Express an Action
Hello and welcome to Duolingo's course in Klingon!
We would like to tell you "Hello and welcome" in Klingon, but Klingon does not have equivalents to those words. Klingons tend to be very direct and rarely engage in conversation simply for the pleasure of conversing, making superfluous many of the pleasantries we are accustomed to using in English.
In this unit we will focus on getting you using Klingon right away.
Alphabet
The Klingon alphabet is:
a b ch D e gh H I j l m n ng o p q Q r S t tlh u v w y '
Note that case matters: many letters are always lowercase (even at the beginning of a sentence) and some are always uppercase (even in the middle of a word). Q & q are two separate letters. Please also note that the Duolingo software has issues with this and may occasionally capitalize the first letter of a sentence or remove capitals from the middle of words and sentences. Additionally, note that ch gh ng & tlh each count as single consonants in Klingon and the ' (apostrophe) also counts as a letter.
The typical syllable in Klingon is made of one consonant, one vowel, and another consonant. For example, the verb yaj ("to understand") has a y-consonant, an a-vowel, and a j-consonant. Many words are just one syllable and are three sounds, just like that. You will see some syllables that have a different number of sounds, and some words that are made of multiple syllables. For instance the exclamation nuqneH ("What do you want?") has two syllables, each made up of a consonant, a vowel, and another consonant. Pay attention to this pattern as it will help you pronounce the words.
Pronunciation:
Over the next few lessons, we'll introduce a few new sounds at a time. Do your best with sounds you haven't learned yet, but you'll soon learn more about how those sounds are made.
Letters b l m n p t and v are said as in English, but b, p and t should always have a puff of air, even at the end of a word.
Vowels each have one pronunciation.
a as in father
e as in ten
I as in it
o as in bowl
u as the oo in pool
I is uppercase to remind us that it is different from the pattern of 5 vowels we often see in foreign languages. The Klingon vowel sound written as I is not said like "ee", but rather as "ih" (as in "it"). In some fonts, the I (capital i) and l (lowercase L) can look very similar. In Duolingo the l (lowercase L) has a small curl at the bottom. But if you have difficulty seeing that small curl or use another website or document where it is even harder to tell, there is another way to differentiate the two.
As mentioned above, the typical syllable is a consonant, a vowel, and another consonant. The result of that is that no vowels ever have another vowel adjacent to them. Thus the vowel I never has an adjacent vowel. And conversely, the consonant l will always have at least one adjacent vowel. So you can tell whether you are looking at an I or an l by looking to see if there is an adjacent vowel.
H is said at the top of the throat with a raspy vibration in the back of the mouth, but without any voiced hum in the throat or nasals. It is similar to the "ch" heard in Scottish "loch", Hebrew "l'chaim", and German "Bach", though it is usually said a little further back and a little stronger than those sounds. It is capitalized to remind us not to say it like the weak English "h". When you see a lower-case "h" it will always be part of one of the consonants ch, gh, or tlh.
D in Klingon sounds similar to the English "d", but said with the tip of the tongue further back in the high roof of the mouth and is capitalized to help us remember the difference.
Sound/Spelling Exercises
In these first few Units (and later reviews) you will encounter exercises that give you a spelling and ask you to pick the sound file that matches, or that give you a sound file and ask you to pick the spelling that matches. Some of the "words" in those exercises are real words and some of them are just made up words that can act as good examples of how the sounds and spelling matches. None of them are intended to be vocabulary for you. No definition is given because many of the words don't even have definitions, but even when real words are used, you are being asked to focus on the correlation of spelling and sound and not on memorizing the word. You will be learning a lot of vocabulary as you go along. For now, if Duolingo doesn't give you a definition, then it wants you to wait to learn that vocabulary and just focus on the sounds for now.
nuqneH
nuqneH is a truncated form of nuq DaneH, meaning "What do you want?"
It is a common misconception that this is "the Klingon word for hello". In fact, Klingons have no word for hello. If a Klingon wishes to say something, they'll walk up to you and say it, without wasting time – as they see it – on idle chatter. If you don't say what you want and seem to be wasting time, then a Klingon might exclaim, nuqneH!
This phrase is a special exclamation and not a grammatically formed question.
Qapla'
Klingon for "success". This word can be used as a noun in a sentence, but it can also be shouted as an exclamation celebrating a success or wishing for success.
This word is often mistranslated as "Goodbye", due to the fact that it is often heard at the end of conversations. In fact, Klingon has no word for "Goodbye", but Qapla' is often used either to congratulate somebody on their success or to wish them success in the future. Note that this word is made of two consonant, vowel, consonant syllables. Qap-la'.
Verbs
In grammar, a verb is the action or state being described, a subject is the one doing the action or being in the state, and an object is the one an action is done to. Klingon verbs show the subject and the object of verbs by means of prefixes (syllables added to the start of the word).
If the subject is third person (he/she/it/they) and has either no object or a third-person object (him/her/it/them), then the verb has no prefix. (With the exception of "they – him/her/it", which you will learn later). So a verb such as yaj can mean "he understands; she understands; it understands; they understand; he understands him/her/it/them; she understands him/her/it/them; or they understand them". Usually, the surrounding discussion (the context) will make it clear which is meant.
Because of the verbal prefixes, the subject and/or object does not have to be included, in the Klingon sentence, as a pronoun, and subject or object pronouns are typically left off. In English, pronouns are required, so to say, "she understands them", we have to include the pronouns "she" and "them" even though the Klingon can just be, yaj.
Joining nouns with and without "and"
Nouns are joined with je, which comes after the nouns, as in torgh mara je "Torg and Mara", or Hol pong je "the language and the name".
If there is no je after nouns next to each other, the effect is similar to possession: mara pong "Mara's name"; tlhIngan Hol "a Klingon's language, the Klingon language".
Note that je is not a typical syllable since it is only a consonant and a vowel.
Word order
Klingon word order in a sentence may seem like the opposite of English word order – first comes the object (if any), then the verb, then the subject. So a sentence such as mara legh torgh means "Torg sees Mara". As you learn to read Klingon sentences, avoid trying to read the sentences in reverse order and instead practice reading the sentences in the order presented so you can get used to using the proper word order.
Computer translations
You may be tempted to use computer translators, like Bing or chatGPT. Just don't! The quality of Klingon machine translation is almost always very bad. Don't report sentences from there. While there might be some small errors in a few of the sentences here, there are more likely more and bigger errors in whatever the computer translator has offered you.
Vocabulary
The first words you will learn in this lesson are being used as exclamations. With one exception, these words are only exclamations and cannot be used as nouns or verbs. Other words exist that can be used as nouns or verbs with similar meaning and you will learn those later. Qapla' is the only word that is also a normal noun, which can be used normally in other sentences.
Ha' – Let's go! (excl. only)
nuqneH – What do you want? (excl. only)
Qapla' – success (excl. and n)
maj – Good! (excl. only)
toH – So! (excl. only)
