Happy Birthday

There is no known canon phrase to say Happy Birthday in Klingon. Nevertheless, the existing vocabulary makes it possible to translate the idea quite well.

The mostly spread phrase is qoSlIj DatIvjaj, literally "May you enjoy your birthday". Some people prefer to say this as a command: qoSlIj yItIv Enjoy your birthday. The latter has been used in the non-canon book Star Trek: How to Speak Klingon (1).

It is not recommended to create a literal translation using the verb Quch be happy: It is a person only that can be happy, a day cannot be happy. That's an English idiom. One little awkward solution may be saying qaStaHvIS qoSlIj bIQuchjaj May you be happy during your birthday but that seems to much talking around the idea. Another phrase sometimes hard is DuQuchmoHjaj qoSlIj May your birthday make you happy.

Happy Birthday To You

Happy Birthday to You is a song attributed to American sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1893, which was the subject of extensive copyright litigation until it was found to be in the public domain in the US in 2016.(2) It is the most famous song sung to celebrate a person's birthday. Some Klingonists have tried to translate this famous song into Klingon.(3) There are some variants:

First suggestion:

DuQuchmoHjaj qoSlIj.	May your birthday cause you to be happy.
DuQuchmoHjaj qoSlIj.	May your birthday cause you to be happy.
DaHjaj bIQuchjaj [name].	May you be happy today, [name]
DuQuchmoHjaj qoSlIj.	May your birthday cause you to be happy.

Second variation by the same author:

qoSlIj DatIvqu'jaj.	May you enjoy your birthday very much.
qoSlIj DatIvqu'jaj.	May you enjoy your birthday very much.
qoSlIj DatIvjaj, [name]	May you enjoy your birthday, [name].
qoSlIj DatIvqu'jaj.	May you enjoy your birthday very much.

Improvement by the same author:

qoS Dunqu' DatIvjaj	May you enjoy a splendid birthday.
qoS Dunqu' DatIvjaj	May you enjoy a splendid birthday.
Dunqu'jaj qoSlIj [name].	May your birthday be splendid, [name].
qoS Dunqu' DatIvjaj.	May you enjoy a splendid birthday.

Appearance on "Jeopardy"

During the Jeopardy episode of 30 March 2017, a contestant claimed to be able to sing "Happy Birthday" in Klingon.(4) He did use some words that could fit, but with a very bad pronunciation and with absolutely no working grammar. From the rhythm of his repeated phrases, it's obvious he is singing the well known "Happy Birthday to you" song. It seems obvious this has been translated using the translator app of Mr. Klingon, which claims himself to reveal only bad literal translations.

spoken	possible words	literal translation
ootch kass ya soo	Quch qoS Daq SoH	happy birthday to you
ootch kass ya soo	Quch qoS Daq SoH	happy birthday to you
ootch kass, djoop Alex	Quch qoS jup Alex	happy birthday, friend Alex
ootch kass ya soo	Quch qoS Daq SoH	happy birthday to you

Note this is a very literal word-by-word translation only. Quch qoS does NOT mean "Happy birthday", it means "the birthday is feeling happy". The locative suffix -Daq can only be attached to nouns and only then means "to". The sentence is absolute nonsense.

See also

• How Do I Say...?
• Songs
• For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

References

1 : Star Trek: How to Speak Klingon, phrase 4

2 : Happy Birthday to You, Wikipedia, accessed 2020 June 20

3 : Message on Klingon.org by Felix Malmenbeck (using the name chalvatlh) of August 2010

4 : Jeopardy! contestant sings Happy Birthday in Klingon on YouTube, uploaded 30 March 2017