Grammatical sketch—introduction

It is not possible, in a brief guide such as this, to describe the grammar of Klingon completely. What follows is only a sketch or outline of Klingon grammar. Although a good many of the fine points are not covered, the sketch will allow the student of Klingon to figure out what a Klingon is saying and to respond in an intelligible, though somewhat brutish, manner. Most Klingons will never know the difference.

 

There are three basic parts of speech in Klingon: noun, verb, and everything else.

NOUNS

There are various types of nouns in Klingon.

 

Simple nouns

Simple nouns, like simple nouns in English, are simple words; for example, DoS target or QIH destruction.

 

Complex nouns

Complex nouns, on the other hand, are made up of more than one part.

 

Compound nouns

Compound nouns consist of two or three nouns in a row, much like English earthworm (earth plus worm) or password (pass plus word). For example, jolpa’ transport room consists of jol transport beam plus pa’ room.

 

Verb plus -wI’

A second type of complex noun consists of a verb followed by a suf- fix meaning one who does or thing which does. The English suffix -er (as in builder “one who builds” or toaster “thing which toasts”) is a rough equivalent. In Klingon, the suffix is -wI’. It occurs, for exam- ple, in baHwI’ gunner, which consists of the verb baH fire (a torpedo) plus -wI’ one who does. Thus, baHwI’ is literally “one who fires [a torpedo].” Similarly, So’wI’ cloaking device comes from the verb So’ cloak plus -wI’ thing which does. So’wI’ is a “thing which cloaks.”

 

A noun formed by adding -wI’ to a verb is a regular noun, so it may be used along with another noun to form a compound noun. For example, tIjwI’ghom boarding party comes from tIjwI’ boarder plus ghom group; and tIjwI’ comes from tIj board plus -wI’.

Other complex nouns

There are a good many nouns in Klingon which are two or, less frequently, three syllables long, but which are not complex nouns of the types described above. These nouns probably at one time were formed by combining simple nouns, but one or all of the nouns forming the complex noun are no longer in use, so it is not possible (without extensive etymological research) to know what the individual pieces mean.

 

For example, ’ejDo’ means starship. The syllable ’ej also occurs in ’ejyo’ Starfleet. There are, however, no known Klingon words ’ej, Do’, or yo’ that have anything to do with Starfleet, starships, the Federation, or space vehicles of any kind. It is quite likely that Do’ is an Old Klingon word for space vessel (the modern Klingon word is Duj) that is used nowhere except in the noun ’ejDo’. Of course, without further study, that remains pure conjecture.

 

Suffixes

All nouns, whether simple or complex, may be followed by one or more suffixes. If there are two or more suffixes, the suffixes must occur in a specific order. Suffixes may be classified on the basis of their relative order after the noun. There are five types of suffixes (which, for convenience, will be numbered 1 through 5). Suffixes of Type 1 come right after the noun; suffixes of Type 2 come after those of Type 1; suffixes of Type 5 come last. This may be illustrated as follows:

 

NOUN—1—2—3—4—5

Of course, if no suffix of Type 1 is used but a suffix of Type 2 is used, the Type 2 suffix comes right after the noun. If a suffix of Type 5 is the only suffix used, it comes right after the noun. Only when two or more suffixes are used does their order become apparent.

 

  There are at least two suffixes in each suffix type. Only one suffix of each type may be used at a time. That is, a noun cannot be followed by, for example, two or three Type 4 suffixes.

 

The members of each suffix type are as follows.