Morska

Morska is a Klingon planet, believed to be in the same sector as the penal asteroid colony Rura Penthe. The Klingon spelling for Morska is mo'rISqa'(1).

Morska Dialect

Morska has its own distinct dialect of Klingon, one of very few Klingon dialects to be treated in Klingon for the Galactic Traveler. The dialect is spoken in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country when the Enterprise attempts to rescue Kirk and McCoy from Rura Penthe. They pass by a border outpost, and are questioned by the sentry in the Morskan dialect at that outpost(2). ➞ see Morskan dialogue

Phonological Differences:

• Syllable-initially, Q sounds like H.
• Syllable-initially, H sounds like English '''h'''; syllable-finally, H disappears altogether.
• Syllable-initially, tlh becomes a lateral voiced fricative (symbolised in KGT by ghl); syllable-finally, tlh sounds like English '''ts'''.

English	Proper Klingon	Morskan
Success	Qapla'	Hapla'
Help me so I can drink it!	vItlhutlhlaHmeH HIQaH.	vIghlutslame hIHa!

Grammatical Differences

The copular construct in Morskan does not need to take the topicalising suffix -'e':

English	Proper Klingon	Morskan
The prisoner is in jail	bIghHa'Daq ghaHtaH qama''e'	bIghha'Daq ghata qama'
My name is K'Var	Quvar 'oH pongwIj'e'	Huvar 'o pongwIj

Background information

Although many weird grammatical issues are based on the retrofitting of actors' bad pronunciation (see ➞ unintentional vocabulary), the Morskan dialect was created on purpose, to show that this is a Klingon outpost far away from the Klingon homeworld. These actors spoke the words exactly as they were written by Okrand. Some of them were even displayed as such on the screen which Uhura was looking at in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Language Meeting

In November 2019, Jack Bradley organized a meeting to learn and speak Morskan dialect, called Sepqep.

References

1 : new words list of qep'a' 26, July 2019

2 : Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

See also

• Sepqep, a language meeting to speak the Morskan dialect.