Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery is the title of a Star Trek TV-series that premiered on September 24, 2017 on CBS All Access in the USA, on CraveTV in Canada and one day later on Netflix worldwide. The first season ended in February 2018. The production for season 2 had begun in April 2018, the second season started on January 17, 2019. The first season was very Klingon-related, that's why Netflix provided Klingon subtitles for the first season. The second season also showed some Klingons, including Klingon language. When DSC was removed from Netflix in November 2021, all of the Klingon subtitles have disappeared entirely.

Contents of this page:

Development of the Klingon language
Klingon in season 2
Notable Quotes
Klingon letters, pIqaD
Klingon characters
Klingon subtitles
Episodes
References
External Links

Development of the Klingon language

Im Summer 2017, it was publically announced that the Klingons in Discovery would definitely speak real Klingon.(1) The Klingon language for the show is provided by Robyn Stewart. Rea Nolan is assisting her as a vocal coach.(2) Alan Anderson was included as a backup and proofreader for Robyn, but he is not listed in the show's credits.

During a panel on San Diego Comic Con on July 23 2017, producer Gretchen J. Berg announced that the Klingons would speak real Klingon:

[9:17] (3) Because of the story we're telling about the Klingons in this season of Star Trek, it was very important for us to have the Klingons speak Klingon. [...] You'll have to get out your glasses, reading subtitles. [10:35] If you speak and understand Klingon, you will understand... without subtitles.

Alex Kurtzmann added:

[10:40] (4) We have someone who's ... like if we... as we're cutting, if we wanted to adjust lines or anything, it goes through a filter all the time to make sure that every word is correct. So there's someone policing this all the time. [...] we've gone to great lengths to be incredibly accurate in our Klingon.(5)

For a long time, it was not clear whether there would be Klingon spoken in the new series at all, and whether it would be true Klingon or just Paramount Hol. There were few clues though:

In January 2017, Klingon actor Christopher Obi released a short clip on Twitter (which he quickly deleted shortly after) in which he spoke the phrase tlhIngan maH taHjaj.
Later that month, voice coach Rea Nolan mentioned working with the Klingon actors.
In a private message of February 2017, Marc Okrand assured that he was not involved in the production of the series (at that time).

Klingon in season 2

Therre was a lot less spoken Klingon language in season 2.

First, there are no Klingon subtitles on the episodes, as they were only on Netflix, which had them in Season 1. CBS never had them to begin with, and still don't. Furthermore, they've decided to do the cinematic thing where Klingons will start speaking in Klingon during a scene (with English subtitles), and switch to English mid-sentence with the understanding that the audience can hear in their own language through cinematic magic. So whenever there's a gathering of Klingons, instead of entire scenes in Klingon, it's just the opening sentences now.

It was a very common complaint among casual viewers of Season 1 that there was too much spoken Klingon, that the spoken Klingon was stilted and slow, and that the actors couldn't emote properly through makeup. Not among Klingon speakers, of course. Clearly, the show runners made the changes they did to address that complaint. It probably was the right choice from the perspective of making the dialogue involving Klingons easier to follow for a general audience. Of course, it's unfortunate from the point of view as Klingon speakers that this means less spoken Klingon on the show.

Notable Quotes

In the first season, the following two sentence can be heard very often:

Klingon	translation
tlhIngan maH taHjaj	We are Klingons, may it endure
qul yIchu'	Light the fire

The Klingons also speak a few phrases that seem to be a Kahless prayer.

Klingon letters, pIqaD

See main article ➞ pIqaD used in Star Trek: Discovery

Klingon characters

The Klingon character names were released during the above mentioned announcement, but their Klingon spelling appeared on an artwork published on Star Trek Las Vegas Convention 2017 (STLV). (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Name	Klingon spelling	Source for spelling	Actor	Season
Dennas	DennaS	Netflix Subtitles	Clare McConnell	1
Kol	qol	Netflix Subtitles	Kenneth Mitchell	1
Kol-Sha	unknown	-	Kenneth Mitchell	2
L'Rell	lIr'el	STLV	Mary Chieffo	1 + 2
Or'Eq	'or'eq	Netflix Subtitles	David Benjamin Tomlinson	1
Tenavik	unknown	-	Kenneth Mitchell	2
T'Kuvma	tIquvma	STLV	Christopher Obi	1
Ujilli	'ujIllI'	Netflix Subtitles	Damon Runyan	1
Voq	voq	STLV	Shazad Latif	1

Klingon subtitles

Netflix offers Klingon subtitles for all episodes of season 1. They were created by Lieven L. Litaer (11). (12)

Season 2 does not have any Klingon subtitles, nor are they available on the DVD/BluRay release.

