Strange

d'Armond Speers Teaches Son Klingon as First-Language for 3 Years

by Blaine Metzgar | November 19, 2009 at 11:19 am

333 views | 2 Recommendations | 3 comments

d'Armond Speers, a Minnesota dad, thought it would be a good idea to teach his son Klingon as his first language by only speaking to him in the Star Trek race's tongue for the first three years of his life. But Speers ain't no Trekkie, he made it clear that he is not as big of a fan of Star Trek as his actions would lead one to believe. Speers he has a doctorate in computational linguistics and works as a consultant for Ultralingua, a language and translation software developer.

"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."

What do you think? Did Speers let his job encroach on his life or is he just a die-hard Trekkie too ashamed to admit?

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Hugh Askew

at 16:33 on November 19th, 2009

Nut job should work for a description of a dad that would experiment on his son.

but that wasn't the question, was it?

d'Armond (not verified)

at 06:22 on November 20th, 2009

As a point of clarification, English was his primary language. His mom spoke it, I and everyone spoke it around him. In addition, I spoke Klingon to him. We in no way deprived him of English as a first language or his linguistic or social development.He's 15 years old now, and he's just fine. Doesn't speak a word of Klingon, though. :)

Hugh Askew

at 11:33 on November 20th, 2009

The article didn't say that. it claims, "..... a good idea to teach his son Klingon as his first language by only speaking to him in the Star Trek race's tongue for the first three years of his life."

Thanks for the clarification.