h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

At the meet, I was asked by a fellow researcher to translate a phrase into Klingon, so here it is:

qID SIQlaHbe'chugh, bongaghjay'

This is Klingon for "F**k 'em if they can't take a joke."

Any other requests for translations of useful phrases will be undertaken if I can be bothered. If they're funny, so much the more likely I'll do them.

H.

Aaah, but how does one pronounce that?

Is that a serious question? Because if it is I'll break it down into phonetics if you want.

H.

Actually, yes. If you're going to translate such useful phrases in to Klingon, then those of us benefitting from your wisdom need to know how to pronounce them.

Sorry if I sound sarcastic, I'm in that sort of mood for some reason. Must be Saturday night without enough or something.

Hey, not a problem. Believe me, if you speak any Klingon at all, you need to get used to being on the receiving end of sarcasm. It was just I assumed that the initial request was the sarcastic bit...

Anyway, it's v. late on a Saturday night and I've had a couple of small beers. I promise I shall return to this thread when thoroughly compos mentis (so don't hold your breath... ) and record here the proper pronunciation for you. Laters...

H.

*waits impatiently*

OK... the Klingon original:

qID SIQlaHbe'chugh, bongaghjay'

q is a sound like choking - sort of reach your tongue back and try to touch that dangly thing at the back your mouth.

I is a *short* "i" sound, like "spit".

D is a bit like an English d as in "dead", but put your tongue about half-way back between your teeth and your soft palate to make it sound proper.

S has the tongue in the same place to make a sound somewhere between an s as in "sick" and a sh as in "shoot".

Q is like q, but overdone, guttural and raspy. It's not like anything in English.

l is like the l in "like".

a is like the a in "calm", i.e. a long a.

H is like a really rasping version of the "ch" in Johann Sebastian Bach.

b, in a standard Klingon accent, is just like a b in English. If you want to speak with the Klingon equivalent of an Australian accent, pronounce this as more like "mb" or even "m".

e is always pronounced as in "bent", i.e. a short e.

' in the middle of the first word is just a glottal stop, as is common in cockney, say - imagine a cockney saying "what about it?", that would be rendered as

' at the end of the last word requires a sort of subvocalised echo of the y.

ch is pronounced as in "check". It's NOT pronounced as in "loch" or "Bach".

u is pronounced as "oo", as in "prune".

gh is a tricky one. Start to say "g" as "go", then relax your tongue and hum. Or do a H, as above, but vocalise it instead of breathing it.

o is a long o, as in "phone".

ng sounds like someone saying "dang it!" without the "da", or indeed most of the "it".

j is a hard j as in "Jabba".

y is just a y as in "yodel".

Put all that lot together, and you should have a creditable Klingon statement.

If you can't be bothered doing all the proper sounds above, and don't mind speaking Klingon like a tourist, you can just repeat the phrase below:

"kid sikkhlakhbe-choogh bone-gagh-ja-yu"

Enjoy! (or I suppose I should say, Qapla' )

H.

I can see I shall have to practise that for quite some time to get it even remotely right. Do the actors get Klingon lessons, do they learn their lines parrot-fashion or do they just make a mess of it?

Most of them speak Klingon about as convincingly as Sean Connery speaks Russian in "The Hunt for Red October".

Then again... if you take the hardcore fan position, those are Klingons speaking, and if they don't conform to the described sounds, that's just a regional accent...

I *think* that they just get the lines phonetically and just rasp, spit and shout as much as possible. I'm sure a more knowledgeable Trekker will correct me at some point.

Michael Dorn (Worf) actually seems to take a pride in speaking the language properly when he has dialogue in it.

H.

For someone like Michael Dorn, playing a Klingon for ten seasons or so (or was it eleven? Plus Star Trek VI), learning Klingon or at least Klingon pronunciation is definitely a worthwhile effort. For most of the guest stars though, who are in one or two episodes, it doesn't seem to have all that much point to it.

Can we get a wav or that? I need to hear it!

Oooh - can you do this one?

'Well f**k me sideways with an armchair...'

Would it be impertinent to ask why you need to know how to say that in Klingon, WD???

I'll give it a go... don't hold your breath, though, it might take a day or two. I'm not exactly fluent...

H.

(PS is that "with an armchair" or "in an armchair"? Because one would be an expression of surprise, and the other, well, an, erm, invitation?)

Oh - almost certainly 'with an...'

It was an expression of surprise, expressed with much surprise to the surprise of us, by a surprised friend in a leafy pub garden - sort of a more potent 'well I never...' It sent us all rolling with laughter, especially as he said it relatively flatly too

'Well s**t a brick!' is another one (you don't have to translate that one), and is best expressed with great volume, in an quite-empty room

Just curiosity I guess

WD

OK...

toH! = "well"

"chongagh" = "you mate with me"

lo' = use (verb)

nech = move sideways (verb)

quS = chair (noun)

I'm going to have to think about this...

H.

* listens to the sound of Hoovooloo thinking *

*waits to see what comes of this one *

and...?

* taps foot *

Assuming that chongagh is using the prefix cho, which works, how about...

<>

Well! You mate with me while being/moving lateral in a chair.

Hope that's satisfactory!