Friday, November 20, 2009

Sometimes you Feel Like Father of the Year

...without doing a darn thing.

I've seen repeated references to this over the last week in various corners of the 'Net, but really haven't bothered to read the details 'til now. According to the Minnesota Daily"

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."
Now I have the first edition of Simon & Schuster's Klingon-English Dictionary (also the book tape recorded by Michael Dorn), I even memorized a phrase or two from it back in high school--as did many of my friends. But that's just geeky fun, as is the Klingon Boggle that the guys on The Big Bang Theory play, it's a bit extreme, but you know there are people out there that do that.

But this guy takes the cake, right? What a nerd! Something about that story didn't work right, I know fanboys tend towards the odd, and frequently pathetic, but...as goofy as we tend to be, we do manage to keep a foot in reality.

But I guess that's why you need to read all the context. The Klingon child-rearing is not the point of the article, it was actually an introduction to talking about this company making nifty language learning software and Speers' consulting for it.

He's actually not a Trekker at all,
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.

Although some of the things he's done lead people to believe he's a "Star Trek" fanatic, Speers said it's actually a passion for language that attracts him to Klingon.

"I don’t go to 'Star Trek' conventions, I don't wear the fake forehead," he said. "I’m a linguist."
Ahhh, now it makes sense. Nerds, geeks, fanboys and all will ultimately (often times far too late, see these people) show some restraint.

Academics on the other hand...

2 comments:

Lockheed said...

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.

And some say Christians abuse their children by telling them about God.

Anonymous said...

Although speaking Klingon to a child might seem an odd thing to do, speaking a planned language need not necessarily be pointless. I have come across a small number of native speakers of Esperanto. In most cases Esperanto was the natural home language of the parents, who had differeent mother tongues.