Klingon or Klingonese: A Linguistic Question
What’s the right way to refer to the “Klingon” language?
Recently, a Nerdist post received some extra attention from nerds, because the title author used the term “Klingonese” rather than “Klingon” to refer to the language. Klingon or Klingonese is interesting, because it started out as a purely fictional construct, without any real intention by the creator, as far as I know, for it to become a real language. However, Star Trek has been around for so long, and it has gained so many fans, and super fans, that some began to take the bits and pieces of the language, described and used in the show, and turn it into a full language.
However, because the language is constructed, and because there are no Klingons who have traditionally spoken the language, or interacted with English language speakers, some questions are difficult to answer. Whether “Klingon” or “Klingonese” is the correct term for the language is one of them. I’m not an expert on the Klingon language, or on Star Trek canon, but to answer the question, we can look to two main sources: canon and linguistics.
Canon
“Klingon” seems to be the most common usage, within the newer series, where Klingon culture, language, history, biology, and much more, were really hashed out. Moreover, one of the…
