Verklempt is a loan word from the Yiddish language that acts as an adjective. It means to be overwhelmed by emotion, perhaps so much that one cannot speak. An alternative spellings include ferklempt, farklempt, verklemmt, and faklempt. However, the v spelling is vastly preferred.
Yiddish is a language created by the Ashkenazi Jews and has many words with roots in the German language. It dates back to about the ninth century, though it was not called Yiddish until the nineteenth century.
Verklempt was popularized in the United States in the 1990’s and many credit that to a comedy sketch on Saturday Night Live. Though, in the transcripts of the sketch the word is spelled faklempt.