SANTA CRUZ — Efforts to revive Mutsun, a dialect of the Ohlone language, helped give rise to Klingon, a fictional language in “Star Trek.”

The creator of Klingon, Marc Okrand, spoke about how his linguistic work on Mutsun influenced Klingon at his alma mater, UC Santa Cruz, to about 100 people who were mostly members of the native community and Trekkers, fans of the franchise.

The talk was part of the Amah Mutsun Speaker Series, which focuses on issues of importance for Native Americans and is organized by Amah Mutsun tribal members, American Indian Resource Center staff and UCSC.

Okrand completed his dissertation on Mutsun grammar at UC Berkeley in 1978. His work was based on that of Father de la Cuesta at Mission San Juan Bautista in the 1800s and J.P. Harrington, a linguist and ethnographer, at the Smithsonian Institution in the late 1920s. Paramount Pictures hired linguist Okrand to create Klingon for the popular franchise.

Klingon borrows linguistic structures from many languages such as Russian, Yiddish and Asian languages, but parallels Mutsun are among the most notable.

The most distinct similarity is between the Mutsun suffix

Tak and the Klingon suffix

Daq.

“Consciously or subconsciously (Mutsun) sounds crept into Klingon,” Okrand said. However, because Klingons were portrayed as villainous warriors and in an effort to not offend any people, he avoided using recognizable linguistic characteristics from any language.

“I disguised it, but it”s still Mutsun through and through,” he said of the language”s influences.

Okrand”s work and the connection between Mutsun and Klingon have brought attention to the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and Ohlone and its language revitalization efforts.

“It”s unreal. The fact people are using my work to talk and preserve their culture is so satisfying,” Okrand said. “I”m jazzed.”

The tribe has been restoring the language since the early 1990s but had not had a coordinated effort until the last four or five years.

“He did all the work that allows us to speak our language in a precise and proper way,” Lopez said. “We are very lucky. His grammar book is like a nugget of gold.”

About 30 members of the tribe are taking a Mutsun class, which they can stream online, offered through a partnership with UCSC and UC Davis

“Our language has been asleep,” Lopez said, “and we”re trying to wake it up.”

The last speaker of Mutsun died in the 1930s, and Lopez”s great-greatgrandmother was the last speaker of Awaswas and died in 1922. Mutsun is the language historically spoken near San Juan Bautista, and Awaswas was spoken in Santa Cruz.

“We aren”t fluent yet, but we use it at gatherings and events,” Lopez said. “We have 3- to 4-year-olds learning, who pick it up quicker, and 70-year-olds and plus.”

Keeping their culture, history and language alive without federal assistance has been difficult, Lopez said. Ohlone is not a federally recognized tribe and relies on grants, fellowships and universities. Okrand”s work was a starting point for the tribe”s efforts and sparked the organized revitalization efforts said Quirina Geary, a tribe member.

“If people can learn Klingon, we can learn Mustun,” Geary said.

Follow Sentinel reporter Samantha Clark at Twitter.com/samanthabclark.