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By Root 622 0

that everyone realizes it's a conceit). When questions arise about the correct way to tell time in Klingon, or the proper use of prefixes to indicate indirect objects, Okrand can claim that the matter requires further research. Sometimes he will publish an answer (on Internet newsgroups or in the journal HolQeD), but he has the luxury of waiting to do so until the expert Klingonists have fully debated the possibilities. “I have to be careful what I say, because if I make a mistake it will be noticed,” Okrand told me. He made a big mistake when for the instructional audiotape Power Klingon (published by Simon & Schuster), he put the subject before, rather than after, the verb in the toast “May your blood scream” ('IwlIj jachjaj—“blood-your scream-may-it”). He later explained that in the formalized domain of toast giving, the word-order rule is object-subject-verb rather than object-verb-subject. This modification rings true; it is often the case that ceremonial domains bend the rules in natural languages. (When but in toasts do we begin English sentences with “May your …”?) Okrand is a skilled back-fitter.

Part of what allows him to deal with accidental inconsistencies in such a natural way is that a realistic amount of wiggle room was built into the language from the beginning. In the introduction to the first edition of his dictionary, he discusses some “dialect differences” in Klingon vocabulary and pronunciation. (The notion of dialect difference has been important, he told me, “considering the difficulty in getting the actors on the show to say things right.”) He also allows for exceptions to the grammatical rules. For example, as stated in the chapter on nouns, the plural suffix -mey “cannot be used with body parts. It should be noted, however, that Klingon poets often violate this grammatical rule in order to evoke particular moods in their poetry. Thus, forms such as tlhonmey nostrils scattered all about do occur.” The language is just messy enough to be credible, and this messiness, built into the design from the very beginning, sets Klingon apart in the history of language invention. Klingon has no bone to pick with natural language; it is rather a respectful homage to the strange and interesting things that languages can do.

Another quality that makes Klingon stand out from the vast graveyard (for the most part) of previous inventions is that it has no purpose. It is interesting to note that in terms of the attraction of real, live speakers, Klingon is second only to the invented language with perhaps the most purpose—Esperanto. Esperantists are motivated by the goal of fostering peace by bridging language barriers. While they enjoy their language, and indeed often revel in it, the language itself is considered secondary to this goal. Learning a language takes work. It doesn't make sense to do the work if you have no reason to do it. After I attended the qep'a', I talked with a prominent Esperantist about my experiences among the Klingon speakers. He shook his head with confused dismay and asked me, “But what are they doing? Really, what are they doing)?”

My Esperantist friend poses a good question. What are they doing? If Klingon has no purpose, and you get nothing but a withering dose of ridicule from the entire world in return for the time you put into it, why ever would you bother?

Klingon is a type of puzzle that appeals to a type of person. It is difficult, but not impossible, formed from the stuff of real languages, just strange enough, just believable enough, small enough that you can know every word, the entire canon, but flexible enough to lend itself to the challenge of translation. The boundaries are set and the game is on. “How far can we take this?” is the collective call of the Klingon community. Could we translate Hamlet, under the given constraints? They could and they did, and what the translation lacks in elegance, it makes up for in the fact of its existing at all. Does Klingon have a poetic potential of its own? Let's see! (A phrase that came up in the improvisation game I witnessed: “QI'lop