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About the claimed copyright on the Klingon language: How is this possible? Can a language independent of any description of the language constitute a literary work under US or European copyright law? Has this been tested in any court of law? -- Damian Yerrick
Yes, Paramount does indeed own a copyright to the Klingon language. This basically means that if anyone were to publish a book with the Klingon language in it, they would have to get permission and pay royalties to Paramount. An artificial language is a creative work unless specified that it is in the public domain. In the long term, it might have been gained more publicity for Paramount if they had not copyrighted the language, but you know how big companies are... --CSS
How can an artificial language be a protected creative work under United States copyright law? Title 17, United States Code, Section 102, defines the scope of United States copyright law, limiting copyrightable works to "literary works; musical works, including any accompanying words; dramatic works, including any accompanying music; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and architectural works." I don't see "artificial languages." Paramount could claim that because the dictionary is a literary work, the language that it describes is copyrighted. However, the Klingon language is a system of communication, and according to the same section of US law: "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work" (emphasis added by DY). How are made-up words different from made-up telephone numbers, which are uncopyrightable under Feist v. Rural|Feist v. Rural]]?
Can you point me to a link where a judge has ruled that the designer of an artificial language has the exclusive right to publish descriptions of the language or works written in the language? If not, "claims" in the parent remains correct. -- Damian Yerrick
I don't know, it seems like a pretty valid claim to me, at least in the spirit of copyright law if not the letter. A conlang is generally intended as a work of art and creative expression. It makes sense to me. A lot of work goes into creating languages like this. I think it's only fair that the end result is copyright-protected (even if, as in this case, the copyright would fall to Paramount rather than Okrand, due to rules about works on commission). - Branddobbe
Yes, Paramount claims copyright on the language itself, which is probably just hot air. They do, however, have a perfectly valid copyright in all the published source materials--the dictionary, the language description, and so on. You probably could publish your own book on the language if you carefully avoided using any of the actual text from any of their books. They might also claim a trademark on the name "Klingon", but even that would be a stretch, especially after JCB tried doing that with "Loglan" and failed (yes, there are legal precedents on artificial languages). --LDC
On the main page is "The typical greeting in Klingon literally translates into English as "I'm speaking to you, deal with it."" Unfortunately, that is incorrect. The literal definition of the Klingon Greeting (nuqneH) is "What do you want?" Go look it up.
Moved from the article: (The value of "S" and "tlh" is not certain; can someone confirm or correct?)
-- cprompt 07:35, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
This article contends that Doohan is a linguist and came up with Vulcan and Klingon dialogue for ST-TMP. If true, surely there should be at least passing reference to this here? Quill 09:08, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Detailed reading will bring out that Doohan created specifically the Klingon words spoken by
Mark Lenard as the Klingon Commander in Star Trek the Motion Picture. This included things like >cha'< and other things you can transcribe if you like. Marc Okrand wisely used ALL of it when he developed the full language... so Doohan only created the "style" by the few words he developed. Okrand is responsible for 99.9% of it... but indeed Doohan did get the ball rolling. The Vulcan issue is different. Originally the Vulcan scenes were scripted in Vulcan (devised by Doohan, we're told)... but then they decided to not use subtitles, so the actors instead spoke stilted English. Then they changed their mind again: so now similar sounding 'new' Vulcan words were fitted to the actor's lip movements from speaking English. So, I don't think Doohan's original Vulcan made it in, however he probably assisted in devising the 'new'. He was a dialect and accent expert. But he definitely did precede Okrand on beginning Klingon. --
Sturmde
03:46, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
How do you say "it could be" in Klingon? For example "you could be an officer"? "You are an officer" is yaS SoH, and "you can be an officer" is, I think, yaS SoHlaH, but how would I write it in the conditional? DuH is apparently a verb meaning "to be possible", but how is it used with a sentence as the subject? For example, is "it is possible that you are an officer" yaS SoH 'e' DuH? — JIP | Talk 07:14, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to see some discussion of whether Klingon is a real language or not - Did its creators come up with a full vocabulary and grammar, or is it just a rough outline? - Dtcdthingy 21:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
It's listed as 'tlh' but the wikipedia article does not give tlh as the code for Klingon. In fact, tlh does not appear to exist... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.178.110.53 ( talk • contribs) 07:16, 21 October 2005.
