Like Star Trek and want to learn one of the languages of its universe?
Enter a new free Klingon course that will get you up to speed in no time, whether a new speaker or brushing up on what you already know, courtesy of Duolingo.
Duolingo today launched an official Klingon course, courtesy of Felix Malmenbeck, head of the course creation (and obvious Star Trek enthusiast). He started working on creating the intuitive sci-fi language course in 2015.
Felix stated to Tech Crunch, “Many Star Trek fans become curious about the Klingon language at some point, but learning a language takes time, energy and regular practice, especially when you’re just starting out. Therefore, if the language isn’t one of your primary interests, chances are you’ll end up investing that energy elsewhere, whether it’s cosplay, fan fiction, reading novels or any of the multitude of forms that fandom can take.”
Duolingo courses including the Klingon course are free but only available on the website for now. Although Duolingo's legal team had to make some moves since the course is licensed by CBS Consumer Products.
At this point in time, the language-teaching system has 30 languages currently available and has enlisted 200 million users to date.
Dualingo announced, “Whether you’re a veteran Klingon fan or a Star Trek newbie, we wish you Qapla' (success) in your language learning journey and can’t wait to hear what you think,”
Duolingo is not the first to undertake this, since there are Klingon-to-English translators, for example, Bing launched one. Also, there is a Klingon dictionary in paperback, (obviously Star Trek fans had gotten to work out the language beforehand, which must have been an extrapolative and linguistics nightmare), according to News Week.
Obviously, the Klingon language will present difficulty but given the fact it's mostly going to be spoken in the Star Trek niche certainly users of Duolingo will be able to speak the language quickly. There is also the fact Star Trek has rereleased into pop culture and has attracted a larger audience which might mean more people will speak it then you think.
Interesting fact, Klingon is not the first fictional language covered by Duolingo. High Valyrian, from Game of Thrones, is already one of the languages on their list.