A group of Star Trek fans on Sunday held a Trekkie gathering at a Taipei gallery, where Klingon was taught to devotees of one of the world’s most popular science-fiction franchises.
A man who calls himself tlh’raS (賴喬迪), who gave a lecture on the Klingon language, told the Central News Agency that he fell in love with the show when he saw Star Trek: The Next Generation, which aired in Taiwan in the 1990s, in junior-high school.
“I love how the TV series sees our future in a positive way where the human race and aliens work together to promote peace,” he said.
An enthusiastic learner of foreign languages, tlh’raS said he started to learn the Klingon language because of his love of the franchise.
The language, created by US linguist Marc Okrand for Star Trek, is spoken by the Klingon race in the Star Trek universe.
The lecture was attended by dozens of Taiwanese Star Trek fans who visited the Wrong Gallery, next to Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914), where an admission-free exhibition of Star Trek collectibles was being held.
Ron Chang (張榮成), owner of the gallery, said he lent the venue to the Trekkies to hold the lecture and exhibition free of charge, as he is a hardcore science-fiction fan.
“In Taiwan, Star Trek fans are considered an extreme minority. I am passionate about science-fiction and I would like to take this opportunity to show the public pop culture from America,” he said.
The exhibition is to run until Sunday.
Due to the popularity of the franchise, a Klingon-language dictionary has been published. It was so popular that Bing, a Web search engine operated by Microsoft, even added Klingon to its Bing Translator in 2013.
As one of the most successful science-fiction franchises in history, Star Trek has entertained fans around the world for more than half a century since its creation by Gene Roddenberry in 1966.
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