CORONAVIRUS’ NOW AN OFFICIAL WORD IN ‘STAR TREK’ LANGUAGE KLINGON

“Distancing,” “doomscrolling,” “quarantinis,” “flattening the curve” - no other illness has enriched the English language with new words and phrases quite like the coronavirus.

Things are no different for the alien language Klingon, it would seem. The artificial tongue invented for Star Trek has also expanded its vocabulary with several pandemic-related words, says one of the few people who fluently speak this language, Deustche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

"The pandemic has also been preoccupying the followers of the Klingon language," says Star Trek language expert Lieven L. Litaer, who requested new words from the inventor of the artificial language, US linguist Marc Okrand. Here's your basic introduction to surviving the pandemic in Klingon. COVID-19: qo'vID wa'maH Hut; coronavirus: qoro'na javtIm; I'm not sick: jI-rop-be'; #StayTheFuckHome: #juHDaqratlhjay, and; vaccination: javtIm raS'IS.

These are among the latest to join more than 4,000 words recognized in the Klingon language, which has grown from just 1,800 words in the language's beginnings in 1985, according to Litaer. New vocabulary is still added every year.

Litaer, who is now giving his Klingon courses online during the pandemic, estimates that around only 20 to 30 people on the planet speak Klingon fluently - a language with many tricky, guttural sounds.

According to the Klingon Language Institute (KLI), more than 300,000 copies of Okrand's Klingon dictionary have been sold. Litaer, who was born in Belgium and lives in Germany, won the German Fantasy Prize in 2019 for translating the classic children's book "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery into Klingon.

WEEKLY FEATURE : BONNER DYTOC SHOWS THE WAY IN STOCK PLAY