Who owns a language? Better yet, who owns the Klingon language?

"Waaait, people don't think we sound sexy?"

To speak Klingon, the language of Star Trek's most notable villain alien species, you need a deep supply of mucus in the throat and a total lack of shame for speaking it in public.

You might also need to go to court to fight over the copyright.

Currently being battled out in federal court is the matter of who exactly owns a language for a fictional alien species, an esoteric mind bender of a geek debate if there ever was one. Does the corporation (Paramount) that owns the artistic rights to the fictional alien species' likeness also own the language, too? Do the fans own it, since they expanded a previously 2,000 word vocabulary into an expansive language numbering in the tens of thousands of words? Or can anything or anyone really own any language in the first place--especially one for a species that doesn't exist?

"This argument is absurd since a language is only useful if it can be used to communicate with people, and there are no Klingons with whom to communicate," stated a brief authored by David Grossman, a lawyer for Paramount, who's adding even more opaque layers to the debate. The old question "If a tree falls in the forest..." has met its match. If no Klingon exists to speak it, does that mean it's not useful? How would the ancient Greeks feel knowing they no longer exist, but people still know and use their language? Who judges worth of use?

Microsoft Bing even has an English-to-Klingon translation tool. Over 250,000 Klingon dictionaries have been sold. There's even a Klingon Language Institute. In the end, can Paramount own the words they sort of never created? Can anyone?

No court in American history has ever ruled the copyrightedness of a language--any language--before. Song lyrics? Poems? Words on a page? They've been touched on by courts. By comparison, the copyright over language as a whole, and the Klingon language specifically, is, well, the final frontier.

Is Khaleesi truly speaking a real language or just pulling our chain?

Whenever Khaleesi appears ready to kill someone in Game of Thrones, she usually whips out some Dothraki, admonishes them with a few clipped consonants, and finds a creative was to take out her enemy. (Why, hello there, fire-breathing dragons! How convenient!)

But is Dothraki--the language constructed by George R.R. Martin, and furthered by the creators of the television show--a real language? Is Klingon on Star Trek? Elvish in The Lord of the Rings?

TedEd (a branch of the famous TedTalk series) explains how Khaleesi isn't just taking us for a linguistic ride when she's irked:

Google celebrates Moby Dick's anniversary with a doodle.

The 161st anniversary is special. And by special I mean it's extra special in that no one usually commemorates it because it's the 161st anniversary.

That doesn't dissuade Google, who wants you to know their Google doodlers are both highly literate and desperate for a reason to change the company's logo most any day. Today? Google celebrates the 161st anniversary of the publication of Herman Melville's Moby Dick--that famed American classic you always mean to get around to reading someday but won't.

So here's the Sparknote's version of Moby Dick so you'll know what to talk about around the water cooler today: There's a whale named Moby (Dick to his close friends), and at some point Patrick Stewart shows up as a fisherman reciting Shakespeare while trying to stab Moby out of vengeance for having a less fashionable bald head than he has.

It's all really complex, so I might have missed a few important facts. But that's the gist.

Does this mean Captain Kirk serenades Hermione Granger?

This is what happens when worlds collide.

This is a video of Leonard Nimoy (Spock, of the original Star Trek series) singing. Specifically, singing a song about Bilbo Baggins. Yes, that Bilbo Baggins. The hobbit.




I'm not sure what's going on here. We've got Spock (sans ears) rocking out while a bunch of women do their best impersonation of Beach Blanket Bingo. And the women are wearing some sort of Vulcan/Hobbit ears while they bust a move on the beach--again, to a song about Bilbo Baggins. And everyone seems to be head-butting everyone else at some point for no apparent reason. If it made any less sense we'd all be committed to a psych ward.

My best explanation? It was the '60's. That explains everything.

Really, how often are there songs about literary characters? More importantly, how long must I wait for the Uhura tribute album to the Twilight books?