[223] in tlhIngan-Hol
article on Okrand
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Mar 3 03:49:19 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: mosquito@Athena.MIT.EDU
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 02:31:58 -0500
There was one in the Boston Herald (Mon. Mar 2):
Klingon Dictionary a final frontier for linguists
Washington--Marc Okrand, the man who taught Vulcan to Mr. Spock, has
written "The Klingon Dictionary," for earthlings who want to
communicate with members of the warrior race of "Star Trek."
By day, Okrand is a linguist at the National Captioning Institute in
northern Virginia. He has a doctorate from the University of
California at Berkeley in the languages of West Coast Indians.
But he moonlights as Star Trek's Klingon consultant, a job he just
fell into.
In 1982, he was introduced to the secretary to the executive producer
of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." In the course of conversation,
the secretary mentioned that her boss was looking for a linguist to
script a brief scene in Vulcan, the language of Mr. Spock.
"'When does it have to be done?'" Okrand said he asked. "And the
secretary said, 'It has to be fnished by Friday.' So I said, 'I can
do that.'"
In three days, Okrand invented several lines of Vulcan and taught them
to Kirstie Alley, who played Lt. Savik, and Leonard Nimoy, the
inimitable Mr. Spock.
"I taught Vulcan to Mr. Spock," Okrand still marvels.
A couple of years later, Paramount was doing "Star Trek III: The
Search for Spock," and called Okrand again.
"What I decided to do--they never told me to do this--was to make a
real language," Okrand said.
His dictionary (Pocket Books, $10) is in its second edition and has
sold more than 60,000 copies.
--AP
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