One of the most famous agglutinative languages from our planet is Turkish, with notable examples of imaginative words like muvaffakiyetsizleЕџtiricileЕџtiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmiЕџsinizcesine, meaning вЂњas though you are from those whom we may not be able to easily make into a maker of unsuccessful one s.вЂќ Klingon also does this to some extent (though not that long) with words like QaplaвЂ™HommeyqoqlIjmoвЂ™, which translates to the phrase вЂњdue to your so-called minor mistakes.вЂќ Similarly, logh chal je вЂangweD qachmeans вЂњplanetariumвЂќ but literally translates to вЂњHeaven and Earth space building.вЂќ Quite colorful, no? (Anyone whoвЂ™s learned a second language knows what a blessing this is.) This is also the case with Klingon. This means that irregular verbs are very rare. While this may sound difficult - or scary - to an English speaker because we donвЂ™t often use this type of word-building in our language, most agglutinative languages are highly regular. In the Klingon language, the morphology is agglutinative, meaning that complex words are formed by compounding morphemes (the smallest units of meaning in a language) without changing the spelling or phonetics. The way that words are formed in a language, and how these words relate to each other, is called morphology. If all of these languages are foreign to you, worry not, Klingon was designed to sound completely alien to an English-speaking audience! Klingon Word Construction With the consonants running the show, vowels are comparatively relaxed and are more closely aligned with vowel pronunciation in Romance languages. ThereвЂ™s one easy aspect of Klingon pronunciation - and thatвЂ™s the vowels. Even FrenchВ shares some phonological similarities with Klingon, as it features predominant use of the guttural R. However, the sound is very common in other languages, so if you have knowledge of a Germanic language, like GermanВ or Dutch, a Celtic language, like WelshВ or Scottish Gaelic, or a Semitic language, like ArabicВ or Hebrew, you have a clear edge - all of these languages are considered fairly guttural. The only exceptions are Scouse (the dialect in Liverpool) and Scottish (which uses the voiceless velar fricative in the -chВ of the word loch).

This sound can be difficult for native English speakers to reproduce, as itвЂ™s almost nonexistent in English. Klingon phonology is first and foremost very guttural, meaning that many of the sounds of the language are pronounced from the back of the throat.ДЄ guttural sound thatвЂ™s common in Klingon is the voiceless velar fricative. The system of how sounds function within a language and transmit meaning, as well as how they contrast from one another, is called phonology. LetвЂ™s explore how the Klingon language compares to other languages that are spoken today, and what kind of challenges there are to picking up this conlang. Of course, even with these parameters, Okrand has acknowledged that every aspect of Klingon is based on a real language. As far as speakers, there are a few hundred intermediate-level individuals and a handful of fluent speakers worldwide.Д¬reator and linguist Marc Okrand developed the Klingon language to not only sound alien but to be linguistically distinct from our human languages. In the three decades since then, Klingon now has a complete dictionary, several original books, multiple translated works and an entire opera all to itself. But this constructed language (вЂњconlang,вЂќ for short) has been around much longer than you might expect: First mentioned in Star Trek: The Original SeriesВ in 1967, Klingon has been a fully fledged, speakable language since 1984.

If youвЂ™ve seen any of the new Star TrekВ series, Star Trek: Discovery, youвЂ™ve undoubtedly been exposed to an earful of the Klingon language. Header Image:В John Medland/CBS, В©2018 CBS Interactive, Inc.

Klingon langy