The title of today’s post means “Do you speak Klingon?”. Apparently the New Theatre in Cardiff is looking for anybody who speaks Klingon to perform in a play they’re planning to stage soon. I heard this on Radio Cymru (the Welsh language radio station) this morning.
Dw i’n di clywed ar Radio Cymru y bore ma bod y Theatr Newydd Caerdydd yn chwilio am bobol sy’n siarad Klingon i berfformio mewn drama bydd nhw yn llwyfannu cyn bo hir.
So do any of you speak Klingon?
Felly, dych unrhywun ohonoch chi yn siarad Klingon?
Wow, a play with a Klingon speaker! What’s it going to be called?
Unfortunately I don’t know – there doesn’t seem to be anymore information about it anywhere.
tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhbej!
I have a Klingon dictionary. I though I wanted to learn it (not very seriously), but I gave up in a matter of minutes because I didn’t think I’d ever have any use for it.
It was interesting to read the dictionary, though. The language seems to use Japanese grammar and Arabic phonology.
One of my favorite parts of the book is the decription of “bon apetit”. The book says there’s no exact equivalent, but the closest phrase translates to “eat this or I’ll shove it down the gullet of your decapitated body.” (reminds me of something my grandma might say).
I got some basic Klingon learning material from the KLI (www.kli.org) and it looks like Okrand tried very hard to make Klingon seem quite unlike anything an English speaker might know. Klingon has OVS word order, tons of prefixes and suffixes, no definite or indefinite article and it uses deliterately harsh sounds and difficult consonant clusters.
If Klingon is interesting enough as a language to learn, and if it has a serious enough following, I might consider learning it proper.