He wondered if the boy would acquire the created Klingon language as easily as any normal one.
Back when d’Armond Speers’ son, Alec, was born in 1996, he and his wife agreed that he would only speak Klingon to the infant while his wife would speak English.
“I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language.”
“I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language.”
Don’t worry too much, Speers is a computational linguist.
Speers was hoping his son’s first word would be ‘vav’, Klingon for dad, but it ended up being the Klingon word for vessel. Back then the language lacked many words and the closest thing for bottle was ‘vessel’ so that is what he used.
He would also sing the Klingon Imperial Anthem to Alec as a lullaby, a song that Alec picked up later and sang himself.
taHjaj wo’ ’ej taHjaj voDLeHma’ (May the empire endure, and may our emperor endure.)
wItoy’mo’ vaj nuquvmoHjaj ta’ (We serve him, so that he may honor us.)
Dun wo’maj ’ej Qochchugh vay’ (Our empire is wonderful, and if anyone disagrees,)
vaj DaSmeymaj bIngDaq chaH DIbeQmoHchu’ jay’! (We will crush them beneath our boots!)
Eventually when Alec was around three years old he stopped speaking Klingon because, d’Armond believed, he only spoke it with his father and Alec saw his mom and dad converse in English so it wasn’t worth the effort.
Alec soon forgot all about the language and couldn’t understand a word by the time this story was revealed in 2009. Alec suffered no harm from this language experiment and is now 20 years old.
Some people seemed outraged that he did this to his son. So he explained:
“Just because I spoke Klingon does not mean that I was teaching him to wield a bat'leth or drink black ale. It was a language, and we did normal things that other parents do.”
d’Armond maintains that he is no ‘Trekkie’ and only used Klingon because it is the most common created spoken language.
This is sad. They should have taught that youngling Galactic Basic. That silly Klingon language will be useless when I take over your galaxy.
Found this, I better start learning :)
Good idea.
vaj, tlhIngan yaj laH qel jIH?
Where is my IT guy?! Dennis!!!! There is something wrong with this translator again. If you weren't related to Vera I swear...
Dennis? What a cute name. Looks ewoky to me!
I know a few bilingual children from Dutch/English parents, they are mature now and speak both Dutch and English fluently. It just took a while for them to make a distinction between the two languages, but they did well before they were 6. Picking Clingon as one of the two languages is a bit less practical for later life, but I'm not surprised it worked. Has been well researched, this, just not with Klingon.
That's pretty good, children pick it up pretty fast if they are around age 5 or so. I wish I was around a different language and picked it up at that age.
Dutch television has many English and American programs, always with subtitles, so there is always some exposure to spoken English here. That works too, though not as well as having a parent speaking it, of course.
Also, people pick up a lot of americanisms from TV 8-).
Heh, America is pretty good at making TV shows :)
If only they would speak proper English ... 8-).
I think that it is an incredible experiment and very intriguing. Of course people would get upset as well , so much fear of the unknown in people these days.
Here was one I read.
Sad sad man. How confusing would that have been to a toddler, learning all that rubbish then having to forget it and learn again. Some people just should not have kids. Not a Star Trek fan.......... Yeah Right
My little half sister speaks both spanish and english because Dad only speaks english and her mom primarily speaks spanish. She speaks both fluently.
That will be useful for her :D
I think it's cool and folks are just looking for excuses to raise a ruckus when they gripe about things like this.
I didn't know they drank black ale, only blood wine. Then I found this, "HIq qIj vItlhutlh vIneH." I'll have to try that sometime. :P
Searching for the meaning of that led me to realize there is a google klingon page. https://www.google.com/?hl=xx-klingon
Oh, that's cool. I found a translator and English/Klingon dictionary, but didn't know Google had this.
A new TIL!!
I've always been curious about trying this, but faking a British accent instead.
I think a few people did just that :)
To whom, the appropriate answer would be:
"MYOB - If you don't like it, make your own children and raise them your way."
Yea, I was pretty surprised at the comments here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229808/Linguist-reveals-I-spoke-Klingon-son-years.html
I know german thanks to german cartoons :D
That's cool, I think cartoons have taught so many kids parts and pieces of another language!
Manipulating a child to think singing a fictional fascist anthem is normal is not a good thing....
Eh, I wouldn't look too deep into it. It probably just sounds poetic in Klingon, or at least is the only song type thing they had.
Oh man, there are some crazy people in this world, bro!
Love the article as always! :)
Thanks buddy, just saw you got the next part of your novel out. Gonna go read it. :)
At first the feelings of this are a little bit odd. I just feel the curiosity factor is not worth the child not developing proper English speaking skills from both parents. I would just question if the child is missing something by not hearing his father's true voice. On the other hand, who cares in the long run, it will be up to the child to grow up and decide whether this was good or not.
Oh, since the mom was speaking English and everyone else was too I think the child had plenty of exposure to it. He still heard his dad speak English to his mom too.
Don't count on me for answering your post in Klingon!!!! No way! I love the news... but... :D
maHvaD ghu'vam yIjatlh taH neH nIvbogh Hol lutu'lu'be'chugh, tlhIngan Hol!
jIDoy' mojpu' je mughwI' Samta'meH 'ej bebvo'. chaq SoHvaD rotlh megh'an--Hogh'e' chenchoH Hogh-pItlh chu' tIv jIH! :)
TIL there's actually a kind of Klingon language created. :-)
Looks like there's even Romulan
I think Ferengi too!
Seems harmless to me, it's not as tho he JUST talked to him Klingon and set him up to not fit in. If anything it seems probably good for language skills to be exposed to more than one.
Altho I guess it's kind of weird and maybe even a little detached to not speak in the language that comes most natural to him, it's like he's putting the experiment above genuine communication with his baby. But it depends how natural he felt speaking Klingon I guess.
Yea I think so too. I was surprised about all the hatemail and negative comments the guy received.