Father spoke only Klingon to child for baby's first three years

really, shouldn't there be laws that punish guys like this? for the sake of his retarded experiment he has put this child at a severe disadvantage.

I know there are those who think government should butt out of how your kids are raised, but there are limits and if you ask me, this guy shouldn't be allowed to raise kids.

he has put this child at a severe disadvantage.

I can't walk through a supermarket or down the street without thinking that same thing, so where does the line get drawn? Is it based on my opinion? Most parents are trying to do the right thing for their kids and will loudly proclaim their parenting methods, 20 or 30 years hence. In the meantime, it is pretty much a crapshoot, imho.

he has put this child at a severe disadvantage.

What a Klingon! He basically used his son as a guinea pig!

Jamithy, cite just what "severe disadvantage" this child would be saddled with. Such snap judgments, as well as your apparent willing ness to put this fella in jail, are appalling.

who said anything about jail? I said punish.... there are many ways people are punished.

And severe disadvantage, if only spoken to in something as retarded as Klingon until he was 3 he would fall behind in his ENGLISH language development, putting him behind other kids his age when he starts school, even if he caught up later on in life.

Let me guess you also think it was ok for those parents who wanted to name their kids things like "Scud" after the first gulf war. Thankfully the gov managed to do something right there for once and said "no way dumb asses"

if only spoken to in something as retarded as Klingon until he was 3

He spoke to the child in klingon, but the mother spoke in English. Source: wiki

I know of a father that spoke only in English to his child and the mother spoke in Japanese. That child at 4, was able to converse in English, like a normal 4 year old, imo. I have no idea about Japanese, but the Japanese seemed to understand. In any case, there is some merit in raising a child bilingually.

Why this guy is using klingon or whatever, to prove that it can be done, is what seems strange. Of course it can be done. So why klingon?

So why klingon?

Why not?

Father spoke only Klingon to child for baby's first three years

How did a guy who speaks Klingon get laid in the first place?

How is this a disadvantage? It's not like the kid was only exposed to a fictional language. Is it so hard to believe the kid would hear his/her mother speak English, English on the TV, or whatever. Kids can grasp and understand multiple languages at that age.

Why not?

Again from the same wiki link...

The experiment ultimately failed when the child refused to use Klingon when he got older.

Why...

as he could use English with many more speakers

This could probably be said for most children taught bilingually. So the language has to be reinforced regularly, which is difficult when.....

Klingon even lacked words for many objects common around the house, such as "table".

I guess he got his answer to the experiment.

really, shouldn't there be laws that punish guys like this? for the sake of his retarded experiment he has put this child at a severe disadvantage.

I know there are those who think government should butt out of how your kids are raised, but there are limits and if you ask me, this guy shouldn't be allowed to raise kids.

I feel the same way about parents who don't read to their kids. Or parents who don't discipline their kids. Why do you believe that you should get to dictate parenting guidelines for other people?

I feel the same way about parents who don't read to their kids. Or parents who don't discipline their kids. Why do you believe that you should get to dictate parenting guidelines for other people?

actually I agree with you. I'm a firm believer in being required to have a licence to have children..... you need a licence to own a dog, or drive a car, but hey splurt out as many kids as you want, fit or not.

Can't afford them? can't have them

can't meet specific requirements to raise them? Can't have them

Let them get obese and don't make them get exercise? Can't have them

Don't have the "time" to read and interact with them? Can't have them.

Kids are individuals, not property

Can't afford them? can't have them

can't meet specific requirements to raise them? Can't have them

Let them get obese and don't make them get exercise? Can't have them

Don't have the "time" to read and interact with them? Can't have them.

Kids are individuals, not property

Well, I sure hope you've got a big house... All those people who 'can't have their kids' based on you, who else is going to raise them?

plenty of people looking to adopt.... The biggest one for me is the "Cant afford them", not my job to pay for peoples "right" to pump out kids for the bigger welfare cheque.

plenty of people looking to adopt....

