Newsgroups: msn.onstage.startrek.expert.okrand
Date: 14 Jun 1997
Subject: Re: is there really a ferengi language
In the Deep Space Nine episode "Little Green Men", our favorite ferengi are
transported back to mid-20th century earth. Their universal translators
malfunction, and we get to hear what I believe is the first audible
instance of the spoken ferengi language.
That's all I know about this as well. I thought the Ferengi language
sounded pretty good, and I really liked how they made use of it. That is,
the "little green men" came to Earth -- specifically the United States in
the mid 20th Century -- and rather than speaking perfect mid 20th century
American English like most invading outer space aliens do, they spoke
something that the Earth people couldn't understand.
By incorporating the malfunction of the Universal Translators into the
plot, they even acknowledged that, even back in the 24th Century, there is
still a great deal of linguistic diversity and the potential for a lot of
misunderstanding.
I don't know whether anyone at Paramount (or elsewhere) has actually
documented the Ferengi language (that is, whether there's a word list or
something like that).
There are, of course, a handful of Ferengi words we've heard in other
episodes (such as "Nagus" and "DaiMon"), and a number of Ferengi names, but
extended Ferengi speech is, I think, heard only in the "Little Green Men"
episode.
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