Is anyone here good with Vulcan Calligraphy? I'm desperately seeking "Dif-tor heh smusma" written out in Vulcan. Ideally in either ancient or 22nd century Vulcan Calligraphy.
Vulcan Help
- Thread starter Inner_Vulcan
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I am unaware that there is a canonical Vulcan to Federation Standard English dictionary. Have you check Memory Alpha or Beta?
This is news to me, I had not realised that Vulcan had actually got this far, I thought that the main emphasis was on Klingon, even though I did find a site on basic Vulcan not so long back.
I talked to Mike Okuda and my interpretation of his answer that was he ws keeping it vague and not creating an Vulcan alphabet for Enterprise.
Fans have definitely developed a fictional Vulcan language, or perhaps several - there used to be something called the Vulcan Language Institute with nice and extensive dictionaries. Their website crashed ages ago, though, and recovery projects are apparently going nowhere. And I don't think they ever got as far as inventing Vulcan writing, be it based on the scribbles seen in TMP on the shuttlecraft side or the calligraphy things seen elsewhere. For all we know, those "calligraphy" curves aren't even writing in any conventional sense - wasn't it Okuda who came up with them, and decided that they were some sort of musical notation that only vaguely resembles written language?
Is there such a thing as written Klingon? There used to be a system wherein the Latin alphabet had its equivalents in the Klingon scribbles seen in so many movies and episodes, but that had little or nothing to do with Marc Okrand's fictional language, for which the Latin alphabet is not all that useful.
Timo Saloniemi
Is there such a thing as written Klingon? There used to be a system wherein the Latin alphabet had its equivalents in the Klingon scribbles seen in so many movies and episodes, but that had little or nothing to do with Marc Okrand's fictional language, for which the Latin alphabet is not all that useful.
Timo Saloniemi
IMO the Klingon language is "offical" becasue Mark did it under the auspsices of the Studio. Fan based stuff may not be consistant with what we saw from Enterprise to Voyager.
I wouldn't wonder if fan languages were more consistent than Marc Okrand's Klingon - especially if those languages were formulated after all the onscreen evidence had already been presented. Okrand did his language, and then the people at Paramount/CBS had a chance to maim or ignore it on screen...
What I meant with "Is there such a thing as written Klingon?" was directed at finding out whether anybody writes Klingon with Klingon letters. We don't really see that happen onscreen - or do we?
In ST6, when the Klingons end their brief "news release" on what happened to Praxis, some words flash onto the screen in Klingon lettering - like this:
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tuc/ch1/tuc0045.jpg
Those don't look like they would be English words lazily translitterated to Klingon scribbles, but I can't tell if they are Okrand-Klingon words, either. What is "END TRANSMISSION" in Klingonaase, for example? Could it be two letters, followed by eight letters of which 1 and 3 are the same, and 6 and 7 are the same?
I'd bet real money nobody knows how to use the Vulcan calligraphy to write any language, least of all Vulcan. But only if I had money to bet.
Timo Saloniemi
What I meant with "Is there such a thing as written Klingon?" was directed at finding out whether anybody writes Klingon with Klingon letters. We don't really see that happen onscreen - or do we?
In ST6, when the Klingons end their brief "news release" on what happened to Praxis, some words flash onto the screen in Klingon lettering - like this:
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tuc/ch1/tuc0045.jpg
Those don't look like they would be English words lazily translitterated to Klingon scribbles, but I can't tell if they are Okrand-Klingon words, either. What is "END TRANSMISSION" in Klingonaase, for example? Could it be two letters, followed by eight letters of which 1 and 3 are the same, and 6 and 7 are the same?
I'd bet real money nobody knows how to use the Vulcan calligraphy to write any language, least of all Vulcan. But only if I had money to bet.
Timo Saloniemi
As an aside, I asked Mark Okrand at Shore Leave several times if he would work on the Vulcan language. AFAIR, he claimed there was insufficient interest in doing that project.
Not being a linguist I did not proceed on my own.
Not being a linguist I did not proceed on my own.
I thought Jimmy Doohan created most of the Vulcan in the films?
I've collected loads of Vulcan dictionary links back when I was working on A Thousand Words For Snow, but too many of them don't list sources, or separate canon (series and films) from fanon sources (licenced novels, comics, video games, fan-written fanfic, etc.).
I've collected loads of Vulcan dictionary links back when I was working on A Thousand Words For Snow, but too many of them don't list sources, or separate canon (series and films) from fanon sources (licenced novels, comics, video games, fan-written fanfic, etc.).
Forgive me, as I'm late to this party... but I have some insights to share.
AFAIK, the canonical Klingon alphabet (shown in the above link) was created by Star Trek artist Mike Okuda for "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" and reused in all subsequent Star Trek films and series. The alphabet consists of ten (!) characters, and were used to represent the Klingon language for dramatic / aesthetic purposes only -- they were never intended to actually represent any aspect of Okrand's spoken language. This is one reason why fan-based efforts to use it to actually create an "authentic" Klingon writing system have fallen flat: any attempts to decipher Klingon writing in the films or series fails, as there was never any attempt on the part of the Art Department to have the characters mean or stand for anything.
AFAIK, Marc Okrand invented the Vulcan language heard in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan". Jimmy Doohan created the few Klingon words spoken in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," which Okrand used as a springboard to create a more fully developed version for "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock".
Yes but he never filled it out as he did with the Klingon language. Highly unfortunate.
Fuck. There goes the rest of my brain. There it is, dribbling out my ear. Pity. I was using that.
Okrand created the sounds of the Klingon language, a guide for pronouncing them, and a system for transliterating them into the Latin alphabet, but, AFAIK, never invented a native Klingon writing system.
In The Klingon Dictionary, Okrand cautioned his readers that they may wish to take care to avoid ejecting saliva when articulating certain Klingon consonants. However, he added, it should be noted that Klingons do not worry about this!
As for a working Vulcan language and alphabet, you’d think fans would have come up with one by now (more likely several).
How true!! I remember sitting in the third row at a Star Trek convention when Jonathan Frakes was speaking Klingon. I just thought it was a side effect of an actor trying to project loud enough to reach the back of the room. Now I know it to be those darn Klingon consonants!! 
Klingon must be related to Dutch.
Ohgod, now I've got a mental image of Klingons in colorful wooden shoes, braided hair, picking tulips, and wearing those cute little Dutch caps you see the girls wearing in pictures...Klingon must be related to Dutch.
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