Michael Dorn

The actor Michael Dorn is known for playing the character of Worf first in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the according movies, and later in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He also played Worf's grandfather Colonel Worf in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

The Klingon spelling for his name is mayqel Do'rIn. (1)

Narrator

Michael Dorn spoke the English narrator in the audio tapes Conversational Klingon and Power Klingon. He also spoke the Klingon lines of the audio version of The Klingon Way but was not coached by Marc Okrand, which delivers an horrible pronunciation.

Dorn and Klingon

During the interview on the Earthlings-Documentary of 2004, Dorn made clear that he cannot really understand why people learn and use the Klingon language. He knows that the KLI exists and has observed what they do, which he thinks is "pretty interesting".(2) He says that speaking Klingon can be fun: "it's kind of a cute exercise, maybe, to do it" but he has his doubts that it makes sense trying to translate Shakespearean works with a language which has just 2,500 words.(3)

"As long as it's harmless, you know, who cares what a person does in their own time? The only time that I'm concerened about is when they cross the line between reality and fantasy, in their own lives. I think that that is not a good thing. I think if you're devoting your whole life to the Klingon language, that may be a problem. Because, you know, this isn't real. It isn't really history, it is just something out of Gene Roddenberry's mind." (4)

The proof confirming the following rumors is missing, but it is repeatedly reported that Michael Dorn has no interest in treating the Klingon language as a real thing and he would prefer it was just sounds. For him, it's just a tool for telling the story and anyone who treats it seriously is just being silly. He will not put any effort into speaking it correctly and will belittle anyone who does want to put in that effort.^{[citation needed]}

When he was asked his thoughts about people translating the Bible into Klingon, he thought the question was a joke. After having it confirmed, he called it blasphemy and made it known that he didn't want Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to do anything to validate people who took the language so seriously.^{[citation needed]}

Trivia

In 2014, Dorn was part of the April fools' joke of Rosetta Stone software.

References

1 : Star Trek Communicator #104, p. 17

2 : Earthlings - Ugly Bags of Mostly Water, timecode 11:09

3 : Earthlings - Ugly Bags of Mostly Water, timecode 48:35

4 : Earthlings - Ugly Bags of Mostly Water, timecode 51:25

External links

• Wikipedia:Michael_Dorn Michael Dorn on Wikipedia
• See Memory Alpha for details on Michael Dorn