How can toDsaH be a Klingon word? The letter s is not listed in the phonology section. 193.171.121.30 14:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
This is now fixed; it should be toDSaH. 68.80.152.28 06:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
How is vowel stress handled in Klingon? Is this something that should be addressed? -- Funkmaster 801 07:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
How can Worf be a Klingon name when Klingon does not have an F sound? Is this dialectal Klingon? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.210.229.96 ( talk • contribs) 27 October 2006.
Can somebody add that the characters in Daddy Long Legs used this language? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.168.220.193 ( talk) 02:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC).
It would be nice to give a rough indication of how many klingon speakers there are.
I removed the following because it is an opinion and not a fact. -- Chuck Smith
Haven't parts of the Bible been translated into Klingon?
Here is the text from Klingon Language Institute Projects, but from what I know about the project, only the Gospel of Mark and a few other passages like the Lords Prayer have been translated into Klingon and of those nothing has been published. -- Chuck Smith
Klingon speakers, in the main, use the romanisation rather than the native "alphabet" (called pIqaD) simply because there is little to no support for the pIqaD system (particularly in Unicode), not because we prefer the romanisation. We Klingon speakers tend to know what the values of pIqaD characters are, and use them whenever we can (which isn't often). thefamouseccles
As for the Klingon Interpreter thing... " http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/05/10/offbeat.klingon.interpreter/index.html"
Where is the source that says it was taken out of context? WhisperToMe 09:31, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
Why are the links to Klingon Wikipedia not treated as interwiki links (i.e. they appear in the message body rather than in the "other languages" box? e.g. tlh:tlhIngan Hol Ausir 20:04, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I have made categories for Klingon speakers in Wikipedia:Babel. They can be used with {{user tlh}} and the usual variations. I wonder when we'll have the first user to claim "tlhIngan Hol lo'wI'vam SungHol"? — JIP | Talk 08:01, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm surprised that the Wikipedia doesn't have a Klingon version
Duomillia 15:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've looked at the Klingon edition of Wikipedia, but the database has been locked (since 2005, I think). The administrator who locked it said: "This wiki has been closed for now. (Move to WikiCities?)" I've got three questions about this:
Big Mac 03:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Someone proposed to merge these two articles. Frankly, I don't think that's a good idea. It's two completely different languages we're talking about, and the notability of Klingonaase can hardly be disputed. -- IJzeren Jan 17:53, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Why is a set of trading cards used as a source for pIqaD when the community uses a set with letters for all the tlhIngan phonemes (? I had never heard about this Skybox-thing before I found this page so it smells of original research. Just try "klingon alphabet" in Google and see what happens. -- Kaleissin 10:06:04, 2005-08-30 (UTC)
The article all of a sudden mentions that d'Armond Speers raised a child in a bilingual English/Klingon environment. Who's d'Armond Speers and what's the relevance? There needs to be some sort of explanation in the article. Theshibboleth 18:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
There now appears to be a section about Dr.Speers here. He has his own article. I am therefore removing said section. Alpha Omicron 17:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Am I the only one left who mourns for the representation of Klingons in John Ford's brilliant ST novel "The Final Reflection"? Its portrayal of Klingon family life, society, and language are thoughtful, philosophical, and ring very true to me. It saddened me very deeply when, starting with the first ST movie, and continuing with TNG, those handling ST's future decided to throw away this fine effort, and go with a much more brutal and crude culture for what I always saw as cultured (if backstabbing) adversaries.
I'm aware that some will point out that Paramount has declared the Pocket Books novels to be non-canon. This issue of canon has always confused me, as I don't see the point; ST is already rife with parallel universe, why not just believe in whichever version has the episodes and stories you like, and treat the others as being from the Dimension of Bad TV Writers? *cough* Spock's Brain *cough* Canon it's not, but doesn't Ford's effort at least deserve a mention?
