As one might expect from any involved and nurturing father, d'Armond Speers of Minnesota spoke only Klingon to his son for the first three years of his life. Hart Van Denburg writes in Citypages:
Link via Geekologie | Image: Paramount
"I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language," Speers told the Minnesota Daily. "He was definitely starting to learn it."
And get this, Speers says he isn't really a huge Star Trek fan.
We'll take his word for it.
Does the fact that Speers has a doctorate in computational linguistics explain anything -- or excuse anything -- here? Maybe. His child-rearing habits were part of a larger story on the company he advises, Ultralingua, which develops language and translation software. Including Klingon.
Link via Geekologie | Image: Paramount
It started with High Noon, with the cannon.
Then the story about Pirates.
Mickey Mouse's birthday (Pirates of the Carribean connect to Disney).
My post on the Disney/Star Wars ads.
And who can't think of a reason to connect Star Wars and Star Trek?
I guess it works better the other way, but still.
:-p
NEVER, experiment on a child, doing so on your own is inexcusable.
He needs a kick in the head with golf shoes on.
it actually does have a fully thought out syntax and vocabulary ... MY main concern is whether the father has been speaking it correctly to his kid or not! The grammar is apparently incredibly complex, and of those that speak it, few actually bother to learn the correct grammar.
Slate has a really great article about the whole thing:
http://www.slate.com/id/2217815/pagenum/all/
Yeah, I was working on posting the same story with a different link. Ya snooze, ya lose!
and others. Children can handle talking to different
people in different languages.
Learning a second language is good for a child's mind.
It will enhance his understanding of English and make it easier to learn more language.
He might want to keep the Klingon under wraps when he hits his teen years, though, or he'll only get laid at Trekkie conventions.
"1) The Speers family raised their son bi-lingually, not exclusively in Klingon. They are not residents of the Twin Cities (or Minnesota, for that matter).
2) Language acquisition is non-exclusive; i.e., contrary to the posts from Stuart and Reality, learning multiple languages actuality improves the overall ability to acquire language, much like cross-training in sports improves athleticism.
Studies of multilingual children have proven this and are used by the Esperanto Society as a plug for learning constructed languages in addition to traditional language courses. So, in fact, the Speers did their son a service.
3) Dr. Speers is a first-rate professional, as are the other Klingon experts who helped us on this project and linguists who consult on our mainstream applications. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with them."
A more accurate article can be found at: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=10873
If you can't say anything with out the venom then don't say shit at all. Every post you comment on is filled with self loathing and hate.
If you want to troll go to you tube.
My grandchildren are better educated than you troll.
I don't think the church even uses latin any more.
Too bad though, since so many languages are based on it.
Yup, pretty much dead.
How is this going to harm the child in any way?
How anyone could see this as harmless is as much of a moron as the father.
Ethics Mitch, ever heard the word?
It seems like an odd experiment simply because he picked Klingon, otherwise nobody would care/talk about about this. I'm pretty sure there are many parents that do the same thing with Spanish/French/German or whatever.
http://www.emday.nl/publicaties/fonts/font_presentatie_gifs/klingon_font_2.gif
I mean that is just ridiculous Leona--imagine, REALLY imagine, if the father went to the extent of speaking ONLY Klingon at home as you say, and the child was forced to learn to speak and read English on his own through "interactions outside the home." How in cotton picking heck can you say it's "not different"?
Is this website chock full of Trekkies or what? At what year would this be considered child abuse? What if he taught a language he made up, that has "proper syntax"--is that somehow ok as well?
The reason he chose Klingon was that Klingon was developed specifically to defy all of Noam Chomsky's ideas of what is possible in a language. After it was developed, Chomsky had to revise his rules to say they only applied to natural language.
Chomskian generativist linguists believe that the consistencies between the natural languages of the world exist because of structures in the human mind/brain. That is, we are only able to learn and fluently use languages that conform to certain rules. Since Klingon breaks all of these rules, the question of whether it's possible to learn Klingon as a native language is incredibly interesting.
I don't think there's anything abusive or dangerous in this at all. The child's mother spoke English to him, and he grew up speaking English natively. He learned some Klingon, but then around the age of five simply refused to use it to communicate anymore. As a linguistic anthropologist, I take this to mean that he stopped using it because nobody but his father spoke it, and he may have picked up that it was stigmatized. But my formalist linguist friend thinks it means that Klingon really is impossible to learn as a native language and Chomsky was right.
So, nothing resolved there, but it was an interesting experiment.
Dude's an idiot.
What's Klingon for "You're a cunning linguist"?
It's a way of imparting knowledge to the child, not an unethical psychological experiment.
I can't stop you from making snap judgments about something you don't understand, but it sure makes you look silly. Why don't you look into whether the child was harmed by any of this before you shoot off your mouth about kicking his father in the head?
Excuse me John, but I'm not the one who advocated kicking some father in the head with golf shoes for having a good time developing his kid's mind. I also am not the one who equated him with Nazis.
I stand by my statements. We are a society of people who just love to point the finger at anyone who breaks from the normal parenting behavior of ignoring our kids; we like buying them a bunch of crap, shoving them off in front of a t.v., video game, or computer. We don't even talk to them in our cars;(while on the way to feed them some crap food at some fast food joint) we have t.v. sets there too.
For the most part, our kids are fat, ignorant, incurious losers. We seem to be able to teach them just enough to breed. Most of them really do barely speak one language, except the Hispanic kids who for the most part, speak two languages, poorly. Most of our kids don't know much more about the world around them other than pop stars, sports stars, movie stars, porn stars, and expensive gadgets that they want for Christmas.
And Tim, it's easy to describe someone who you disagree with as "Self Loathing" or sling the appellation "Nazi" around, but you are the one who has so much violence in your heart that you want to kick someone in the head with golf shoes for having the audacity to raise their kids out of the pathetic main stream of our lame society.
How do you say "Don't feed the trolls" in Klingon?
You hate. And that's all you do.
Get some help woman, don't bring your ignorance and hate here.
As in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2LPVcsL2k0
Love that I was dressed as fem!sulu too. IT WAS MADE TO BE.
Never saw him again though. Shame.
BTW, I'm not a slut or anything. Hahahaha. He was just weirdly charming and sweet and um..sexy. I'm a girl, not a asexual robot, damnit!
Each have a point ... multiple linguistic capability is certainly a good thing (I was taught this when I studied secondary education in university) but as some said, the father could have taught a more useful language.
But in the end, what matters is not what the father did or what he did wrong .... but that some commentators on this article are acting like juveniles over something that ultimately does not concern them or their lives .....
So there are no adults after all, only kids in bigger bodies.... shame.......