Father Speaks Only Klingon Until Son Turns Three

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Raf
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Father Speaks Only Klingon Until Son Turns Three

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In his wisdom, d'Armond Speers decided to see what effect it would have on his son if he spoke Klingon, and only Klingon, around him until he was three years old. The reason? Apparently, Speers wanted to see if a kid would acquire Klingon as his first language in the same way he would any other language.

MinnesotaDaily cites Speers, who actually isn't even that big of a Star Trek fan, as saying, "I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language. He was definitely starting to learn it."

At the time, Speers was using his doctorate in computational linguistics to help Ultralingua, a dictionary, translation and grammar software company create applications for a Klingon dictionary.

Unfortunately, it seems the experiment was a bust. MNDaily reports that fifteen years later, Speers' son is in high school and doesn't speak a word of Klingon. All Speers has left are the memories of singing the Klingon lullaby "May the Empire Endure" at bedtime.

It's not clear how long it took the boy to learn English once his father began speaking it around him.

Read more at:
http://www.mndaily.com/2009/11/17/local ... dictionary
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