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Man Speaks Only Klingon To Child For Three Years

Posted by samzenpus on from the better-bring-your-bat'leth-to-school dept.

d'Armond Speers has a doctorate in computational linguistics but that wasn't enough for him. He is now pursuing the coveted "World's Worst Dad" title. To this end he has decided to treat his child like a verengan Ha'DIbaH and speak only Klingon around the child for the first 3 years of his life. "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."

22 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Okay, please tell me this is April 1th. by mosel-saar-ruwer · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I assume this is a joke.

    But if I were the governor of Minnesota, and I thought for a second that there were any truth to this story [at all!], then I'd sic Child Services on that SOB and have him thrown in jail faster than you can say "Fetch my betleH".

    Seriously.

    1. Re:Okay, please tell me this is April 1th. by ground.zero.612 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You must be from one of those countries where it's acceptable to think you know how to raise other people's children better than they do. Thanks for outing yourself, totalitarian prick.

      --
      "Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
    2. Re:Okay, please tell me this is April 1th. by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      Well, it's sorta like different because it's sorta like learning ONE language at once, not two. Like, you know.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  2. sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by mosel-saar-ruwer · · Score: 3, Insightful


    The older I get, the more I seem to be losing my ear for sarcasm & facetiousness.

    Assuming that the story is true [which I doubt], then PLEASE tell me that you were being sarcastic/facetious.

    I honestly can't tell anymore.

    .

    1. Re:sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by ground.zero.612 · · Score: 1

      The older I get, the more I seem to be losing my ear for sarcasm & facetiousness. Assuming that the story is true [which I doubt], then PLEASE tell me that you were being sarcastic/facetious. I honestly can't tell anymore. .

      Here in the US, we tend to not care about such trivial things as which languages someone opts to teach their child. For you see, our Bill of Rights guarantees us the Freedom of Speech. The fictitious Klingon language undoubtedly falls under this category.

      If you were the governor of my state (Minnesota, the state in question), and you used Child Services to have this guy throw in jail while being completely innocent of committing any crimes, I would have you impeached faster than you can say, "Klingon".

      --
      "Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
    2. Re:sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by frosty_tsm · · Score: 1

      Here in the US, we tend to not care about such trivial things as which languages someone opts to teach their child.

      I'm sorry, you sure you're from the same US I'm from? Where growing up learning only Spanish becomes a serious barrier in life? And many people are xenophobic and arrogant when it comes to languages?

    3. Re:sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      Granted, it's the Dad's right to be as much of a nitwit as he wishes, as long as he doesn't actually beat the kid up or some such.

      Now, picture the difficulty this child will have conversing with the rest of humanity, hell let's just pick the English speaking world for now. How is he going to cope? I'm guessing he *can* speak English, but which language is his first, and hence his frame of reference? If he takes French classes at school, must he first go from French to English, then English to Klingon? Grammatical errors introduced from not understanding the complex nuances involved in speaking English fluently? Contractions, and contextual definition?

      I'm not saying this kid is disadvantaged, but he is certainly not being set up for early success.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    4. Re:sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      Plus, that dude's costume is RUBBISH. He looks more like a Girl Scout than a warrior.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    5. Re:sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Here in the US, we tend to not care about such trivial things as which languages someone opts to teach their child.

      I'm sorry, you sure you're from the same US I'm from? Where growing up learning only Spanish becomes a serious barrier in life? And many people are xenophobic and arrogant when it comes to languages?

      Probably he (she? It? They? WGAF?) does ; you both live in a US where, in the interest of protecting a non-existent privacy and "free speech", you allow child abuse.
      (I did actually notice that the professor was talking about teaching the child while it was in it's first language acquisition phase ; he didn't say that it was the only language that he was going to teach the child.
      Astonishingly (to some), it's perfectly plausible to have children growing up simultaneously fluent in at least three languages. Two is easy - my wife's friends intend little Vasili to grow up fluent in English and Russian. I'd expect them to start on his French or Spanish or German when he's about 8.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    6. Re:sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      OH.

      I see what you did there. :?

      Yeah, I kinda agree. If people won't teach their kids English, and we can't force 'em to do it, why is Klingon any worse than Spanish... both of which are languages that most of the US doesn't speak, and doesn't wish to learn.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    7. Re:sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by wonkavader · · Score: 1

      But it's not the dad. So it's some random bozo.

    8. Re:sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by snl2587 · · Score: 1

      How is this any different than a family speaking only Spanish to their child while living in the U.S.? And what would be wrong with that?

    9. Re:sarcasm and/or facetiousness ?!?!? by emilper · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, you sure you're from the same US I'm from? Where growing up learning only Spanish becomes a serious barrier in life? And many people are xenophobic and arrogant when it comes to languages?

