The Klingon Dictionary

by Marc Okrand

The Klingon Dictionary is the first comprehensive sourcebook for Klingon language and syntax, including fundamental rules of grammar as well as words and expressions that illustrate the complex nature of Klingon culture. It features a precise pronunciation guide, rules for proper use of affixes and suffixes, and a small phrasebook with Klingon translations for essential expressions such as "Activate the transport beam," "Always trust your instincts," and the ever-popular "Surrender or die!"

Genres: Star Trek, Reference, Science Fiction, Language, Fiction, Linguistics, Media Tie In

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1985

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I briefly owned a copy of this book, but managed to give it to the teenage son of a colleague before the compulsion had had time to establish itself. This no doubt saved me at least 100 hours of pointless study, which I'm intending to devote to improving my grasp of irregular Quenya verbs.

I didn't think Klingon was as good as Tolkien's languages - it somehow lacked depth. But the list of handy phrases was fun. Looking around quickly just now on the Web, I was reminded of the ever-useful Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam ("Today is a good day to die"), and the dangerously insulting Hab SoSlI' Quch ("Your mother has a smooth forehead"). You can find pronunciation guides here, though I would take them with a pinch of salt - sounds to me like the speaker has a strong Earth accent.

[Jason Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won't josh around; this is probably going to be a non-review, and memories, and ramblings, and whatnot for the most part because I never read all of this. I'm not even sure how I ended up with it. I think mama got it for me for Christmas in ninth grade as a novelty item. It was neat and all, and I liked looking up a lot of Klingon words and phrases, but the sections on syntax, word order, stresses, possessive forms, declensive noun conjugation, verb conjugal visits, and yadda, yadda, yadda... I'm afraid I didn't care that much. Besides, I have enough trouble with English! As for pronunciation... Jesus. I never was very good at it.

I used to eat lunch with Matt Conner in high school. We were pretty good friends who traded books from time to time, and I let him borrow this for a couple of days. The way he had it figured, the best way to speak Klingon was to shove your tongue down the back of your throat and say all the consonants at once. Unfortunately he told me this right when I had taken a swig of orange soda. I spewed most of it all over the place, then choked on the rest. Even more unfortunate, I was wearing my white Mickey Mouse sweatshirt at the time, and I don't think I ever got all the orange out of it. We were always keeping each other in stitches, though I never landed a good one on him right when he was taking a drink.

One time he stormed over from the lunch line, sat down, slammed his chocolate milk on the table and said "balanced meal, my eye." That said it all, and after I was done guffawing at his transit misfortune (thankfully I didn't have a mouthful of anything that time), I shared my lunch with him. I lost touch with Matt after high school, and I really miss him. I never was able to find out anything about him in later years, never found him on MySpace, or Facebook, or any of those sites I used to be on, and none of our mutual friends kept up with him either. I'm glad I got to be friends with him for a few years. Even though we drifted into different social circles and didn't have any classes in common the last couple years of high school, we could still shoot the shit and have a good time if we passed in the hall, and I still fondly remember some of our old running jokes. (Cooooorrrn... God, boys can be so silly.)

Anyway, this is like a serious grammar book for people who reeeeeaaally want to learn basic Klingon as if it were a real language. And I suppose it is. Just because it was just made up for a TV show/movie franchise doesn't mean it isn't a real language, and there are people out there who can hang with this. They're dorks, but before I get too high and mighty, let us not forget that I've owned this book for over 30 years and still look at it from time to time...



Yeah, yeah, I know, hypocrite, whatever, but seriously, people take classes on this shit. There's a Klingon Language Institute for Gorkon's sake! I think it's mostly for hardcore cosplayers and people who have jobs as Klingons at Star Trek Land, or whatever the theme park is called, and need to play the part to the hilt. However, that's not me. The only word I know without having to think about it is the greeting nuqneH (pronounced nook NEKH) which literally translates to "what do you want?" (Klingons aren't know for their gentility.) Although, I plan to add "bljatlh 'e' ylmev" and "naDev vo' ylghoS" to my repertoire if I can manage it. (These are pronounced "bi-JATL e yi-MEV" and "na-dev-VO yi-GHOSH" and translate to "shut up" and "go away" respectively.) Why? Well, I'll tell you.

