The Klingon scripts are
fictional alphabet
This is a list of writing systems (or scripts), classified according to some common distinguishing features.
The usual name of the script is given first; the name of the language(s) in which the script is written follows (in brackets), particula ...
ic scripts used in the ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' movies and television shows to write the
Klingon language.
In
Marc Okrand
Marc Okrand (; born July 3, 1948) is an American linguist. His professional work is in Native American languages, and he is well known as the creator of the Klingon language in the ''Star Trek'' science fiction franchise.
Linguistics
As a ling ...
's ''
The Klingon Dictionary'', the Klingon script is called ', but no information is given about it. When Klingon letters are used in Star Trek productions, they are merely decorative graphic elements, designed to simulate real writing and to create an appropriate atmosphere.
The Astra Image Corporation designed the letters currently used to "write" Klingon for ''
Star Trek: The Motion Picture'', although they are often incorrectly attributed to
Michael Okuda. They based the letters on the
Klingon battlecruiser hull markings (three letters) first created by
Matt Jeffries
Walter Matthew Jefferies (August 12, 1921 – July 21, 2003) was an American aviation and mechanical artist, set designer, and writer. He is best known for his work on the original ''Star Trek'' television series, where he designed many of the s ...
and on
Tibetan writing
The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system (''abugida'') of Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and Balti. It has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages ...
because the script had sharp letter forms—used as an allusion to the Klingons' love for bladed weapons.
KLI pIqaD
The
Klingon Language Institute
The Klingon Language Institute (KLI) is an independent organization originally founded in Flourtown, Pennsylvania and now located in Kentucky. Its goal is to promote the Klingon language and culture.
General
The KLI has members from all over t ...
(KLI) version of the pIqaD script was created by an anonymous source at
Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...
, who based the characters on letters seen in the show. This source sent the script in to the Klingon Language Institute, which uploaded it onto its website. The vast majority of ''Klingonists'', however, prefer Latin-based romanization.
[
The script itself is quite simple: It contains twenty-six letters with a one-to-one ''grapheme-phoneme correspondence'': that is, one letter represents one sound and one sound is written with one letter. The set of characters also includes ten digits. It is written from left to right, top to bottom like English. There is no actual punctuation; however, those that use punctuation with the script use Skybox punctuation symbols (''see below'').
The KLI pIqaD script is registered in the ConScript registry in the Private Use Area of Unicode.][
]Bing Translator
Microsoft Translator is a multilingual machine translation cloud service provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Translator is a part of Microsoft Cognitive Services and integrated across multiple consumer, developer, and enterprise products; including B ...
translates between many languages and Klingon, including the KLI pIqaD script. Bing currently uses a private use script code of "Qaak" for pIqaD instead of the official ISO 15924 script code "Piqd".
ConScript Unicode Registry
In September 1997, Michael Everson made a proposal for encoding KLI pIqaD in Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
, based on the Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...
source code (specifically "Documentation/unicode.txt" by H. Peter Anvin). The Unicode Technical Committee rejected the Klingon proposal in May 2001 on the grounds that research showed almost no use of the script for communication, and the vast majority of the people who did use Klingon employed the Latin alphabet by preference. A modified version of the Linux kernel allocation for pIqaD in the Private Use Area of Unicode was added to the ConScript Unicode Registry The ConScript Unicode Registry is a discontinued volunteer project to coordinate the assignment of code points in the Unicode Private Use Areas (PUA) for the encoding of artificial scripts including those for constructed languages. It was founded by ...
(U+F8D0 to U+F8FF) by Michael Everson. Since then several fonts using that encoding have appeared, and software for typing in pIqaD has become available. Existing text in the Latin alphabet can easily be converted to pIqaD also. Bing translator can transliterate between pIqaD and Latin forms, but does not convert letters correctly if there are English words.
If a ConScript-compliant font is installed, the following PUA text should display:
The following is a pangram:
Earlier variations
Until the Klingon Language Institute
The Klingon Language Institute (KLI) is an independent organization originally founded in Flourtown, Pennsylvania and now located in Kentucky. Its goal is to promote the Klingon language and culture.
General
The KLI has members from all over t ...
promoted a standardized form of pIqaD for Klingon, there were variations used primarily for decorative effect. Because the letters did not map the Okrandian phonology of the Klingon language, these variants were never adopted by the Klingon speaking community and aren't used in modern Klingon.
Skybox pIqaD
The KLI-adapted version of pIqaD utilizes the character set originally assembled by author Thomas E. Scheuer in his publication "Mortas-te-Kaase - the Death's Hand Battle Fleet" fan organization group operations manual (compiled, written, illustrated and published by author Thomas E. Scheuer from 1989–1994) which the author and founder of the KLI later became a member of, and learned of the MTK character assemblage and membership booklet designations, isn't the only mapping of Klingon letters. The ''Astra Image'' letters as released in the "Mortas-te-Kaase" were taken and used in the Paramount-endorsed Bitstream
A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits.
