"Live long and prosper," Spock would say, and those involved with the Star Trek franchise certainly have. Included in that long list is Marc Okrand, the linguist who came up with the fictional language for Star Trek's Klingon-speaking characters. In September 2016, the Smithsonian Institution commissioned Okrand to record an hour-long audio tour in Klingon for avid Trekkies touring the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The Klingon audio tour is available on the museum’s Go Flight app, the contents of which are otherwise produced in English.
Captain's Log, Stardate 2016:
- Okrand’s tour features the harsh, guttural tones that Star Trek fans have obsessed about since the made-up language officially debuted in the 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
- Prior to Okrand turning Klingon into a full-fledged language, Klingon characters who appeared in movies and the original TV series spoke in English.
- The Klingon language is sometimes referred to as Klingonese or Klingonee.