I, like most of you, I assume, suffer from spam, scam, and telemarketing calls from the dregs of human society who have no character, moral fiber, or souls (my apologies if you are one of those odious people.) I rarely answer these calls, but some of them are persistent, and I will occasionally humor them... Or perhaps I actually humor myself. I don't answer in my regular voice, but bark something into the phone. Sometimes it's simply "Lo!" Other times I fire off with nuqneh. If they actually start talking, I then launch into a string of made up German a la Moe Hailstone.[1]



It would be nice to stick to one language, though, so I need to learn those two other Klingon phrases just in case the call center is on Qo'noS or Khitomar. Then they should get the message, but usually it's Habib in Crotchistan who doesn't understand Klingon at all (or English for that matter, at least not the Southern Cracker dialect as I speak it.) Anyway, I got one of these calls the other day and decided to answer. They hung up after a couple seconds without saying a thing, which is really the best way these things can go, though I do like when a telemarketer tees up a nice opening for you. "Hello Mr. Pierce, I have a window..." "I've got a house full of them myself, thank you for calling." Click.

I have a cousin who likes to play with them when he has nothing better to do. He had someone trying to sell him vinyl siding, kept him on the phone for 20 minutes asking questions about this and that, then finally told him "Oh, did I mention I live in a brick house?" Vinyl siding man wasn't happy, but that's good enough for him. I'm not sure which circle of hell these people end up in, but my guess would be the fourth? Well, the telemarketers might be in the first, but the scammers and spammers are probably in the fourth, and they should be sent there with a photon torpedo fired directly in the face, the wretched pukes.[2]

Anyway, the call the other day reminded me that I had this book but had never reviewed it, and I've now remedied that.

[1]: The irony here is that some of his phrases in the shorts where the Stooges were skewering the Nazis were Yiddish or Hebrew with German inflections which I'm sure was a nice touch for their Jewish audience. E.G.: "Beblach" means "beans" and "in pupik gehabt haben" means "I've had it in the bellybutton."

[2]: I reckon I'll be in the fifth circle, myself. Alas.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is this a fantastic work, but you have to appreciate that one of the Klingons on the front is Christopher Lloyd... Because, honestly, Star Trek ran for so long that everyone has been in it at least once.

NuqDaq Yuch Dapol!
(Where do you keep the chocolate?)

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

hell yea I read this. wanna fight about it?

[Clay Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wouldn't leave the Federation without it.

[Koen Crolla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first bought and read this book when I was in middle school in possibly 1997, but my grasp on linguistics is a bit better now than it was when I was 11 so I figured it was worth revisiting. It's actually better than I remembered.

The book very reasonably starts with a chapter on phonology, and while Okrand obviously doesn't use the IPA he describes the sounds of the language quite precisely, with no unresolvable ambiguities and only a few instances of sloppiness—e.g. ⟨H⟩ is described as like the ch in Bach (i.e. /x/) or l'chaim (i.e. /χ/), but as ⟨gh⟩ is described as the voiced equivalent and certainly represents /ɣ/ and not /ʁ/, ⟨H⟩ is certainly /x/. My only real complaint here is the spelling: there are five vowels, /ɑ, ɛ, ɪ, o, u/, written ⟨a, e, I, o, u⟩—why ⟨I⟩ and not ⟨i⟩? Why is /ɣ/ ⟨gh⟩ and not ⟨g⟩ (there is no /ɡ/)? /ɖ/ being ⟨D⟩ rather than ⟨d⟩ (there is no /d/) is defensible, I guess, but /ŋ/ should have been ⟨N⟩ rather than ⟨ng⟩; if you're coming up with a writing system for a language in 1985 or 1992 or 2285 or 2368, there's no good reason not to make it phonemic.
(That many/most established Klingon names don't fit into this phonology is addressed later (in the Other Kinds of Words chapter for some reason) as being a consequence of non-Klingons mispronouncing them, which is at least better than not addressing it at all.)

The grammar is relatively unexciting, with all morphology happening through affixing affixes (mostly suffixes) and no apophony or consonant mutation or anything; not unrealistic, just kind of uninteresting. Minor credit for not having verb tense, only aspect, and suffixes that distinguish between referents capable of speech and others (however imperfectly carried through), but credit lost for having compound words and sentences happen through simple apposition, and possibly also for having adverbials just kind of be there with no clear way to derive them from other kinds of words (though one, batlh /bɑt͡ɬ/ 'with honour', is just the noun batlh 'honour', which at least hints at a path).
I'm also not a fan of there not being any obviously irregular paradigms, which is a mistake many conlangs make—it robs the language of an obvious history, which is the easiest way to make it feel real. Again, though, this isn't unprecedented in natural languages (particularly agglutinative languages like this, obviously), and especially defensible if Proper Klingon is regarded as a Sanskritised prestige dialect (which is at odds with some of the text, but whatever).

