With the latest Star Trek movie now in theatres, Microsoft’s Bing search engine is going boldly where at least one translation system has gone before, and offering people the ability to translate your words into the fictional language of Klingon.
There’s a sad part of this writer that wants to admit that he knows a bit of Klingon. Call it a folly of youth, or even just a love for the Star Trek franchise when he was younger, but at home he has a series of books dedicated to teaching a language that no one outside of a few geeks and Star Trek actors ever really cared about.
There is probably so much dust on these that there is also a new species of dust sitting on top, as well as several hundred books burying them for no good reason.
Microsoft’s Bing search engine is bringing the language translation back, even if it is only for the recent “Star Trek: Into Darkness” film that has hit cinemas.
As such, you can now take a phrase in English, throw it in the converter, and see what it would appear as in the fictional universe of Star Trek. Those of you with Windows Phones can do it there too using the Microsoft Translator app, in case you want to take your Klingon language adventures on the road… or out of space, whichever you have the budget and transportation for.
The program was worked on with Marc Okrand, who is credited with creating the Klingon language for Paramount in the eighties, and was also one of the voice and language coaches for some of Star Trek’s other languages.
Microsoft’s Klingon language translation may not have much real world use, but Klingon has been used in Shakespeare at least once – we’re serious – so the next time you’re out taking in a nice play and you hear something that sounds a little sci-fi, that app might get just a little more use. For the rest of you who speak it natively, there’s always Google Klingon (again, we’re serious).