      No, being poor is a serious barrier in life ... not speaking the same dialect as the minority in charge is a lot less important. My bet is not speaking English (or the official language some place else) with the proper accent (and that depends on the state/country) is a lot worse than speaking it with Spanish accent.

  3. Look at the actual story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sorry for the AC, I don't remember my password. I know this guy and TFA is a sensationalized blog entry. If you follow it to the actual story (http://www.mndaily.com/2009/11/17/local-company-creates-klingon-dictionary) you get the actual important parts:

    With the birth of his son 15 years ago, dedicated linguist d’Armond Speers embarked on the ultimate experiment: He spoke to him only in Klingon — the language of the alien race of “Star Trek” fame — for the first three years of his life.

    “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 said. “He was definitely starting to learn it.” ...

    As for Speers, who still gets nostalgic when he recalls singing the Klingon lullaby “May the Empire Endure” with his son at bedtime, the experiment was a dud. His son is now in high school and doesn’t speak a word of Klingon.

    1. Re:Look at the actual story by josh61980 · · Score: 1

      I remember reading a study that did something similar to this. Only they taught English and I think French. The end result was the French was lost, however the children were able to pick it up when they studied it later.

    2. Re:Look at the actual story by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      Sorry for the AC, I don't remember my password. I know this guy and TFA is a sensationalized blog entry. If you follow it to the actual story (http://www.mndaily.com/2009/11/17/local-company-creates-klingon-dictionary) you get the actual important parts:

      With the birth of his son 15 years ago, dedicated linguist d’Armond Speers embarked on the ultimate experiment: He spoke to him only in Klingon — the language of the alien race of “Star Trek” fame — for the first three years of his life.

      “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 said. “He was definitely starting to learn it.” ...

      As for Speers, who still gets nostalgic when he recalls singing the Klingon lullaby “May the Empire Endure” with his son at bedtime, the experiment was a dud. His son is now in high school and doesn’t speak a word of Klingon.

      OH MY GOD...

      I’m not sure which is sadder: That I’m so thrilled to know it’s possible to do curly quotes in Slashcode, or that I’ll probably actually use them.

      I normally use the alt-codes, but those are Unicode characters and Slashcode mangles them.

      Now I just want to know if there’s a way to do a proper ellipsis character. It’s Alt-0133, but like the curly quotes, Slashcode mangles it.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  4. Re:VERY interesting study in linguistics by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    It's possible that he "fixes" the Klingon language

    They say our language influences our thought patterns, maybe even of young children.

    What's Klingon for "give me the fucking bottle before I disembowel you and curse your ancestors?"

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  5. Re:VERY interesting study in linguistics by Schiphol · · Score: 1

    Apparently, this is what happened with the Nicaraguan Sign Language, one of the latest natural languages to have appeared (on Earth).

    Deaf people in Nicaragua used to communicate with hearing relatives using ad-hoc signing. Once the Sandinist revolution increased the schooling of deaf kids in the late 70s, all of these signing schemes surfaced at Nicaraguan schools, and little deaf kids, well, fixed them, and in the process created a real language.

  6. Sounds like "world's best dad" to me by davidwr · · Score: 1

    OK, I kid.

    However, if he raised his kid to be bilingual, that would be cool.

    If he only spoke Klingon around his kid and the kid's wife and others spoke at least that much English, or whatever the kid's country's native tongue is, that would be fantastic.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Sounds like "world's best dad" to me by wonkavader · · Score: 1

      I doubt his wife, the kid's grandparents, or the folks at the local grocery can be kept silent around the tyke.

      It's gotta be just a second language.

  7. Agreed by wonkavader · · Score: 1

    This is a fun test of Klingon. Linguists use it as a test language, but it's synthetic. If the child develops facility with Klingon but shows problems with constructs within the language, we can postulate that those constructs are either not valid natural linguistic forms, or don't naturally exist coupled with other forms. This is great.

    But on the other hand, we have a sample size of one, so while we can use the data, we'll only suspect things based on it -- we're never going to have much confidence.

    Furthermore, I suspect that his dad his speaking Klingon to the kid, but when they take him to Walmart, he hears English, and his great aunt Suzie speaks only English to him. The kid is learning two languages today, not one, and that makes the data a little less pure.

    As for the harm in speaking to a child in a synthetic language, unless they keep him in a Skinner box, I don't see how this could possibly hurt him. He's being inundated by natural languages around him -- his father's just giving him a second language feed. That's typically good for children.

    To think that Klingon will destroy his mind or retard his development invests too much power in a stream of sound and reminds me of "Snow Crash" which was fun, but silly.

  8. Slow news day? by Alrescha · · Score: 1

    It must be, when we're posting stories from 13 years ago.

    http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=10873

    The kid is in high school and no longer speaks a word of Klingon.

    --
    ...bringing you cynical quips since 1998