| Sky Division – ‘Etlh Ghung (Blade’s Hunger), 2026 | |
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(Lyrics)
‘etlhmaj ghung, ‘Iw ngev. | – – – continues |
We will die with honor, blood is life. We always fight, we always kill. That is the Klingon way of life. We are warriors who never give up. Today is a good day to die!Blood! Blood! Blood! Death! Death! Death! We will kill! We will fight! Victory and honor! Today we fight, today we die. We will meet our fathers in the dark. Our enemies will be many, they will be destroyed. We are Klingons! We are Klingons! Today is a good day to die! | – – – continues |
Klingon (natively called tlhIngan Hol) is a fully constructed language created for the Star Trek franchise. It is spoken by the Klingons - a fictional warrior species from the planet Qo'noS - and is one of the most linguistically complete constructed languages ever developed for a fictional universe. Unlike many fictional languages that exist only as scattered phrases, Klingon has a complete grammar, an extensive vocabulary, and even a small number of genuine conversational speakers.
Klingon features sounds that deliberately feel harsh and alien to English speakers, including uvular stops, retroflex consonants, and complex verbal morphology. Linguist Marc Okrand designed it to sound like no known human language - and largely succeeded. It is classified as a rare OVS (Object-Verb-Subject) language, a word order almost unheard of in the world's natural languages.
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Klingons first appeared in the original Star Trek series (1966), but it was Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) that first gave them a distinct spoken language. Actor James Doohan ("Scotty") invented the original sounds, and linguist Marc Okrand was commissioned to expand them into a full language for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984). Okrand published The Klingon Dictionary in 1985, which became a bestseller and is still in print.
The language gained a dedicated following through The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Discovery. Characters like Worf, Gowron, and Chancellor Martok delivered memorable Klingon dialogue that fans have memorised and quoted ever since.
Some of the most popular Klingon phrases:
nuqneH [ What do you want? (standard greeting) ]
Qapla' [ Success! (farewell / battle cry) ]
tlhIngan maH! [ We are Klingons! ]
bIjatlh 'e' yImev [ Shut up! ]
jIyajbe' [ I don't understand. ]
SoH muSHa' [ I love you. ]
HIja' [ Yes. ]
taH pagh taHbe' [ To be or not to be. ]
The Klingon Language Institute
The Klingon Language Institute (KLI), founded in 1992, is a real organisation dedicated to studying and promoting the Klingon language. It publishes a journal (HolQeD), maintains a dictionary, and has coordinated translations of literary works into Klingon - including a translation of Hamlet and portions of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The KLI famously argued that Hamlet should be read in the original Klingon: "taH pagh taHbe'".
Estimates suggest a few dozen people worldwide can hold a full conversation entirely in Klingon, making it one of the very few constructed languages - alongside Esperanto and Tolkien's Elvish - with genuine conversational speakers. Klingon was also one of the earliest constructed languages to be added to the Duolingo language-learning platform, bringing the language to millions of new learners.