As conlangs go, though, there are obviously worse ones, and Klingon is at least demonstrably fit for purpose. I'm still not going to buy the Conversational Klingon audio cassette.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

not yap wa' Hol

[Abraham Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the best Star Trek book in my opinion.

[Andy Horton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The original work and its supplement for the conlang ("constructed language") for the Klingon people of Star Trek, which linguist Mark Okrand was commissioned to create. Sophisticated thinking about language. He took the trouble to make this alien language distinct - a slightly alien phonology, and a sentence order less commonly encountered in RL languages. He also makes it a plausible language with a coherent and consistent grammar with many plausible exceptions or unique usages. Re-reading this ahead of a Klingon-based RPG I'm running, I was struck by the dry wit with which Okrand presents his material - the sufffix referring to fear is taboo to use woth first or second person pronouns, for example... He chooses his examples from a small pool of vocabulary which helps illustrate the grammar as you become familiar with recurring nouns like yaS, "officer".
Interesting seeing names and iconic items like Kahless and Batleth (in their original Klingon forms) appear, and noticing the things that don't show up - no gagh yet. There is of course, the despised yIH, the tribble...

[André · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, the Klingon dictionary! Much better than the German version (less errors). The description is really simple and thus easy to understand even for non-linguists. However, some things that I consider important are missing (how to say "with/without", ). Plus, I demand the cover to look less geeky.

P.S.: I have an original autograph by Marc Okrand in this book! ;)

[Butsuri]

Klingon

[Luke Buckenmeyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a dictionary.

[Jure Godler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very useful when traveling to Idrija.

[Scott Bordelon · Rating 3 out of 5]

tlhIngan mu’ghom

When Star Trek - The Motion Picture was released in 1979, the Klingon language only had 11 words, but that quickly jumped to 1,586 words when The Klingon Dictionary was released in 1985. By the time The Klingon Dictionary was updated in 1992 with suffixes, prefixes, and its addendum of words, the total word count rose to 1,889. That’s where The Klingon Dictionary, published by Pocket Books, stops. The word count has continued to climb and now totals 5,216 words, as of July 2024. For reference, the Spanish dictionary contains roughly 93,000 words and the English dictionary contains around 171,000 words, but it’s not a contest (yet). Due to Klingon’s rapid growth, these days The Klingon Dictionary needs to be supplemented with an online resource, such as the Klingon Word Wiki or Hol ‘ampaS.

But The Klingon Dictionary isn’t just a dictionary. Like a middle school language arts class, it also teaches the grammatical construction of Klingon words and sentences, which makes it THE golden reference for the language. Lessons are well-organized and concise with simple examples for everything. It provides enough detail to teach someone how to converse properly, though not eloquently. It’s roughly 41% grammar instruction; 57% Klingon-to-English and English-to-Klingon dictionary; and 2% useful phrases like, “Four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running man.” (qaStaHvIS wa’ ram loS SoD Hugh SIjlaH qetbogh loD.)

Marc Okrand is both The Klingon Dictionary author and the creator of the Klingon language. When you read through all the grammatical details in The Klingon Dictionary, you realize Okrand wasn’t kidding around. He didn’t just throw together the minimum set of words and phonetics to make a few lines sound good for the Star Trek audience. Klingon is a real, full-featured language that nobody speaks. (Yes, I know there are people out there who speak Klingon fluently, which is hilarious.) In fact, Klingon is the most difficult language I’ve ever encountered, mostly due to the number of grammatical excursions from English. Okrand is a professional linguist and succeeded in making Klingon different from English in every way possible. Maybe he sells more dictionaries that way.

I have one gripe with The Klingon Dictionary. When Okrand added another 219 words and some grammatical odds and ends in the 1992 edition, instead of assimilating them into the original 1985 text like the Borg, he just tacked it onto the end as an addendum. That means when you look up a word, you might need to search for it twice -- once in the 1985 lexicon and again in the 1992 addendum. However, if you’re serious about learning Klingon (and why wouldn't you be?), this is still the best place to start. It’s a great reference for the language, though it’s insufficient for teaching how the language should really sound in a conversation. For that, you need Okrand’s Conversational Klingon audiobook.

