The most surprising thing about the Klingon language might just be that its original creator was actually one of the original cast members, James Doohan, who played Scotty. According to StarTrek.com, he was the one who came up with the few spoken lines of Klingon in the first "Star Trek" film. However, during the production of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," executive producer Harve Bennett came into contact with an old friend named Marc Okrand, a professional linguist. He soon enlisted Okrand to write the lines spoken in Vulcan in "Wrath of Khan" and fully flesh out Klingon in its sequel, "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock." Afterward, Okrand authored the official Klingon dictionary and became the father of science fiction's most well-known language.
"I wrote 'The Klingon Dictionary' hoping that people would like it, of course, but I honestly expected that people would look at it, try to say a few words – maybe memorize one or two – and that would be it. I never imagined that people would study it so seriously," Okrand told StarTrek.com. "When I hear people I've never met before ... speaking the language, it's still an odd sensation."
Over the years, Okrand further built upon the Klingon language in later films and series, although writers would often rely solely on "The Klingon Dictionary." Even so, you can hear Okrand's work in nearly every alien language in every iteration of "Star Trek," including the more recent "Star Trek: Discovery."
