How long did it take you to learn?

[torqey]

I'm in the process of learning Klingon and I was wondering--how long did it take you to learn?

[QoghtlhIH'u']

Hi tor'qey,

How long it takes to learn anything depends on the effort you put into it. My advice: there are many websites on the Klingon language, but if they are not recently updated be wary of them. You need The Klingon Dictionary at least. And you can use this forum to post your self-concocted texts and patiently receive any criticisms. The closest thing to actually being on Qo'noS amongst the Klingons and learning it is being in the presence of Klingonists in this forum, I guess.
Then it still will take a long time as with any language. With Terran languages you could go the country the language is spoken, or watch movies or something. With Klingon this is next to impossible.
There is not much material apart from the Okrand books, but they do not contain stories or something. The resource I like best is that of ter'eS:
 http://teresh.tdonnelly.org/index.html
There you find a complete story, a few funny movies which give life to the language and some grammatical explanations.
tlhIngan Hol Daghoj  'e' yItIv. Qapla'
Enjoy learning the Klingon language. Succes!

QoghtlhIH'u'

[torqey]

Hi tor'qey,

How long it takes to learn anything depends on the effort you put into it. My advice: there are many websites on the Klingon language, but if they are not recently updated be wary of them. You need The Klingon Dictionary at least. And you can use this forum to post your self-concocted texts and patiently receive any criticisms. The closest thing to actually being on Qo'noS amongst the Klingons and learning it is being in the presence of Klingonists in this forum, I guess.
Then it still will take a long time as with any language. With Terran languages you could go the country the language is spoken, or watch movies or something. With Klingon this is next to impossible.
There is not much material apart from the Okrand books, but they do not contain stories or something. The resource I like best is that of ter'eS:
 http://teresh.tdonnelly.org/index.html
There you find a complete story, a few funny movies which give life to the language and some grammatical explanations.
tlhIngan Hol Daghoj  'e' yItIv. Qapla'
Enjoy learning the Klingon language. Succes!

QoghtlhIH'u'

Thanks for all that. I have the dictionary and actually, I was just curious how long it took everyone to learn. I don't want to know because I think it will take ME a long time, I really am just curious. So, how long DID it take everyone to learn.

[Qunchuy]

I spent about six months getting to the point where I could read a sentence without having to look up every single syllable. I still needed to use the dictionary for many of the nouns and verbs, but being able to recognize and comprehend the prefixes and suffixes on sight was a major tipping point in becoming fluent.

With Terran languages you could go the country the language is spoken, or watch movies or something. With Klingon this is next to impossible.

It might be next to impossible, but it's not totally impossible. Each summer, the Klingon Language Institute holds its qep'a' great meeting, conference. For five days in July, Klingon comes alive as some of its best speakers join to celebrate their twisted zeal for this artificial language. Beginners and experts alike enjoy word games, songs, skits, panel discussions, sushi (maybe), pizza (definitely), and 'awje'.

Details should be forthcoming soon, but if there is any way you can be in the Philadelphia area from July 22-26, 2009, you will probably find the trip worth it.

[QoghtlhIH'u']

I started learning the Klingon language in june 2008. On my weblink you'll find the story I have been writing since october or something. I know all words and all of the grammar that is in that story and I am still trying to find mistakes. But quv 'Iwchab je, Honor and bloodpie, covers perhaps 70% of the grammar, 60% of the pre- and suffixes but only 10% of all the words. I work on this story and another one almost every day for a few hours.
After having briefly studied TKD I tried to understand tlhoraQ puqloDpu' lut the story of Klorax's sons, because it is a complete story, so the words have a sensible context.
So much for learning a language and statistics.
QoghtlhIH'u'

The qep'a' is beyond my budget, by the way. And then all the trouble to get a visum/visa for the U.S.  And here in Holland there are not that many Klingonists.

[torqey]

The qep'a' is beyond my budget, by the way.

Same here If I ever do get there, though, do they serve prune juice? 

BTW...Do you have to speak Klingon to go there? Will I be completely confused if I'm not fluent?

[Qunchuy]

If I ever do get [to qep'a'], though, do they serve prune juice? 

Nobody will object if you bring your own. Diet cherry vanilla Dr Pepper is more likely to be in the cooler, though. On the more solid side, chocolate Twizzlers were surprisingly well received one year.