[foxantoine · Rating 4 out of 5]

sooo... have i read The Entire book? no, but it's because i'm not gonna read the dictionary-only part, it's just a bunch of words in an alphabetical order. of course, i will use it to do exercises and something fun like translating memes, but just reading it once seems kind of futile to me.
anyway, the grammar part was fun as hell, but not perfect. my main beef is that it's english based and well... english isn't everything (and i'm not a native speaker). some parts were so confusing they made no sense (and i'm talking about english explanations of klingon, not klingon itself lmao). but i know, conlangs be conlanging. however it was really cool to compare tlhIngan Hol to russian, they have some things in common (no "to be" for example, or the neverending suffixes, cool stuff)!
overall it's a positive nerd experience for me, if only i could be consistent with it!

[Devero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non fingerò di aver imparato granché da questo dizionario.
Il problema, ovviamente, sta per metà nel fatto che il klingon, come lingua inventata, è stata inventata a spizzichi e bocconi per i film e le serie televisive di Star Trek, che adoro. Quindi non è per nulla una cosa omogenea e programmata come voleva essere quel fallimento completo dell'esperanto.
L'altra metà del problema è la traduzione italiana, che senza dubbio è difficile perché il klingon è una variante dell'inglese in realtà, una variante artificialmente più complessa, e tradurlo dal'inglese vuol dire aumentare un poco la confusione.
Va bene, per me era questione di completezza averlo.
3 stelle per l'idea e l'impegno dell'autore.

[Lieven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course this is not an entertainment book. It's a book of grammar and linguistics. If you really want to learn Klingon, you need this book. Nevertheless, I give only 4 out of 5 stars, because it is really hard to learn only from this book. They could have made that better, but it was never the intention of the publishers to have people learn the language.

[Robert Lewter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive

Well, now I know a good bit about the Klingon language. This is an actual textbook. My hat is off to the author. If you want to know how to speak some basic Klingon, here you go. Myself, my mouth doesn't work that way.

[Diana S Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

FUN!

One day, when I become fluent, I shall tell you how I REALLY feel! I love Worf for ever and ever!

[Miguel Pinto · Rating 4 out of 5]

amaze paq.
'oH 'ej 'op qabDaq vumnIS yabraj chut lulajpu'bogh Hol Suq tIv jIH.
nobmeH 'oH jatlh ghobe'!
'ach 'oH tIv trekkie reH jIHvaD lot

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating.

[Alexander Curran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ka'plah! (Victory/success)

[Carolyn Page · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not that I'd ever study it, but it's just one of those things that's good to have on your reference shelf, y'know?

[Shadoe Hare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful!

[Jayh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty Neat!

[Samuel Provance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astoundingly a real albeit challenging language

[John Stinebaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

naD

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Technically I haven't "read" this one, but I have made use of it for reference numerous times. I've long been fascinated with this fictitious culture from one of my favorite TV and movie franchises, and this peek into the language constructed for them just adds another fascinating layer.

My biggest complaint is that in the section that provides Klingon phrases ready made for you, the people who formatted the book elected to use a san-serif font that doesn't do well at differentiating between a lower case l and an upper case I. Given that the language makes use of the Latin alphabet in a very unique way, and the case and letter in question makes a big difference in pronunciation, you can pretty well screw up your communication efforts if you can't tell the difference between the two letters.

[IVellon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really good! (Well, if you don't see the point in reading on fictional languages - don't!)

In my opinion, Klingon is the most creative conlang (of those, who reached a broader audience) ever created. Marc Okrand pushes the reader beyond the known (indo-)european structeres and introduces her/him to a whole new range of possibilities. We owe him much for this!
As a linguist I whished for scientific terminology to be used more often but I can live with it.

And for all those who do not understand why the grammar part is split: In 1992 an addendum was published that forms the second part at the end of the book. Of course, a third edition combining both parts could have been published by now.

[Jana Suna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how to rate dictionaries or grammar of languages but I think that I don't understand the organisation of the book well. There are two parts and I didn't understand why not just write the whole grammar at the beginning of the book and the whole dictionary after that. There are grammar-dictionary-grammar-dictionary and I think that it is a little bit confusing. But maybe I just didn't understand the purpose of those sequence because of my poor English-German (I have this book in German as well and I read in German more than in English). But anyway I can say know that I can understand Klingon with the dictionary or I can write.