NOTE ON ANONYMOUS KLINGON FONT 1.1´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´
´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´PIQAD 1.1-VAD GhUNWIÍBEÍHEY GhITlh

This is a Klingon font a friend in Los Angeles sent me.  When I got it, it was horribly disfigured; the spacing for 24- and 48-point was, well, impossible to rationalize, so either there had been an error in transferring files, or the person who designed the font had made some serious blunders.  Anyway, I fixed the spacing so that it is regular, and it should print well.  I have also added a 12-point font, and converted the font ID to NFNT 1024, 1025, 1026.

The only sad thing is that I donÍt know how the font is supposed to work.  In his ñKlingon Dictionaryî (New York and London: Pocket Books, 1985) Marc Okrand (who created Klingon for the Star Trek films) says the following:

ñThere is a native writing system for Klingon (called pIqaD) which seems to be well-suited to the various dialects.  This writing system is not yet well understood and is, therefore, not used in this dictionary.  Instead, a transcription system based on the English alphabet has been devised.  An article is being prepared for the ñKlingon Encyclopediaî which will explain the details of pIqaD.î (p. 11)

I donÍt know how ñcanonicalî this font is, though as a linguist, font designer, and Star Trek fan IÍve decided IÍm going to write to Mr Okrand and see what he thinks.  But if anyone has seen this font before with docs about its orthographic system, please let me know!!  As it is, two things are of note: it is missing the C and the Q; and upper and lower cases are identical.  Punctuation is minimal.  For ñamateurî purposes I guess one can just type randomly with it; but if itÍs to be a linguistic representation of Marc OkrandÍs Klingon then it seems pretty weird.  (pIch vighajbeÍ!)  For those interested, the transcribed Klingon alphabet runs thus:
a, b, ch, D, e, gh, H, I, j, l, m, n, ng, o, p, q, Q, r, S, t, tlh, u, v, w, y, Í

I am thinking of remapping this font so that these correspond to:
a, b, c, d, e, g, h, i, j, l, m, n, f, o, p, q, k, r, s, t, z, u, v, w, y, x		,
but this would involve creating two new letters.  That I wonÍt do without consulting this worldÍs expert on Klingon epigraphy and orthography.....  So be looking for Klingon 2.0, well, sometime.

tlhIngan Hol DaSovlaHchugh, HIghItlh!

Michael Everson,
meverc95@irlearn,
Dept of Archaeology,
University College Dublin,
Belfield, Dublin 4,
Ireland.