pIqaD to Terran Lexicon

| Introduction | Pronunciation | Grammatical Comments | Transliteration | Nouns | N-Suffixes |
| Verbs | V-Prefixes | V-Suffixes | Adjectives | Lexicon Help | Lexicon Keyboard |

Introduction

This book is intended as an educational aid. It been produced for use by entities already in possession of the Klingon Dictionary as published by POCKET BOOKS (ISBN: 0-671-74559-X). The Klingon Dictionary by Marc Okrand is the only publication known by the author to contain a ‘cannon’ grammatical sketch of the Klingon language. To use this unauthorised dictionary to communicate, especially with Klingons, without that sketch could prove fatal. Just remember the Klingon Language should not be treated lightly. If you ignore this advice the question to ask yourself is, "Do YOU feel lucky?"

Hopefully you have also listened to some or all of the excellent audiotapes, produced by SIMON & SCHUSTER, on the subject,

After all the work done by Marc Okrand, with the F.S.R.C, for which funding came to a premature end. ‘The Klingon Directory’ learned that work had not in fact stopped. Marc and other interested parties, in particular the Klingon Language Institute have continued to analyse and gather information on the Klingon language, even if only at a slow pace.

To cut a long story short, there now exists several separate lists of cannon words (known as Cannon if connected to Marc Okrand) including the two published in The Klingon Dictionary itself.

As a result ‘The Klingon Directory’, which was originally set up to produce tlhIngan Qummem, commissioned the author of this work to gather all these words together and publish them, including affixes, in one single list - ‘The (unauthorised) Klingon Dictionary’. The reason for putting everything into one list is so that the meaning of a word can be discovered without having to know whether it’s a root word, prefix, suffix or just a word that is only known to exist or be used in conjunction with other words.

It is hoped that no-one, within the Federation, will object to the publication of this book. There has been no intentional breech of copyright although it is probably inevitable since certain words have been referred to as cannon.

The word cannon being accepted as standing for words whose copyright has previously been owned by Paramount Pictures or Marc Okrand. The author and ourselves hereby declare to the reader or any affected parties that this publication makes no claim on these copyrights.

The sole purpose of this book is educational. we hope that anyone reading it will consider it as just another piece of the jigsaw towards improving their understanding of the Klingon language.

But please, read on.

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Pronunciation
|  Consonants Phonetics  |  Vowel Phonetics  |

The following list includes all the Klingon sounds in one list rather than separating out the vowels, consonants and <vowel-consonant> variations. For a separate listing and full explanation the reader should refer to Marc Okrand’s Dictionary.

a	A	as ar in party
<aw>	<AW>	as ow in brown
<ay>	<AY>	as y in pry
b	B	as b in battle
ch	C	as ch in child
D	D	more palletised than the Federation d and with the tip of the tongue touching the roof of mouth
e	E	as e in less
<ew>	<EW>	resembles the sound of Klingon e and u run together
<ey>	<EY>	as ay in day
gh	G	similar to H but hum while saying it
H	H	always a glottural sound like ch in Scottish loch (no vocalisation)
I	I	as i in sit
<Iw>	<IW>	sounds like a merged Klingon I-u
<Iy>	<IY>	as ey in key
j	J	as in jest
l	L	as in last
m	M	as in must
n	N	as in never
ng	F	as ng in sing (completely nasal with tongue in Federation k position) NB: never a separate g sound at the end as with Terran Liverpool accent.
o	O	as o on motive
<oy>	<OY>	as oy in boy
p	P	as in pet
q	K	similar to kh in the Terran Egyptian word Ankh. Formed with the tongue in a similar position to the Federation k but with as much of the tongue behind that point touching the roof of the mouth. Also produced with a puff of air (try holding a H until the pressure builds up a bit then let it out) SPITTAL WARNING.
Q	Q	this sound is articulated by starting with a strong q and finishing with an H
r	R	as in Federation but rolled of the tongue
S	S	sounds like sh but is an s with the tongue in the Klingon D position
t	T	as in tent
tlh	X	similar to tl in spittle (not when pronounced spit-all) but with the tip of the tongue in the same position as for the Federation d and with a small puff of air (Authors note: The nearest Terran sound I’ve found is in the Navaho word for ‘oil’ represented as àh when using the Terran IPA system = tlh)
u	U	as u in Sue
<uy>	<UY>	as oui in Louis
v	V	as in very
w	W	as in what, so that on occasions it sounds like hw
y	Y	as in yeti (but never as in only)
’	'	indicates a glottal stop (catch in the throat) like used after each letter when reciting the Terran phonetic alphabet. Alternatively like the break in the middle of uh-oh

Table 1a. Consonant Phonetics*

Arrows in the chart above are not sliding e.g. tlh starts as plosive build up releasing air at the sides of tongue.

For details on whether sounds are voiced or not see Pronunciation chart on preceding page.

Table 1b. Vowel Phonetics*

*(Based on a system created by the Terran IPA)

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Grammatical Comments

Comments made within this book are just that and belong solely to the author. They are non-cannon and should therefore be treated as such.

Marc Okrand states that there are many instances of Klingon words being both nouns and verbs (e.g., naD - commendation and naD - commend). As a non-cannon rule of thumb - especially if dealing with non-Klingons - ‘to-do’ verbs can be used more often than not as nouns (e.g., to abuse and abuse) and visa-versa. Another way of looking at it is, if a noun cannot be found but a verb describing the act can the verb will, even in Federation, leave the sentence understandable/translatable.

