Sometimes people who don't much like Esperanto say that Klingon, a made-up language invented to add realism to some Star Trek movies, is more successful as an international language than Esperanto is.
But actually that's not true. It's just comforting for people who fear someday they will be forced to learn Esperanto. They would be equally fearful if they had to
learn Volapük, Universalglot, or Klingon!
Star Trek fans may know a word or two of Klingon, but very few could actually put together a whole sentence in the language. And it would almost never be a sentence that is useful in the real world, unlike 'beam me up' or 'fire phasers.'
- Reason number 1 that Klingon will not succeed as an international language the way Esperanto has is that Klingon is intellectual property owned by the corporation that owns Star Trek. Or maybe the man hired to create Klingon has some claim on it as well. Esperanto, Volapük and other languages intended as international auxiliary languages are 'born' in the public domain. If you translate a Shakespeare play into Esperanto or Volapük, you could self-publish it without issues. If you translate it into Klingon, the owners of the Klingon language could stop you publishing.
- Reason number 2 is that there is no mechanism for coining new words in Klingon. That's why you can't translate the Bible into Klingon--- there are hundreds of words you'd need to translate the text that don't exist in Klingon yet, and there is no way to make a new word of Klingon by yourself.
- Reason number 3 is that there are no shortwave radio broadcasts or podcasts in Klingon. At one point there were many on the shortwave bands, though most were mainly audible in Europe. Now that podcasts have replaced shortwave radio for so many of us, there are Esperanto podcasts. If someone wanted to start a Klingon podcast, he'd have to get permission from the language's owners.
- Reason number 4 is that Klingon is a product of Star Trek, a phenomenon from the English-speaking world, and particularly from the United States. English-speakers from the United States don't particularly feel the need for an international auxiliary language. You are far less likely to find an Esperanto speaker in the United States than in Finland. And foreign Star Trek fans, even though they watch Trek movies and TV shows dubbed into their own language, are more likely to know some English than enough Klingon to be useful.
- Reason number 5 is that there are no books in Klingon--- not even a Bible, a New Testament or a single Gospel. So the Klingon enthusiast has nothing to read to expand his language knowledge. There are many books in Esperanto--- I have a shelf on one of my bookcases just for Esperanto books, and I have my Esperanto dictionaries, both my Esperanto Bibles, and a few other Esperanto books on a different bookshelf. And I have never had much book-buying money!
- Finally, reason number 6 is the ridicule factor. Star Trek is a 'silly' science fiction TV show. Star Trek fans get mocked. If a bunch of Star Trek fans decided to make Klingon into a workable international auxiliary language, they would be mocked far more than Esperantists are! Now, determined enough Trekkies might manage, anyway. But I think it would be very hard to get more Klingon speakers than there are Esperanto speakers--- or even Volapük speakers.
Now, there could be a deus ex machina event that could propel Klingon, with all its flaws, into use as a global international language. And it would be as useful as any other, or as English, French, Latin or Chinese have been in international use. But I honestly believe that the odds are against Klingon coming into that role.
