tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 08 11:43:40 1994
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Re: Hallmark commercial
> Well, for the past two nights the local Fox affiliate has been
> showing the commercial for the 1995 Hallmark keepsake Christmas ornament,
> which this year is a Klingon Bird of Prey. And, you guessed it, the
> entire commercial is in tlhIngan Hol. Or at least pretends to be. I
> have not taped it yet (I hope to do so tommorrow night), so I have not
> had a chance to translate it (sorry, I cannot translate spoken tlhIngan
> Hol at the rate they are speaking it). The words do sound like tlhIngan
> Hol, and I even heard what sounded like SuvwI', even though "warrior" did
> not appear in the subtitles. If anyone else has managed to transcribe
> this commercial, I would like to see the transcription posted.
>
> Does anyone know if Marc Okrand was contacted to do the dialogue
> for this commercial? Or did the KLI have a hand in it? Or did the
> writers just make up Klingon-sounding gibberish? At any rate, at
> least the Klingons in the commercial are real. One is Gowron and the
> other two look like actors from the series.
This came up in my conversation this evening with Marc (and no, I haven't
had the luxury of seeing the commercial myself, but I'd heard about it so
I asked Marc for some details). Yes, he was consulted for the commercial.
He wrote the Klingon himself. I'm still trying to get a copy from him.
The version he wrote is not quite the version that aired (he commented on
strange phone calls from the commericial's producer telling him that
"this line was too long here" and similar aggravations).
And of course the actor, Robert O'Reilly, has an established history of
trying to do as good a job on his Klingon as he can. He frequently calls
Marc for coaching when he has Klingon lines.
So, tape the commericial and transcribe it (seems like a good thing to
run in HolQeD in December!). It is most assuredly canon.
Lawrence
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:: Dr Lawrence M Schoen, Director :: The KLI is a nonprofit ::
:: The Klingon Language Institute :: tax exempt corporation ::
:: POB 634, Flourtown, PA 19031 USA :: DaH HuchlIj'e' ghonob ::
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