Oregon hopes to beam up Klingon translator

PORTLAND — Position available: interpreter, must be fluent in Klingon.

The language created for the "Star Trek" TV series and movies is one of about 55 needed by the office that treats mental-health patients in metropolitan Multnomah County.

"We have to provide information in all the languages our clients speak," said Jerry Jelusich, a procurement specialist for the county Department of Human Services, which serves about 60,000 mental-health clients.

Although created for works of fiction, Klingon was designed to have a consistent grammar, syntax and vocabulary.

And Multnomah County research now has found that many people — and not only fans — consider it a complete language.

"There are some cases where we've had mental-health patients where this was all they would speak," said the county's purchasing administrator, Franna Hathaway.

County officials said that obligates them to respond with a Klingon-English interpreter, putting the language of starship Enterprise officer Worf and other Klingon characters on a par with common languages such as Russian and Vietnamese, and less-common tongues including Dari and Tongan.