Transliteration

Transliteration can be a valuable learning tool for helping language warriors come to grips with the phonetics of tlhIngan because they can practice writing words they are familiar with into tlhIngan Hol which he is not. To put it another way, one of the difficulties with learning Klingon is down to the use of a familiar alphabet in a different way to usual. Not very different admittedly but different all the same. One could almost say they ‘clash’.

In some quarters, transliteration is actively discouraged. However it does have a legitimate place in tlhIngan Hol, as it does in all languages and cultures. Therefore if writing something in Klingon e.g., mentioning a place, it could be surmised that a Klingon might have only heard the name and would therefore automatically write it in his own language i.e., transliterate it into Klingon.

There is of course a strong precedence for transliteration already in place: The word Klingon is after all a transliteration of tlhIngan. Furthermore Marc Okrand’s original work ‘The Klingon Dictionary’ has a whole section on the transliteration of names. In that section he sets up certain rules on how this has been done from tlhIngan Hol into Federation Std: k = q; kl = tlh; kr = Q; lts/its = tlh; gr = gh etc. All any body has to do is to apply these rules in reverse.

However although I feel transliteration is OK it is only fair to the person you are writing to if you annotate the word so they don’t rip their hair out trying to look it up. The fairly standard way to do this is putting the word <inside> <these> <marks>. I don’t recommend the use of speech marks as that can get very confusing when mixed up with the tlhIngan glottal stop.

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Nouns

Noun Suffixes

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Verbs

‘To-be’ Verbs - The Subject is the noun being ‘it’. The object is the ‘recipient’ noun. These verbs also tend to be the ones used to describe a noun (acting as an adjective).

‘To-do’ Verbs - The subject is the noun doing ‘it’ whilst the object is the noun being done to e.g., tlhaqwIj chu’Ha’lu’pu’ - My chronometer has stopped.

-lu’ - When used it tends to change a do-ing verb into a be-ing verb but is only used when the subject is someone/something (i.e. unknown). e.g., legh - to see <> leghlu’ - be seen.

Prefixes

Below you will find the standard layout prefix table (Table 1) which you would have seen up to this point. This table is fine for going straight from Klingon Hol to Federation Standard but I’ve met several beings expressing the thought that there should be a half way translation i.e., Federation Language written using Klingon grammatical sketch. I call this method ‘thinking Klingon’ and produced the ‘Table 2’ which has a layout more suitable for this use. e.g., for a sentence like "They killed a targ" a Klingon would say/think "targ, it-they killed" which can still be understood and will translate word for word - targh luHoHta’ . Whereas to say "targ they/it killed" actually gives the impression of the opposite of what is meant.

All I can say is give it a try and if you don’t like it I’ve included both tables.

Table 3. Prefixes: Standard layout

Table 4. Prefixes: tlhIngan Hol layout

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Verb Suffixes

Similar in use to the noun suffixes but verbs can have up to 9 different types attributed to them plus Rover’s

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Adjectives

The Dictionary by Marc Okrand states that there are no adjectives in Klingon. In fact there are adjectives just as much as there are verbs. However, depending on their position within the sentence depends on whether they are acting as an adjective or verb. It could just as easily be said that Klingon adjectives are also used as verbs, but translated to include the Terran verb ‘to-be’, depending on its position in the sentence.

Verbs acting adjectivally always follow a noun, which they modify. If the noun is the object of the sentence then it will also be followed by another verb. If the noun is the subject of the sentence then the verb acting adjectivally will follow the second noun. The following examples might make it a little clearer as to determining when the word has been used as a verb or an adjective.

n1 v1 v2 n2 - In this sentence v1 is the adjective of n1. and v2 is the main verb.

n1 v1 n2 v2 - This construction is not quite so clear as v1 could be the main verb with v2 acting adjectivally to n2 (as the subject). However, the construction could just as easily be a complex noun e.g., Duj tIn nuHmey chIm - ‘the big ships empty arsenal’.

The moral of this story is, every sentence should be judged on it own merits and if you don’t understand say so; jIyajbe’ or nuq jatlh are simple phrases to remember and blurt out. Especially, if you see the other beings trigger finger start to twitch. Just be ready to dodge the occasional disruptor blast.

Remember: no one ever said that Klingon was for the faint hearted and students aren’t called ‘language warriors’ for nothing.

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 Lexicon Entries

NB: . To help locate with a translation or point you in an alternative direction, some entries start with a word in light print followed by a semicolon. They are not cannon. For example you can find ‘as expected’ under both ‘as expected’ and ‘expected; as expected’. This method of entry is also used to point the language warrior towards a cannon word or cannon usage where one doesn’t already exist, much as a Thesaurus would. In this case the semicolon is followed by a [SEE cannon entry] so that you can look up the full details. The tlhIngan Hol entry is there for speed of searching but within brackets as a reminder that this is a guide only. This book is not intended to be a Klingon Thesaurus and the reader should rely on Cannon sources.

The latter method described above has also been used to show how Federation Std suffixes can translate into tlhIngan Hol. Again it must be remembered that these entries are only a guide and as in most language translations it is not always as simple as ‘this = that’. It is normally ‘this =that (in these circumstances)’ while ‘this = other (in other circumstances)’

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Now the Lexicon

Its is easiest to use the left Index Frame to move around the Lexicon but if you can't see it I have also included the keyboard here. NB.The pIqaD to Terran section is all in one to avoid any confusion about where you are withing the pIqaD alphabet.