◎俞智敏
Why learn French when you could learn Klingon?
假如你可以學克林貢語，何必還要學法語？
The language created more than 30 years ago for the "Star Trek" race of long-haired warriors has moved boldly into pop culture where few other alien tongues have gone before.
這種語言是30多年前為了電影「星艦奇航記」裡的長髮戰士族所創造，但現在卻已勇敢地跨入其他外星語言從未進入過的流行文化圈。
With a new book about the classic Klingon starship, Bird-of-Prey, and a Klingon spoof of the "Gangnam Style" music video racking up millions of views on YouTube, Klingons are showing a fun side that outstrips their Trekkies fan base.
隨著一本有關克林貢經典星艦「猛禽號」的新書推出，以及克林貢版「江南Style」音樂影片在YouTube網站上獲數百萬人次點閱，克林貢人正展現出風趣的一面，影響力甚至超越了星艦奇航記原本的粉絲群之外。
Marc Okrand, a Washington, DC-based linguist, first created the guttural language for the 1984 film "Star Trek III：The Search for Spock." He also created the Vulcan and Romulan dialogue for the 2009 feature film "Star Trek." But he says neither language has caught the imagination of fans or the wider public the way Klingon has.
華府語言學家歐克朗是在1984年替電影「星艦奇航記：石破天驚」首先創造出這種喉音語言。他同時也替2009年的「星艦奇航記」電影創造出瓦肯語和羅慕倫語的對話。但他說後兩者都未能像克林貢語那樣令影迷或廣大公眾著迷。
"Vulcan didn’t catch on, probably because Vulcans aren’t as much fun as Klingons. They are much more serious. The Klingons let loose and the Vulcans don’t," said Okrand.
「瓦肯語沒能流行起來，也許是因為瓦肯人不像克林貢人那麼有趣。他們比較嚴肅。克林貢人可以放鬆，瓦肯人則不行，」歐克朗說。
Despite a tiny vocabulary of just 2,000 to 3,000 words, Klingon is the most spoken fictional language in the world, according to Guinness World Records. There is already a Klingon Language Institute, Klingon translations of Shakespeare’s "Hamlet", and a Klingon version of the board game Monopoly.
儘管總字彙只有2到3千字，但據金氏紀錄顯示，克林貢語卻是全球使用頻率最高的虛構語言。現在已有一所克林貢語研究所，莎翁名劇「哈姆雷特」和「大富翁」遊戲也都有克林貢文版。
Okrand said he never expected Klingon to take off the way that it has. "I honestly thought people would buy the dictionary and look through and laugh and that would be end of it. I had no idea until a few years after that people would be studying it and learning it."
歐克朗表示，他壓根也沒料到這種語言會大受歡迎。「我原本以為人們會買這本字典來翻閱好笑一下就算完了。直到幾年後我才知道有人真的在研讀並學習這種語言。」
新聞辭典
outstrip：動詞，指超越、勝過某人或某事，如The new hotel outstrips all other hotels in the area in size and luxury.（這家新飯店在規模和奢華程度上都遠遠勝過同地區的其他飯店。）
let loose：指讓某人或某事自由行動，亦可引申為指放寬、放鬆，如She’s the kind of director who’s willing to let her actors loose to interpret their roles however they see fit.（她是那種願意讓演員們視情況自由詮釋其角色的導演。）
take off：片語，指突然成功或大受歡迎、一炮而紅，如Her singing career had just begun to take off.（她的歌唱生涯當時才剛剛開始起飛。）
文章出處：自由時報電子報中英對照新聞
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