Episodes

S	E	Premiere date	Title	Klingon lines	Summary
Season 1
1	1	24 Sep 2017	A Vulcan Hello	60	Burnham accidentally kills a Klingon.
1	2	24 Sep 2017	Battle at the binary stars	76	The Klingons see this attack as a reason to start a war.
1	3	1 Oct 2017	Context is for Kings	-	Burnham is transferred to Discovery and they find the tardigrade.
1	4	8 Oct 2017	The butcher's knife cares not for the lamb's cry	140	Lorca is captured by the Klingons.
1	5	15 Oct 2017	Choose Your Pain	1	On the Klingon prison ship, Lorca encounters Tyler and escapes.
1	6	22 Oct 2017	Lethe	9	They save Sarek. Cornwell is kidnapped by the Klingons.
1	7	29 Oct 2017	Magic to make the sanest man go mad	-	Mudd tries to steal the Discovery.
1	8	5 Nov 2017	Si vis pacem, para bellum	44	A strong beacon on the planet Pa'vo could help them see cloaked ships.
1	9	12 Nov 2017	Into the forest I go	12	Doing 133 jumps, they find a way to break the cloaking device.
1	10	7 Jan 2018	Despite Yourself	11	In the mirror universe, they try to get onto the Shenzhou to find information to get back.
1	11	14 Jan 2018	The Wolf Inside	3	Tyler reveals himself as Voq and kills Dr. Culber.
1	12	21 Jan 2018	Vaulting Ambition	8	Burnham tells mirror Georgiou who she really is and finds out that Lorca is from the mirror universe.
1	13	28 Feb 2018	What's Past Is Prologue	-	Lorca tries to take over the Shenzhou, but mirror Georgiou kills him.
1	14	4 Feb 2018	The War Without, The War Within	-	Back in our universe, the Discovery needs to grow new spores to be able to jump.
1	15	11 Feb 2018	Will You Take My Hand?	?	They try to blow up Kronos, but find a better way to end the war.
Season 2
2	1	17 Jan 2019	Brother	-	Captain Pike takes over command of the Discovery to search for the mysterious red signals.
2	2	24 Jan 2019	New Eden	-	The crew of the Discovery finds a planet with Humans who got there 200 years before, not knowing how.
2	3	31 Jan 2019	Point of Light	21	Problems within the Klingon High Council because of L'Rell's baby.
2	4	7 Feb 2019	An Obol for Charon	2	A big alien ship causes trouble on the Discovery.
2	5	14 Feb 2019	Saints of Imperfection	-	While saving Tilly from the mycelial network, Culber comes back as well.
2	6	21 Feb 2019	The Sounds of Thunder	-	A new signal appears over Saru's home planet.
2	7	28 Feb 2019	Light and Shadows	-	Burnham goes to Vulcan in search of Spock.
2	8	7 Mar 2019	If Memory Serves	-	Spock and Burnham head to Talos IV.
2	9	14 Mar 2019	Project Daedalus	-	The Discovery crew infiltrates Section 31's headquarters.
2	10	21 Mar 2019	The Red Angel	-	They find a way to catch the red angel and find out it's Michael's mom.
2	11	28 Mar 2019	Perpetual Infinity	1	Starfleet tries to stop the AI to aquire the data from the sphere.
2	12	4 Apr 2019	Through the Valley of Shadows	4	Pike goes to Boreth to find the time crystals.
2	13	11 Apr 2019	Such Sweet Sorrow Pt. 1	-	While trying to get rid of the artificial intelligence, the Discovery gets even more in trouble.
2	14	18 Apr 2019	Such Sweet Sorrow Pt. 2	8	Burnham places the red angels signals into the past and saves the Discovery into the future.
Season 3
There were no Klingon dialogues or references in season 3.

References

1 : Star Trek: Discovery Klingons Will Speak Klingon on screenrant.com, by John Casteele, 23 July 2017

2 : 10 Things We Learned About Discovery on StarTrek.com, published 02 August 2017

3 , 4 : STAR TREK DISCOVERY Comic Con Panel News & Highlights on YouTube, uploaded 23 July 2017

5 : SDCC17: Star Trek: Discovery Panel Gives New Character And Story Details on trekmovie.com, by Christine Rideout, July 22, 2017

6 : Message by CBS TV Studios on Twitter of 2. Aug. 2017

7 : (de) Die Bildergalerie zu Star Trek - Discovery on moviejones.de, retrieved 02 Aug 2017

8 : Images on imgur, published 02 August 2017

9 : 11 New Star Trek: Discovery Character Posters Unveiled Including New Character, on TrekMovie.com, published August 1, 2017

10 : Star Trek: Discovery Recasts Klingon Amid Flurry of New Additions on tvline.com, published 28th April 2017

11 : the subtitle track reads "mughbogh permey: Lieven L. Litaer" (engl. translating labels) at the end; you need to fast forward the episode to see them, because the Netflix software usually stops the episode before the credits

12 : The Klingon teacher behind Star Trek: Discovery’s subtitles, VODzilla, On 27, Sep 2017