Wanted: Klingon interpreter

Klingon was created for the Star Trek series

A mental health service in the United States is looking for a translator who is fluent in Klingon, the language used in the television and film series Star Trek.

Klingon is just one of about 55 languages needed by Multnomah County, in Oregon, which serves about 60,000 mental health patients.

"We have to provide information in all the languages our clients speak," said Jerry Jelusich, from the county's department of human services.

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

Officials in Multnomah County have found many people - and not just 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 Franna Hathaway, another county official.

They say this obligates them to respond with a Klingon-English interpreter.

This puts the language of Starship Enterprise officer Worf and other Klingon characters on a par with more common languages such as Russian and Vietnamese.