And if you've ever known anyone who has adopted a child, it takes quite a bit of time, and costs quite a bit of money (both from the taxpayer perspective while the child is in a foster home, and the person wanting to adopt.)

Any way you spin it, money is being shelled out for children, whether it is to the parents via welfare or assistance, to the state for running foster homes (which btw, breed all sorts of other issues,) or any other option. Money can't be taken into consideration because any way it goes, we STILL pay.

But you get to make those decisions, right? Your standards?

Does that mean that you're going to be the licensing authority?

RNoel-525230

How did a guy who speaks Klingon get laid in the first place?

Romulan women are desperate for sex with earthlings. Go figure.

. So why klingon?

it's really just another "synthetic language" like esperanto (the most common constructed language), although it was not quite made with the high ideals of esperanto's creator.

one of those "odd facts" is that one of two movies to be made in the language of esperanto starred william shatner,it was a b horror movie called "incubus".

so anyways, as long as the kids mom spoke to him in english, the kid shouldn't suffer any disadvantage at all, and may actually find it easier to learn additional (hopefully real) languages.

How did this guy get a woman to procreate with him to begin with??

How did this guy get a woman to procreate with him to begin with??

well, if he's into the Klingon culture, it's likely he's into the Klingon aesthetic and standard of beauty, which isn't exactly the same as that of humans, and well, I'm guessing his partner didn't have many human breeding partner options?

ok, that was mean, I'll admit it, but it does make a certain amount of sense...

How did this guy get a woman to procreate with him to begin with??

Daj quv 'oH Dun

Daj quv 'oH Dun

Did you just call me and sneeze at the same time?

Bring him over to my house so I can start shoving his head in the toilet....you, know, getting him ready for high school.

Real quick to judge folk and get the gov't involved, aren't you? Get a grip, get a life, get an idea, something. Just do it elsewhere.

Help me government! Klingon+GOV=MESS

Apologies, KF. It's just that tinyminds make me go all "get the bug spray", y'know? Good seed, my friend. Keep 'em coming.

BTW, all, the armed services had a thing called the DLAB, Defense Language Aptitude Battery. The primary component of the test was a fictional language which consists of English-seeming root words (solely for ease of pronunciation) with a series of prefixes and suffixes which drastically modify the definition of each word, and some truly bizarre grammar. Oh, and you have to learn it all WHILE you take the test. Compared to that, Klin'gon is a breeze.

Decurian..spoken like the true horse's PTAK you are. And in another obscure language from Taxi via Latka Gravis...kiss my ibidah.

Ya-ta-hey. Doo-ahaasthyaa-da.

how about a hard language that would have been useful to the kid and a job asset when he gets older say manderin or cantonese..... you know, one of those languages spoken by more than a billon people.

I still don't understand why Klingon, though, and why not some other obscure but possibly useful language.

I think he did it just to see if it was possible. Klingon obviously is a language that was 100 percent made up for a TV series by a linguist. It's not a native language anywhere in the World and never has / will be. That's what made it so unique and probably was he was intrigued. Still think its dumb to confuse the little guy like that. My kid is 3. I'd never had done that to him. A useful language no problem.

SR, overall I agree with you, but it may help the kid learn additional real languages as he gets older.

Ah, thanks, I didn't realize.

Eventually, Speers gave up on Klingon communication, saying that his son "stopped listening to me when I spoke in Klingon" and "it was clear that he didn't enjoy it, and I didn't want to make it into a problem."

His son, now in high school, doesn't speak a word of Klingon, according to the Minnesota Daily.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/19/darmond-speers-dad-spoke_n_363477.html

5 bucks says the kid suffers from chronic masturbation and uncontrolled urges to join Dugeons & dragons groups....

5 bucks says the kid suffers from chronic masturbation and uncontrolled urges to join Dugeons & dragons groups....

The kid is a 15 year old male, right? Well, you've won the chronic masturbation part simply because of that.

"Curiously, one bicep is much larger than the other.........."

"Curiously, one bicep is much larger than the other.........."

It's all about the forearm...