- Kasreyn 07:00, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
About the claimed copyright on the Klingon language: How is this possible? Can a language independent of any description of the language constitute a literary work under US or European copyright law? Has this been tested in any court of law? -- Damian Yerrick
Yes, Paramount does indeed own a copyright to the Klingon language. This basically means that if anyone were to publish a book with the Klingon language in it, they would have to get permission and pay royalties to Paramount. An artificial language is a creative work unless specified that it is in the public domain. In the long term, it might have been gained more publicity for Paramount if they had not copyrighted the language, but you know how big companies are... --CSS
How can an artificial language be a protected creative work under United States copyright law? Title 17, United States Code, Section 102, defines the scope of United States copyright law, limiting copyrightable works to "literary works; musical works, including any accompanying words; dramatic works, including any accompanying music; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and architectural works." I don't see "artificial languages." Paramount could claim that because the dictionary is a literary work, the language that it describes is copyrighted. However, the Klingon language is a system of communication, and according to the same section of US law: "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work" (emphasis added by DY). How are made-up words different from made-up telephone numbers, which are uncopyrightable under Feist v. Rural|Feist v. Rural]]?
Can you point me to a link where a judge has ruled that the designer of an artificial language has the exclusive right to publish descriptions of the language or works written in the language? If not, "claims" in the parent remains correct. -- Damian Yerrick
I don't know, it seems like a pretty valid claim to me, at least in the spirit of copyright law if not the letter. A conlang is generally intended as a work of art and creative expression. It makes sense to me. A lot of work goes into creating languages like this. I think it's only fair that the end result is copyright-protected (even if, as in this case, the copyright would fall to Paramount rather than Okrand, due to rules about works on commission). - Branddobbe
Yes, Paramount claims copyright on the language itself, which is probably just hot air. They do, however, have a perfectly valid copyright in all the published source materials--the dictionary, the language description, and so on. You probably could publish your own book on the language if you carefully avoided using any of the actual text from any of their books. They might also claim a trademark on the name "Klingon", but even that would be a stretch, especially after JCB tried doing that with "Loglan" and failed (yes, there are legal precedents on artificial languages). --LDC
On the main page is "The typical greeting in Klingon literally translates into English as "I'm speaking to you, deal with it."" Unfortunately, that is incorrect. The literal definition of the Klingon Greeting (nuqneH) is "What do you want?" Go look it up.
Moved from the article: (The value of "S" and "tlh" is not certain; can someone confirm or correct?)
-- cprompt 07:35, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
This article contends that Doohan is a linguist and came up with Vulcan and Klingon dialogue for ST-TMP. If true, surely there should be at least passing reference to this here? Quill 09:08, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Detailed reading will bring out that Doohan created specifically the Klingon words spoken by
Mark Lenard as the Klingon Commander in Star Trek the Motion Picture. This included things like >cha'< and other things you can transcribe if you like. Marc Okrand wisely used ALL of it when he developed the full language... so Doohan only created the "style" by the few words he developed. Okrand is responsible for 99.9% of it... but indeed Doohan did get the ball rolling. The Vulcan issue is different. Originally the Vulcan scenes were scripted in Vulcan (devised by Doohan, we're told)... but then they decided to not use subtitles, so the actors instead spoke stilted English. Then they changed their mind again: so now similar sounding 'new' Vulcan words were fitted to the actor's lip movements from speaking English. So, I don't think Doohan's original Vulcan made it in, however he probably assisted in devising the 'new'. He was a dialect and accent expert. But he definitely did precede Okrand on beginning Klingon. --
Sturmde
03:46, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
How do you say "it could be" in Klingon? For example "you could be an officer"? "You are an officer" is yaS SoH, and "you can be an officer" is, I think, yaS SoHlaH, but how would I write it in the conditional? DuH is apparently a verb meaning "to be possible", but how is it used with a sentence as the subject? For example, is "it is possible that you are an officer" yaS SoH 'e' DuH? — JIP | Talk 07:14, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to see some discussion of whether Klingon is a real language or not - Did its creators come up with a full vocabulary and grammar, or is it just a rough outline? - Dtcdthingy 21:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
It's listed as 'tlh' but the wikipedia article does not give tlh as the code for Klingon. In fact, tlh does not appear to exist... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.178.110.53 ( talk • contribs) 07:16, 21 October 2005.
