tlhIngan Hol ???

I have used these words in the title, and I suppose that some wonīt know what it is. Well, this is klingon. Not only the words are klingon, it also means 'klingon language'. It may look weird, but in fact, itīs one of the easier words.

Klingon language? This is a LANGUAGE?

Well, yes. Not only it is a language, it is one of the fastest growing languages in the known universe(according to the KLI) - despite the fact that it is not spoken in any country of the world.

I know it is hard to believe that an entire language was created for a TV-Series, but it has been done.

History of tlhIngan Hol

Iīm going to tell you the history of the klingon language as far as I know it - if you have corrections/additions, feel free to tell me.

When the first Star Trek movie was created, one of the actors was supposed to say a few words in klingon. As far as I know, these words didnīt have any meaning, they were never meant to be anything.
Later, for additional movies, a trained linguist, Dr. Marc Okrand, has been called to create new words and sentences.
As far as I know(I might be wrong though), it was NOT intended by the producers, but Okrand created not only words, but also rules and grammar - in fact, a real language.
With every new movie and later the series(mainly The Next Generation) the language grew.

The book

Ok, now we will start talking about the book itself. As I mentioned before, the book is basically split in two parts:
2) Dictionary
1) Introduction to tlhIngan Hol

I will describe the second part first, for it is the name-giver of the book.

The dictionary part is about half the book, it consists of an english-klingon as well as klingon-english part. In addition, there are lists containing all suffixes/prefixes and similar.

While the dictionary part is more important, it is also the less interesting part of the book. After all, you canīt use a dictionary to learn a language.

The more interesting part is the first half of the book, where you are given the necessary information to learn this fascinating language. The first pages are used to explain you how to pronounce the klingon letters. After that you will learn simple nouns and how to use them, as well as first suffixes(plural for example) and even verbs. At the end of the book you should be able to read/write and speak klingon quite good.

Note: If you want to learn how to speak klingon, it might be useful to get a small cassette recorder, so you can speak the sounds and record them. I did so, and it helped me greatly. Not only you learn to pronounce the sounds, it also helps reading the words.

additional info on tlhIngan Hol

If you are truly interested in learning more, you should visit the "tlhIngan Hol yejHaD" or "Klingon Language Institute", the KLI on their site "http://www.kli.org".

Also, there is a swedish(?) site I recently found, called the "Klingonska Akademien": http://www.klingonska.org .
On their site you can download transcripts of several klingon resources, such as trading cards. To get access to the download section you will need this book of course.(It serves as some sort of piracy protection, ensuring that you at least bought the most important book.)

Once you have mastered the book and begun to communicate in the warriors tongue(as tlhIngan Hol is called too), you might want to read famous writing like Hamlet or ghIlghameS - recently restored to their klingon original.

Alphabet

I thought it might be nice to throw in the klingon alphabet. As mentioned before, youīll learn it at the beginning of the book anyway, so why not show it now?

a b ch D e gh H I j l m n ng o p q Q r S t tlh u v w y '

A fine mixture, isnīt it? Note that there is NO CAPITALIZATION in klingon, so that a sentence does not necessarily start with an upper case letter. Also, the " ' " does not indicate a truncation, but is an important letter of itīs own.
By closer examination you will probably notice that there are some upper case letters that do not have lower case matches - many people have asked why these letters arenīt lower case then. The answer is quite simple - the alphabet was chosen so that it does resemble a linguistic alphabet, so that actors do have a chance of recognizing the letters and thus being able to spell them correctly.
(Didnīt help much though.)

Also, these letters are not the "real" klingon alphabet, the "real" alphabet uses totally different letters that cannot be represented here(although there is a rumor that they should be in UNICODE).

Overall

The Klingon Dictionary, or TKD, is T H E book to buy for all klingon fans. Although there are other, newer books and cassettes out there, most of them are useless without having TKD, as they all reference to this great book.

A few words of warning:

For those whose native language is german, there also is a translated german copy of this book available, named
"Star Trek. Das offizielle Wörterbuch Klingonisch - Deutsch / Deutsch - Klingonisch."

I strongly discourage from buying it, though I never read it myself, I have heard from several sources that it is made very careless, so it must not be considered a valid source.
You should use the english version instead, since it is the original form and therefore unaltered.

Paramount Hol:

I think I have to mention that too - Paramount Hol, or Par Hol as it is called too, is what is often used in Star Trek series. It does differ from Okrandian klingon, because the writers seem to be too busy(or stupid?) to look into this book when creating the text - instead they often just throw a few words together and (seem to) donīt care what the fans think.

Qapla'!

(Actually, this means "Success!" but can be used to say goodbye - in DS9 Gowron used it that way)

Recommended: Yes