BTW...Do you have to speak Klingon to go there? Will I be completely confused if I'm not fluent?

I attend primarily in order to speak Klingon, but you don't have to speak Klingon in order to attend. If you aren't fluent you'll miss a lot of the random humor that doesn't quite translate, but so do many of the more fluent speakers if they're not paying close attention.

Total beginners are neither shunned nor resented. They are accommodated and encouraged. One of the more amusing customs that has developed over the years is the collection of volunteer "simultaneous translators" whispering English to those needing it during some of the skits or extemporaneous speeches.

[torqey]

If I ever do get [to qep'a'], though, do they serve prune juice? 

Nobody will object if you bring your own. Diet cherry vanilla Dr Pepper is more likely to be in the cooler, though. On the more solid side, chocolate Twizzlers were surprisingly well received one year.

BTW...Do you have to speak Klingon to go there? Will I be completely confused if I'm not fluent?

I attend primarily in order to speak Klingon, but you don't have to speak Klingon in order to attend. If you aren't fluent you'll miss a lot of the random humor that doesn't quite translate, but so do many of the more fluent speakers if they're not paying close attention.

Total beginners are neither shunned nor resented. They are accommodated and encouraged. One of the more amusing customs that has developed over the years is the collection of volunteer "simultaneous translators" whispering English to those needing it during some of the skits or extemporaneous speeches.

That sounds really fun. If I can ever afford it, I'll attend. Do people dress up as Klingons?

BTW I was joking about the prune juice. Watch DS9 or read the books

[Jazzman]

I'm in the process of learning Klingon and I was wondering--how long did it take you to learn?

I'm a language teacher (not of Klingon!),  I  have also  learned several  obscure languages (not Klingon!), but  after having  bought  the Klingon Language Suite for my iPhone  and taking  a look  at  it, I  estimate that I  would need (if I  really  wanted to  learn it) about 150 - 250 hours of concentrated study.  By  comparison, I could speak reasonable Igbo after spending  three weeks in  southern Nigeria, but  I needed 5 years living  in  Thailand to  learn to  read, write, and speak  Thai (a non Roman script language) to  any  degree of fluency, but  the alphabet and phonemes only took about  20 - 30 hours to  learn.  Another comparison would be that  if you  wanted to  learn, say Spanish, or French (Roman  alphabet languages) as  a subject  in school, you  would spend a total of about 1,000 hours on it from  grade 7 through 12, but  it probably wouldn't be perfectly  fluent  until  you  completed a college degree, or had plenty  of opportunity to  practice the language with peers.

According  to  Chomsky (generative grammar), the human brain  has a built-in  grammar engine that  grasps the rules of languages fairly  easily  then applies them predictively - we learn our native languages by  just  copying  how, when, and why our parents say things, without needing  to  study  the grammar separately. However, vocabulary acquisition is largely  a question  of how good your memory  is. Flashcards can help  enormously.


[Edit -- removed repeated link. -Kesvirit]

[torqey]

Thanks for the advice!

[QoghtlhIH'u']

The problem with Klingon is still that there is hardly any material. I mean reading material. Most of the canon are loose sentences and short texts. Only

tlhoraQ puqloDpu' lut The Story of Klorax's Sons

from ter'eS is anything substantial in the Klingon language about Klingons.
And as far as I know there is hardly anything in Klingon dealing about present day Terran life. Ofcourse in the light of Star Trek there never was a reason to produce such things unless there was a story about Klingons stranded on Terra trying to survive without killing everyone around them  .

Somebody might point out that one can study the Klingon Hamlet, but who in his/her right mind would teach English with Hamlet as a beginners textbook?
If we want this language to be useful we need to produce texts ourselves, either stories about Klingons or about everyday Terran life, have these texts edited and revised by the more experienced Klingonists and make simple movies with spoken and written Klingon and written Federation Standard. As long as no one is going to sell this stuff there should be no copyright issue and no FerengiMount lawyers should harass us. 
Feel free to criticize my ramblings....  naDHa'ghachraj vIloS jIQuchtaHvIS - I happily await your discommendations

[Qunchuy]

And as far as I know there is hardly anything in Klingon dealing about present day Terran life.

Qo'noS QonoS might satisfy you, or at least give you a taste of what you're looking for. It didn't last very long, but while it did, it was a pretty good resource for people seeking Klingon text.