How can toDsaH be a Klingon word? The letter s is not listed in the phonology section. 193.171.121.30 14:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
This is now fixed; it should be toDSaH. 68.80.152.28 06:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
How is vowel stress handled in Klingon? Is this something that should be addressed? -- Funkmaster 801 07:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
How can Worf be a Klingon name when Klingon does not have an F sound? Is this dialectal Klingon? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.210.229.96 ( talk • contribs) 27 October 2006.
Can somebody add that the characters in Daddy Long Legs used this language? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.168.220.193 ( talk) 02:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC).
It would be nice to give a rough indication of how many klingon speakers there are.
I removed the following because it is an opinion and not a fact. -- Chuck Smith
Haven't parts of the Bible been translated into Klingon?
Here is the text from Klingon Language Institute Projects, but from what I know about the project, only the Gospel of Mark and a few other passages like the Lords Prayer have been translated into Klingon and of those nothing has been published. -- Chuck Smith
Klingon speakers, in the main, use the romanisation rather than the native "alphabet" (called pIqaD) simply because there is little to no support for the pIqaD system (particularly in Unicode), not because we prefer the romanisation. We Klingon speakers tend to know what the values of pIqaD characters are, and use them whenever we can (which isn't often). thefamouseccles
As for the Klingon Interpreter thing... " http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/05/10/offbeat.klingon.interpreter/index.html"
Where is the source that says it was taken out of context? WhisperToMe 09:31, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
Why are the links to Klingon Wikipedia not treated as interwiki links (i.e. they appear in the message body rather than in the "other languages" box? e.g. tlh:tlhIngan Hol Ausir 20:04, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I have made categories for Klingon speakers in Wikipedia:Babel. They can be used with {{user tlh}} and the usual variations. I wonder when we'll have the first user to claim "tlhIngan Hol lo'wI'vam SungHol"? — JIP | Talk 08:01, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm surprised that the Wikipedia doesn't have a Klingon version
Duomillia 15:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've looked at the Klingon edition of Wikipedia, but the database has been locked (since 2005, I think). The administrator who locked it said: "This wiki has been closed for now. (Move to WikiCities?)" I've got three questions about this:
Big Mac 03:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Someone proposed to merge these two articles. Frankly, I don't think that's a good idea. It's two completely different languages we're talking about, and the notability of Klingonaase can hardly be disputed. -- IJzeren Jan 17:53, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Why is a set of trading cards used as a source for pIqaD when the community uses a set with letters for all the tlhIngan phonemes (? I had never heard about this Skybox-thing before I found this page so it smells of original research. Just try "klingon alphabet" in Google and see what happens. -- Kaleissin 10:06:04, 2005-08-30 (UTC)
The article all of a sudden mentions that d'Armond Speers raised a child in a bilingual English/Klingon environment. Who's d'Armond Speers and what's the relevance? There needs to be some sort of explanation in the article. Theshibboleth 18:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
There now appears to be a section about Dr.Speers here. He has his own article. I am therefore removing said section. Alpha Omicron 17:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Am I the only one left who mourns for the representation of Klingons in John Ford's brilliant ST novel "The Final Reflection"? Its portrayal of Klingon family life, society, and language are thoughtful, philosophical, and ring very true to me. It saddened me very deeply when, starting with the first ST movie, and continuing with TNG, those handling ST's future decided to throw away this fine effort, and go with a much more brutal and crude culture for what I always saw as cultured (if backstabbing) adversaries.
I'm aware that some will point out that Paramount has declared the Pocket Books novels to be non-canon. This issue of canon has always confused me, as I don't see the point; ST is already rife with parallel universe, why not just believe in whichever version has the episodes and stories you like, and treat the others as being from the Dimension of Bad TV Writers? *cough* Spock's Brain *cough* Canon it's not, but doesn't Ford's effort at least deserve a mention?
- Kasreyn 07:00, 25 January 2006 (UTC)