The kid is a 15 year old male, right? Well, you've won the chronic masturbation part simply because of that.

haha that's good...

I have to agree with the questionable ethics in blithely experimenting on someone who cannot give permission.

So the kid grew up in a bi-lingual household. Would anyone here be criticizing this if one parent spoke English and the other French? No. How about English and Hebrew? Or Swahili... I doubt that anyone has a problem with bi-lingual children as long as it's a widely "recognized" language.

Remember, ALL languages (including English) were invented by man and all languages started small and grew in popularity. Some grew and waned, some continue to grow. Will Klingon ever replace English? Hugely unlikely, but neither will Latin and at this point there probably are more people that speak Klingon than Latin.

And it's not like the language took up brain space that blocked something else from entering.

VerbalBarb

Oh come on, experimenting on the kid? Please, this is NO different from any other bilingual home. Probably another reason why the guy tried klingon instead of another language is kids DO grow up in bilingual homes all the time, and have no issues. Maybe he was trying to see if a less supported and less common language would hold like the ones we actually use today?

If you don't like 'experimenting' and such on people who cannot give their permission, do you support circumcision? That isn't so much of an experiment as a permanent procedure, and actually does something to the child. Teaching them a language that is uncommon isn't a big deal at all. Some people 'goo goo' and such at their kids well past learning time, so why isn't anyone jerking the royal BS chain for those people?

Oh come on, experimenting on the kid? Please, this is NO different from any other bilingual home.

Yeah, teaching the kid to speak an alien language made up for TV is no different from any other bilingual home. lol

do you support circumcision

I don't think about it one way or another.

Yeah, teaching the kid to speak an alien language made up for TV is no different from any other bilingual home. lol

One language is used today, one isn't. You actually can (like someone did earlier) compare klingon to latin. No one speaks latin anymore (except for maybe a handful of priests and such) but it is still a language. Klingon might be made up, but how were any langauges made? Someone, at some point in time, had to make it up. So no, there is really no difference.

So no, there is really no difference.

Yes, there is a difference between children speaking another language as a cultural heritage in a bilingual household and some kook thinking his kid should speak Klingon.

But, if you don't want to see it that way, it's not my place to try to convince you you're wrong.

VerbalBarb

What is the difference in a child growing up bilingual and a child growing up bilingual? There is no difference in that.

The only difference is what language they know. It doesn't matter if it is a language that is spoken or not, the FACT is this child was raised bilingual. Nothing more, nothing less, no experimentation was done on the child.

Oh? This sounds like an experment to me:

"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.

The kid was the subject of an experiment to see if he would acquire Klingon like he would any other human language. It's really quite clear, whether you refuse to recognize it or not.

And, that's the last I'm saying about that.

The kid was the subject of an experiment to see if he would acquire Klingon like he would any other human language.

A kid will pick up whatever you teach it during that timeframe, be it klingon, spanish, english, or anything else. This is not something that would require permission before being tested, poked and prodded, or anything of the sorts. Call it whatever you want, but since it was already proven, it was just a curious parent taking care of and teaching his child something that has no adverse reaction for the child. What is the problem with that?

how does someone learn klingon in the first place?

Um... six television shows spanning twenty seven combined years. Eleven movies. More than one hundred novels. Hundreds of comics including a daily strip that ran for twelve years. Nineteen board games, nine role playing games, seventy-five video games (including three pinball machines, but excluding popular fan-games).

How do you think they learn it? :P

There's also a published dictionary. It's one of the more elaborate constructed languages. Some friends of mine taught it to each other to kill time on long car trips. When they had a kid, they found it useful to speak in around "little ears." (Better than pig latin.) They had to give it up when the kid started picking it up, himself, IIRC.

NashVOLcat

With any luck at all he will get a post as comm officer on a federation starship, hopefully the USS Enterprise.

I'd jump for that! Rumour has it that Starfleet babes fall all over multilingual officers. Off-duty he can hang out in the ship's lounge and sweet-talk Lieutenant Commander Janice Rand. VA VA VOOM!