Center as part of a big STAR TREK Exhibition.

I'll be giving a couple of talks there.

First weekend in October, I'll be in Columbus Ohio at a science fiction writer's convention called "Context."

Q: Does anyone really speak Klingon besides what the actors do on the show?
Kaycee

MO: Yes! In fact there are more people who are *not* on the show who speak Klingon than there are people *on* the show who speak Klingon.

There's several hundred speakers around the world who communicate with each other in Klingon if not in person, then through E-Mail or telephone or writing.

There's an organization to the serious study of the Klingon language called "The Klingon Language Institute."

They publish a journal and have conventions. The easiest way to contact them is through their Web site.

Q: What do you think about Shakespeare, the Bible and other works being translated into Klingon?
Chronon

MO: I think it's great that people are translating various works in Klingon.

Of course, in the case of Shakespeare we're really restoring it back to Klingon because it was Klingon in the first place.

When one translates anything from one language to another, one learns as much about the language that you're translating for.

Let me rephrase that: I mean you learn about the language you're translating from as much as you learn about the language you're translating to.

So those translating Shakespeare and the Bible are learning an awful lot about Shakespeare and the Bible.

Q: Marc: I really love your book, "The Klingon Dictionary". Where can I get a copy of the Encyclopedia Set?
Christopher

MO: Well... Unfortunately, there's no such thing as "the Klingon Encyclopedia" -- at least not yet.

The closest thing to it would be the entries about Klingons in the STAR TREK ENCYCLOPEDIA which is available both as a book and a CD-ROM.

Q: Klingon sounds like angry Russian...is there a subliminal tie there?
od23

MO: Klingon's not supposed to sound like Russian. It's not supposed to sound like anything else either.

When I was working on the films people kept telling me what language they thought Klingon reminded them of.

Mostly they didn't say the same language as each other, so I figured I was on the right track.

Q: Is there going to be a Vulcan Dictionary in the future?
Merkel

MO: I would love to do a Vulcan Dictionary. I worked on the Vulcan language for STAR TREK II and STAR TREK III.

Unfortunately, since then there hasn't been very much spoken Vulcan in the movies or any of the TV shows.

So if I wrote a dictionary now, it would fit on one sheet of paper, probably.

If there's ever a need in the movies or TV show for more Vulcan, I'd love to expand the language and then publish a dictionary about it.

Q: Do you coach any of the actors prior to an episode or movie if there is any Klingon language in the script?
Rageing Stallion

MO: In all of the movies, starting with STAR TREK III, I was on the set to coach the actors most of the time when they spoke Klingon.

Every once in a while they did it on their own.

But usually I'm right outside the frame of the picture when they're speaking Klingon.

And of course we would practice ahead of time.

Q: Where did you get the idea for the tlhIngan Hol? Did you get any of your ideas from another language, as far as grammar or pronunciations?
Christopher

MO: I tried very hard not to base Klingon on any real language. On the other hand, I couldn't make it too strange, especially the pronunciation because real human actors had to say the words.

I also discovered that even though I tried not to mimic any other languages I was influenced by the languages I studied the most.

So I suppose Klingon resembles those a little bit. But I hope not in any way that anyone can notice easily.