Oppa Klingon Style!

 In school, I’m sure a lot of you took some other foreign language, like Spanish, French, or German (personally, I took Spanish and German). Sometimes other languages are easy to pick up, other times it seems everything goes in one ear and out the other. Back on March 28^th, Dalek Chick and I had the pleasure of being guests on Warrior’s Den with DJ DeyvID on Trek Radio to learn some Klingon. You can laugh if you want (we did), but it was really a lot of fun. In today’s post, I’m going to share a few of the phrases we learned and maybe, just maybe, you’ll have some new phrases you’ll be running around shouting at people.

Of course, no Klingon lesson would be complete without learning the proverb “revenge is a dish best served cold”, so we’ll start there:

bortaS bIr jablu’DI’ reH QaQqu’ nay’

At this point, it probably looks like a bunch of gibberish, but that’s okay. Here’s how to pronounce it:

bortaS - bore-tash

bIr - beer

jablu’DI’ - job-loo-dee

reH - reh (that’s a hard h, almost like in German when you say “acht”)

QaQqu’ – khah-khkoo (big Q pronounced like the big H in reH, but with a k sound in front of it)

nay’ – nye (like Bill Nye)

The apostrophes are called glottal stops, and the way DevID described how they work is kind of like the hyphen in uh-oh; it’s that small catch in the throat, so when you see that apostrophe you’ll end the sound abruptly instead of holding it out. It’ll take some practice, but you’ll get it.

Here’s a fun one DeyvID suggested screaming out at conventions to see who might understand what it means:

'IwlIj jachjaj

That means “may your blood scream”. Sounds fun, huh? Alright, here’s how you pronounce that:

‘IwlIj – eww-lidj

jachjaj – jahch-jahj (ch is always pronounced like church)

This next one is a bit more on the inspirational side:

qo’mey poSmoH Hol

That means “language opens doors”. See? Even Klingons can be inspirational.

Pronunciation:

qo’mey – koh-may

poSmoH – posh-moh (there’s that hard H again at the end)

Hol – hole (leads with the hard H, and for the O you need to kind of form your mouth into a dome)

Don't worry if you can't get it just yet; it's going to take a lot of practice. And phlegm. Lots and lots of phlegm. If you need some more help with pronunciation, I suggest taking a look at KLI's site.

Here are some more phrases we learned as well as their meaning, but I challenge you to figure out the pronunciation and let me know how it goes in the comments (you don't need an account to comment):

nIteb Qob qaD jup ‘e’ chaw’be’ SuvwI [A warrior does not let a friend face danger alone.]

Hoch ‘ebmey tIjon [Capture all opportunities.]

 

ghIj qet jaghmeyjaj [May your enemies run in fear.]

reH ‘uQvam vlqawtaH [I will remember this dinner forever.]

not mev peghmey [Secrets never cease.]

If you're interested in learning more, or in possibly forming an online group to learn Klingon for fun, send DeyvID an email: deyvid@trekradio.net