Klingon Vs. Esperanto - A Poll

Dave's Dollar Cleaners and World Esperanto Headquarters

Photo by Gideon. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

"Blach MIK! 'va hon-DA Shadow!"

Photo by Heather Kennedy. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?

A science fiction author I am embarrassed to admit I like to read⁽¹⁾ has a series of books in which the main character (and an after word in the books) espouses the virtues of Esperanto, the seemingly good idea for an international language made of an amalgam of other languages' words and structures that has been around for over a hundred years but that just didn't quite catch on outside of being admired by totalitarian despots like Hitler, Sun Yat-sen, and Stalin.

While it may contain some dumbed down linguistic elements that might come in handy some day if one decided to move onto learning Afrikaans, learning Esperanto is akin to learning semaphore in terms of practicality and usefulness. If the world ever adopts it, folks who have already learned it will be ahead of the curve, I suppose. But like semaphore is useful only for communicating from afar when pretty much every other of about twenty five methods of communicating that come to mind have failed and the message really does need to get through, Esperanto falls flat for me.

bortaS blr jablu'Dl'reH QaQqu'nay'⁽²⁾

At the same time, an article on the recent New York Comic-Con made me think of the legions of Trekkies, and more specifically the subset that have embraced the idea of the Klingon race. To get into the Klingon scene is, to me, probably the most "hardcore Trek" one can be. Taking it a step beyond the silly costuming and fascination with large bladed weapons are the folks who have (bless their little Asperger-like hearts) actually learned the Klingon language.

I have heard folks speaking in Klingon at least twice in the real world: once at a comic convention when I was about 20 and the other time at a renaissance faire [sic] where some Trekkies decided to pretend they were on an away mission on a planet that was eerily similar to 15^th Century Earth⁽³⁾. Both times were creepyand uncomfortable to witness... creepy and uncomfortable in the same way as watching someone reenact their abusive childhoods... in public... using interpretive dance as their medium...

Both Klingon and Esperanto are considered worthy of scholarly linguistic study. Go figure...

While Klingon appears to be essentially a way for mainly socially retarded fanboys to feel some sense of physical prowess, it at least has a culture — albeit fictional — upon which the language is based. The same can't be said for Esperanto, which is nothing more than a mishmash of mainly Eurocentric language rules and words. As far as language being rooted in culture is concerned, Klingon is one up on Esperanto.

I know I am @!$%#ting on someone's passion, but the point in favor of Klingon language being tied to a culture is overshadowed by Klingon "culture" being the Superbowl of Sad: a legion of out of shape, latex-foreheaded geeks dressed in S&M gear acting out a space fantasy distilled from Spartan legends. Despite being comprised mainly of people who tried hard to pass Spanish 101 for three semesters but couldn't so they turned to Esperanto to fulfill their language requirements, at least the Esperanto folks' motivations are buttressed by the utopian idealism of universal communication.

I can't decide which is more pointless: learning Klingon or Esperanto.

^{(1) That would be Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series, which is only slightly less embarrassing to admit reading than, say, admitting liking goat porn.
(2) A really 1997-looking web page informs me this phrase means "Revenge is a dish best served cold."
(3) Update from a friend who knows too much about Ren Fests — I am told this is common.}

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