Star Trek: Picard

side view of t-shirt

letter analysis

Sex Pistols Logo

Star Trek: Picard is a TV series of 2020 based on Star Trek with Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation in the main character. It is broadcasted on CBS All Access (now known as Paramount+) and appears one day later worldwide on Amazon Prime.

There were no Klingons in the show and no Klingon was spoken, but there are some appearances.

Season 1: Klingon T-Shirt

In episode 7 ("Nepenthe") at about 54:44 Kestra (played by Lulu Wilson) is wearing a T-shirt with clearly recognized Klingons plus two words. Those words are not relevant to the story. The phrase is not entirely visible. The words are all written in Okrand's romanized spelling. The first line shows HIchmey "handguns" and the second line starts with nga-, but due to the camera angle, the second part is blurred. It can't be more than one syllable though.

Analysis of the letters

In one angle, the top part of some letters is partially visible. Since there are only few words starting with nga- that would make sense in this combination, it is quite sure that this means HIchmey nga'chuq.

Analysis of the meaning

If the intended meaning was to say "f**k handguns" - maybe because Klingons prefer to use blades - it is grammatically incorrect. The subject of nga'chuq are the parties doing it with each other, and it should follow the verb. If a literal translation was intended, the verb ngagh mate with would have been more appropriate.

The more likely interpretation is that this is an easter egg on the music group "Sex Pistols", as the verb nga'chuq is defined as "sex, perform sex" and a second definition of HIch (in addition to "handgun") is "pistol". Even then, the phrase still is ungrammatical and reads like "pistols, they have sex." Even in correct word order, the result "pistols are having sex" is surely not what was intended. This is a simply word-by-word dictionary translation.

On his Instagram acccount, showrunner Michael Chabon confirmed this, saying it was "Roughly translated: "Sex Phasers." A popular Klingon trash band".(1) Note that "phaser" is pu' and "phaser pistol" is pu'HIch. This may have been shortened deliberately.

T-shirt

Several online-stores sell a T-shirt with the above logo seen in Picard. Most of them use the same layout which includes a bad grammatical error, which can only be seen by Klingon experts. A grammatically correct version is available at the webstore of the German Klingon Institute, accessible through this link External Weblink

(German).

Season 3

End credits

On the background of season 3 end credits, schematics of a Klingon ship appear with several parts named. The names first appear in pIqaD and then in English. The used Klingon font is HaSta.

Parts in brackets were not shown clearly and contain guesses.

Klingon	English
bI'rel [...]	B'REL CLASS BIRD OF PREY
Se' [lISwI']	Frequency Conditioner
Se' lISwI' yIb	Frequency Conditioner Inlet
yu'egh chungwI' cha'	Secondary Waveform Accelerator
yu'egh meqHoD 'och	Waveform Bypass Conduit
SIlwI' tat [noch]	Diverter Ion Sensor
botjan [HoS SIlwI']	Shield Energy Diverter
'otlh [... Qorwagh]	Photon Spill Window

meqHoD and SIl were not known canonical words at the time the series was broadcasted. It's unknown whether they were invented by the series production team or given to them by Okrand.

Background Poster

ghe'tor QI'tu'

In episode 5 of season 3 (at 11:46), some Klingon letters were seen in a background image. The words are clearly to read as geztor qiztuz. This is transcribed as ghe'tor and QI'tu', meaning "netherworld" and "paradise".