When Is Vulcan Spoken For The First Time In Star Trek?

Star Trek is well known for inventing an extensive spoken and written Klingon language, but Star Trek has also constructed a Vulcan language that has been used throughout the Star Trek franchise, raising questions about when it was first spoken. Just as Klingon matching the rough personality of its people, the Vulcan language reflects the serenity of Star Trek's Vulcan characters. Vulcan script takes multiple forms, with the most popular being designer Mike Okuda's calligraphic swirls, short lines, and dots that wind around a central vertical or horizontal line. Another form dispenses with the central line and features only glyphs.

The Vulcan language actually appeared before the first time Klingon was spoken in Star Trek, but it is still the less-developed language of the two. As the franchise's leading Vulcan, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is responsible for most of our exposure to Vulcan culture, but Spock is particularly secretive in Star Trek: The Original Series. Other Vulcans, like Star Trek: Enterprise's Subcommander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) and Star Trek: Voyager's Lieutenant Tuvok (Tim Russ), are equally private. More of the Vulcan language appears in modern Star Trek shows Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, featuring Ethan Peck's Spock.

The Vulcan Language Is Spoken For The First Time In Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2

Star Trek Returns To The Vulcan Home World In Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Discovery

The first time the Vulcan language is spoken is in the Star Trek: The Original Series season 2 episode "Amok Time". During a trip back to Vulcan to reunite with Spock's secret wife, T'Pring (Arlene Martel), several Vulcan words are introduced, from Spock's pon farr to the kal-if-fee challenge that T'Pring initiates. Most of the Vulcan language in TOS and the Star Trek movies comes from Vulcan rituals. Star Trek: The Motion Picture features Spock's interrupted kolinahr ritual to purge all emotion, performed entirely in the Vulcan language, to match the use of Klingon earlier in the movie.

Star Trek's subsequent instances of spoken Vulcan are based on the sounds of the Vulcan language that were first heard in "Amok Time". Lieutenant Tuvok refers to Koon-ut-so'lik, meaning marriage proposal, in Star Trek: Voyager season 3, episode 16, "Blood Fever", which is based on T'Pring's Koon-ut-kal-if-fee, or marriage challenge. Tuvok also uses Vulcan words for concepts without easy translations, like Plak tow, referring to the episode's eponymous blood fever. In Star Trek: Enterprise, Vulcans are the closest alien allies to early Starfleet, so Enterprise's Subcommander T'Pol contributes significant additions to our understanding of Vulcan language and culture.

Vulcan Was Fully Developed As A Language For Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

Non-Vulcans Rarely Speak The Notoriously Difficult Vulcan Language

Vulcan was developed into a proper language by linguist Marc Okrand for a scene between Captain Spock and Lieutenant Saavik (Kirstie Alley) in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Prior to Star Trek II, Vulcan dialogue didn't have structure or assigned meanings. Okrand was hired to create more believable dialogue between Spock and Saavik, instead of using Star Trek: The Motion Picture's technique of dubbing alien-sounding words over actors' original English performances. Okrand also contributed Vulcan dialogue to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Star Trek (2009).The reason that we've seen such little Vulcan dialogue in Star Trek may be because Vulcan is said to be very difficult for non-Vulcans to learn. Spock has gone on record saying his family name is unpronounceable by humans, and in Star Trek: Discovery, Sarek (James Frain) doesn't teach the language to Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), even though she was raised on Vulcan. This hasn't deterred fans, however; fan artist T'Kay hosts an extensive unofficial Vulcan dictionary, and creates art based on Vulcan script. Vulcan may not be as robust as Klingon, but is still an important Star Trek language.