It takes a lot of work to create a believable science fiction or fantasy universe, and this often involves developing constructed languages, or "conlangs," that work well enough for the actors to speak and for the audience to believe. Author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R.giving Middle Earth an extra layer of realism despite being such a fantasy world. In recent years, linguist David J. Dothraki and High Valyrian languages on "Game of Thrones" and "Dragon House" to developing a free language for Denis Villeneuve's Dune films, but some other amazing conlang creators helped pave the way decades earlier.

In an interview with StarTrek.comlinguist Mark Okrand shared the secrets of creating the Klingon language for the Star Trek franchise - specifically for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It was only a few years before Michael Dorn first played Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation and it was over changing the Klingons throughout Star Trek foreverOkrand planted the seeds for their culture with thoughtful, if ominous, language.

Okrand explained that Klingon was first spoken in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and that he used the handful of lines as the basis for what would eventually become the Klingon language. (According to Okrand, the lines in "The Motion Picture" were created by actor James Doohan, who played Scotty, making him the original creator of the Klingon sound.) Okrand used "sounds and syllables" from that first film to create " perch" in the language, and then shaped it using a set of basic rules. It had to have all the sounds from The Motion Picture, sound non-English, be guttural because that's what was in the script, and be teachable to English actors. He started with what they needed for The Search for Spock, then added more, even publishing a complete Klingo dictionary. At this point, Okrand has created enough of the Klingon language to be able to speak, and there are others who can speak the language like say, Spanish or German.

Although the Klingons have previously appeared in Star Trek as villains, The Search for Spock was one of the first times they received extended screen time. The Klingon captain, Kruge, was played by Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future fame., almost unrecognizable in makeup, and it was up to him to really get the new and improved Klingon pronunciation right. So how did he do? According to Okrand, he nailed it.

While he went out of his way to make Klingon easy for the actors to speak, it's a pretty complicated language to pronounce (especially based on how it's written), but Okrand said that Christopher Lloyd, who played the Klingo captain Kruge, was natural:

"He was an excellent student. He was interested not only in correct pronunciation, he wanted to know what words meant and how sentences fit together. We worked together almost every day when they were shooting a Klingon speech scene. Most of the other Klingon speakers were Kruge's crew, for the most part, they were shouting because things didn't go wrong than people who are more enthusiastic about what must have been nonsense to them."

Okrand also said that William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk and had to say "beam me up" in Klingon, also remembers his pronunciation lessons. Nowadays, people more often remember the main Klingon greeting card (Qapla'!) or its much-derogatory word for weirdness/everything Klingons don't like, "petaQ," Okrand creations that had real staying power in the fandom. . While a Klingon isn't as flexible as something like the Na'vi from the Avatar movies, who it allowed the actors a chance for a lot of improvgave Star Trek a whole new flavor and helped turn people into die-hard Klingon fans. (I am. I'm a Klingon fan.) MayKa', Mr. Okrand. boiler.