Photo: Lieven / CC BY-SA 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Marc Okrand fascinates me more than most celebrities ever could. A Berkeley-trained linguist whose serious work lies in Native American languages, he is famous instead for inventing Klingon, building an alien tongue from grammar to phonology for Star Trek. That blend of rigorous scholarship and pure imaginative play is rare and wonderful. I respect that he can honor real, endangered languages while also dreaming up an entire fictional one. To me he embodies a love of language for its own sake, useful or not. That kind of curiosity is, frankly, my idea of cool.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Marc Okrand
- Name (Japanese)
- マーク・オークランド
- Reading
- まーく・おーくらんど
- Born
- July 3, 1948 (age 78)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Cancer / Rat
- Origin
- Los Angeles, California, United States
- Occupation
- linguist / Klingonist / writer
2. Background
- University
- University of California, Berkeley
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Frequently asked questions
When was Marc Okrand born?
Born July 3, 1948 (age 78).
Where is Marc Okrand from?
Marc Okrand is from Los Angeles, California, United States.
What does Marc Okrand do?
Marc Okrand works as linguist, Klingonist, writer.
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7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.