July 21-27, 2005

fine print

Your Mother Has a Smooth Forehead

by Brian Howard

This weekend a different kind of language conference will beam into town. Dr. Lawrence M. Schoen, director of the Flourtown-based Klingon Language Institute, will host about 20 enthusiasts of the native tongue of Star Trek's bumpy-headed aliens for the KLI's 12th annual conference.

The language was created for Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, and chronicled in Marc Okrand's The Klingon Dictionary. So the devoted Trekkies who will descend on the Comfort Inn in Trevose this weekend will not be your run-of-the-mill sci-fi buffs. Attendees will engage in Klingon singing, impromptu storytelling and what's called Curse Warfare.

"Klingons are portrayed as this warrior race where honor is everything," explains Schoen. But rather than sparring over picayune offenses, curse warfare allows honor to be served, sans bloodshed. "We have lots of examples of this: doing the dozen, ranking. The classic example in Klingon is "Your mother has a smooth forehead'."

Schoen says there's more to Klingon than just sci-fi freakiness. "Americans don't tend to learn languages," he says. "Because of the popularity of Star Trek, people are drawn to Klingon, and they discover the intellectual pleasure that is language."

Which is cool and all. But we gotta know: Will people be all dudded out with prosthetic foreheads?

"This is not a Star Trek convention," emphasizes Schoen. "There will be no celebrity actors no souvenirs." But he admits: "Will some of these people wear Klingon garb and do the makeup? A subset of them will.

"If you go to a Star Trek convention, you'll see people dressed up as Klingons walking around," adds Schoen. "Less than one in 10 of them know the language. The vast majority of people who style themselves as Klingons walk the walk, but they don't talk the talk."

We asked Schoen, as a service to Philadelphians who may encounter conference-goers over the weekend, to translate a few key Philly-centric phrases.

1.) Hot enough for you? "tuj. SoHvaD yap'a'." (Roughly: "It is hot. Is it enough for you.")

2.) Overturned tractor trailer on the Blue Route. "He SuDDaq ngeQtaHghach tu'lu'" (Roughly: "There is an accident on the blue route." It also means "There are usually accidents on the blue route.")

3.) Ben Franklin slept here. And here. And here. "naDev Qong Ben Franklin. 'ej naDev. 'ej naDev."

For more information on the conference, visit www.kli.org