A Klingon

The Linguist’s Calendar: September 13

2004: Germany’s Deutsche Welle adds one more language to the 30 already used for broadcasting—Klingon.








EXTRA for today, from Mikael Parkvall's Limits of Language:

A bit of geekology: who on earth speaks Klingon?

We know that Klingon is the language of an alien warrior civilization, but who on earth speaks Klingon? Well, not only is Klingon rare in having a linguistics journal and other semi-academic infrastructure devoted to it. It is also a rare conlang in that it has been studied from a sociolinguistic point of view—there are at least two such Klingon studies.

In part, these confirm the stereotype image of Klingon speakers—77% are male, most work with computers in one way or the other, and the largest group is in their mid-twenties. Depending on how prejudiced you are, you may be more surprised to learn that when it comes to marital status, a minority (less than 40%) are single.
 
In addition to Klingon (and, of course, languages such as English, French, German and Spanish), almost a fifth of the respondents in one survey also speak another artificial language—including two who have created their own conlang.
 
As mentioned above, I know of no cases of nativization of Klingon, but who knows what the future has in store? In Hermans’ (1999) thesis, almost two thirds of the (human) Klingonophones do want their children to learn the language . . .
 
At the risk of perpetuating the impression that only oddballs take interest in Klingon, it is difficult to leave out the news report from Portland, Oregon, where the health services in early 2003 advertised for Klingon speakers. The reason was said to be that some of the patients of the county’s mental hospitals would speak nothing but Klingon to the staff. By law, the authorities are therefore compelled to provide Klingon-English interpreters. In reality, however, the Klingon interpreters have yet never been called into service.