[QoghtlhIH'u']

Thanks Qunchuy! That is indeed what I was looking for.  I'll work my way through it.


From QQ 1
yIn tlhIngan Hol. Holvam wIjatlhtaHvIS, not Hegh.
The Klingon language lives. While we speak this language, it never dies.

The first issue of QQ already warns us:
wIHemnIS, 'ach maDughnIS.  ...pIjHa' jatlhwI' chu' DImuvmoH.   tlhoS not jatlhwI' po'bej moj.
We must be proud but we must be vigilant.  ...  Infrequently we recruit new speakers. Almost never they become certainly skilled speakers.

[KlingonAndorianOrion]

Somebody might point out that one can study the Klingon Hamlet, but who in his/her right mind would teach English with Hamlet as a beginners textbook?

The biggest problem with Hamlet is that even though a native English speaker will grasp the overall story most will miss out on a good bit of the specifics due to the language changing since it was written.  The same probably goes for any of Shakespeare's plays or poems.  I've heard that the title Much Ado about Nothing originally was joke since nothing is so similar to noting which at the time meant eavesdropping, and that a lot of the actions taken by characters are because they overheard part of what was supposed to be a secret conversation.  However, now no one uses "noting" to mean eavesdropping so this has been lost to time.  That may be incorrect though as I've never seen it documented anywhere.

Now it has come up several times that there are potential copyright concerns for publishing in Klingon.  Wikipedia states that Klingon itself can't be copyrighted because words are facts.  It seems to me that there are two more further arguments against Paramount as well should it try to cause legal trouble over Klingon works.  There have been several constructed languages invented in the last 100 years that have been learned by thousands if not millions of speakers.  I speak of course of programming languages.  While generally simple these are indeed languages with the strictest possible grammatical rules and even a small vocabulary of sorts.  If any languages could be said to be intellectual property then surely programming languages must be numbered among them.  I have studied a few of these, and I have never once had to pay anyone for works I wrote in them.  My efforts are trivial at best when we consider that the most advances programs are collaborative efforts that rival encyclopedias in length.  Perhaps someone does charge for their use, but I have not seen it in my experience.  If so many programming languages which are certainly closer to traditional intellectual property than a constructed language for use in human communication has ever dreamed of being are open to the public how can Paramount claim to own Klingon?  If ever anyone could have claimed constructed languages as property it was the creators of the first programming languages, and since they have thrown their inventions into the public domain how can any constructed language now try to put that genie back in the bottle?

Secondly, is not each written work in a language that could be copyrighted itslef a piece of intellectual property?    Is it a piece of intellectual property due to the words it uses, or is it s piece of intellectual property due to the story it contains?  I must say that the evidence to me seems to fall towards the story and not the written work itself being the piece of property.  If I write a book in English which is subsequently translated into German, I still own the rights to the book not the person who translated it.  Paramount would be asserting its claim to an independent author's intellectual propert simply because of the language in which it is written.  This would be akin to the translator owning the book instead of the author.

It should be noted I'm no lawyer or even amateur legal scholar.  However, I have trouble believing there aren't lawyers on the right and left of the political spectrum who would be interested in taking on a potential case against Paramount for free simply due to the exposure it would give them in legal circles.

After reading the forum rulesI'm going to post the part about whereher or not this is legal in its own topic.  I think I'm supposed to leave this here though too.  Sorry for missing the rules earlier.

[QoghtlhIH'u']

Let the first brave and write-aholic Klingonist stand up, write a book or movie in Klingon,
publish it, make money from it,
and only then will we see if there is any Paraborg lawyer who tries to sue the last DeQ (credit) out of this Klingonist.

I really don't think there is an audience big enough to be able to profit from works in Klingon, unless it is an awesome movie subtitled in Federation Standard.
However, it probably takes a zillion DeQ to make such a movie.

I am not sure how much a zillion is, but two thousand DeQ will buy you some Dilithium crystals, according to Power Klingon.

[qurgh_]

I second Qunchuy's suggestion of going to the qep'a'. I went last year and had a ton of fun. I'm already booked for this year!

I'm not a fluent speaker, but the environment really encourages learning. Being able to practice what you have learned really helps.

The games are a great experience. I especially enjoyed the "secret word on the forehead" game (don't remember the proper name). It gave me a chance to talk to people in small groups, which I prefer over the "stand up and tell a story" games. I prefer to converse than to lecture.