How Star Trek: Discovery brought back the lost Trill language

This post contains spoilers for Season 3, Episode 4 of Star Trek: Discovery.

Alien languages are a hallmark of the Star Trek universe, but while some, like Klingon, have rich vocabularies, complex syntax, and online schools dedicated to teaching them, others are shrouded in mystery. On a recent episode of Star Trek: Discovery, listeners heard a snippet of one of the most obscure languages in the galaxy: Trill, spoken by the eponymous aliens known for their unique symbiotic biology.

In “Forget Me Not,” the fourth episode of Discovery’s third season, leaders of the Trill home world briefly switch from English (or something the universal translators can decode) to their native tongue during a heartfelt scene in which they accept a human, Adira Tal, as one of their own.

This is the first Trill that has been spoken on a Star Trek show in more than twenty years. Snatches of spoken Trill can be heard during rituals performed by Jadzia and Ezri Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but the language has lain dormant ever since.

In order to bring Trill back in a way that was both scientifically plausible and consistent with Deep Space Nine, the Discovery team enlisted writer and linguist Nick Farmer. In an exclusive interview with The Science of Fiction, Farmer, who previously developed the “Belter” language spoken on The Expanse, explains how he created words and syntax for an alien tongue known only from a handful of previously untranslated snippets. He also reveals what Leader Pav, Commissioner Vos and Guardian Xi said in the caves of Mak’ala after Adira—the first human ever joined to a Trill symbiont—reclaimed the memories of their former hosts.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.