A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...
font pack. They were used to make a font with ten letters of the English alphabet: "e" to "n" being represented by the ten different klingon letters. This font itself has been used by the Star Trek production team when creating Klingon graphics; however it is still used only as random gibberish on the shows. Dr. Schoen would often refer inquiries to Thomas Scheuer as he was still a student of the Klingon language at the time. The Mortas-te-Kaase organisation was also in very close contact with linguist Marc Okrand, who was also an active member of MTK and would often release exclusive additional words and phrases through the regular publications of the organisation via their newsletter "veS QonoS". Scheuer was never credited however, in any of Dr. Schoen's works or publications, and thus following commercial usage was not credited properly either. A copy of the original release as photocopied from MTK member manual is displayed at the right. (See also the MTK 1990 Klin-Kon flier utilizing the MTK pIqaD)
The trading card company Skybox used this font when they created the Klingon language cards in their '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' trading card collection . The Klingon cards themselves detail aspects of Klingon culture and feature pIqaD text and a transliteration and translation provided by Marc Okrand. Some of these cards, notably S7, S8, and S9, feature pIqaD, which corresponds to the Latin transcription.
Other known cards includ
S19
an
S20
(which contain belittling references to ''Blockbuster'', probably an allusion to Blockbuster Video
Blockbuster or Block Buster may refer to:
* Blockbuster (entertainment) a term coined for an extremely successful movie, from which most other uses are derived.
Corporations
* Blockbuster (retailer), a defunct video and game rental chain
** Blo ...
) the season seven card selection ''s37, s38 and s39'' (which featured no actual tlhIngan Hol, but only English and on card S39 Latin, written in the Skybox alphabet), and finally, the Checklist cards for each season's set of cards had the word ''cards'' written in Klingon on them when listing the above-mentioned cards.
The script is written in horizontal lines running from left to right, top to bottom, just like English. Klingon can be written with spaces between words (a word being defined as any noun, verb or leftover, plus any prefixes and suffixes attached to it) and punctuation
Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
. When this is the case, two punctuation marks are used:
* An "up-turned triangle" with a function similar to a comma
The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline ...
, semi-colon
The semicolon or semi-colon is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought. When a ...
or colon.
* A "down-turned" triangle with a function similar to a full stop
The full stop (Commonwealth English), period (North American English), or full point , is a punctuation mark. It is used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence (as distinguished from a question or exclamation ...
, question mark
The question mark (also known as interrogation point, query, or eroteme in journalism) is a punctuation mark that indicates an interrogative clause or phrase in many languages.
History
In the fifth century, Syriac Bible manuscripts used ques ...
or exclamation mark.
The triangular punctuation marks have been accepted into the common usage of the KLI pIqaD (see above).
Klingon can also be written with no spaces or punctuation at all; this form is more common on the TV shows. As in English, Klingon text can be left-justified, center-justified, or right-justified, and written in vertical columns on banners.
Due to its nature, the "Skybox" Alphabet is ill-suited to writing Klingon, in that ambiguity in the alphabet is apparent, so different words are spelled the same way; these are homograph
A homograph (from the el, ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also ...
s. The heartiest commendations and the gravest insults could be written identically; however, context would go a long way to disambiguating homographs.
Mandel script
A third script, known as the Klinzhai or Mandel script, was included in ''The U.S.S. Enterprise Officer's Manual'' (1980). It holds more closely to the D7 battlecruiser hull markings and is also loosely based upon the conceptual art of Matt Jeffries, TOS set designer.
Its letters map to various letters and digraphs of English, but they have no relation to Marc Okrand's Klingon language. Like the other two alphabets, it is probably written in the same direction as English.
Some fans have suggested this alphabet could be used to write Klingon
The Klingons ( ; Klingon: ''tlhIngan'' ) are a fictional species in the science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''.
Developed by screenwriter Gene L. Coon in 1967 for the original ''Star Trek'' (''TOS'') series, Klingons were swarthy humanoids c ...
in its native form.
In 1989, a fan by the name of David Christensen of Seattle, Washington, developed the first computer text font based on the Mandel script, prior to there being font software, meaning the font was built entirely in ResEdit.
Wikipedia logo
A pIqaD r () using the Code2000 font was used in the upper right corner of the Wikipedia globe logo from 2003 until 2010. It was replaced with the Ethiopic syllable wə (ው) in the May 2010 redesign of the logo.
See also
* Alien language
References
External links
Klingon Language Institute (KLI)
* ttp://www.wizage.net/?p=399 Installer for a custom Klingon locale, keyboard mapping and pIqaD font for Windows Vista/Windows 7
font used in Bing translator
Custom keyboard mapping for Windows XP
custom locale for using Klingon pIqaD on Windows Vista, font, keyboard and custom locale
Transliterate Between and Latin alphabet transcription
font used for the eurotalk ''Talk Now! Learn Klingon'' course by Jonathan Brown and Marc Okrand. Change case to convert between a Latin and characters
{{Klingon
Constructed scripts in fiction
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...
Miscellaneous Unicode blocks