"English beats Klingon!" Topic

A father attempted to teach his toddler to be bilingual in English and Klingon.

link

d'Armond Speers is a PhD in computational linguistics and he reports that the experiment was hampered by the lack of words for everyday items. After three years, the child, Alec, stopped responding in Klingon.

Wyatt

I was really you, wasn't it?

Mike "Bunkermeister" Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

That ALMOST skirts close to child abuse. Humans as unwitting, non-consensual subjects of experimentation is beyond unethical. And no, I understand most learning at that age has no signed consent – but at least the majority try to make it useful for the survival of the offspring. So now the child can attend 'trek' conventions? Great.

Why in the heck, as thousands of other parents do around the world, couldn't the child be taught a 'useful' or at least a 'human' language? We know that children are able to be bilingual and especially if taught early and with consistency; this is ridiculous.

Good for the kid for clamming up. One has to grow into the role of nerd, being propelled there too early can be harmful to the psyche. Let him choose his level of geekdom, not have that predestined.

People used to teach their kids Esperanto, that's not much stupider.

The reason it wasn't an issue for Child Protective Services (or whatever it's called where this moron lives) is that the father is a PhD in computational linguistics. If he'd been living in a trailer, you can bet they'd have taken the kid away.
-Kle.

I imagine it would be very useful for a soon to be upcoming movie about the Klingon side of the Klingon/Human, or Klingon/Romulan wars.

You must know the language, and how to act in character, in order to portray that accurately on the movie screen. A bit hard to learn Klingon in a few weeks, or months.

No doubt, he will get a better paying position due to that, and have a shot at becoming a captain, or admiral in the Klingon fleet. ;-)

B.F Skinner would be Proud…

Actually;
since he did teach him English;
ain't abuse,
it's ancillary education in Pop Culture (Hey; Beats Sponge Bob!)

If he had -only-
taught 'em Klingon:
THAT"S abuse!

I was actually kidding about the child abuse thing. Very stupid yes, beyond unhelpful to the child's development yes, abuse no. The only benefit is when his parents dress him up for Halloween he can scare candy out of his neighbors using correct syntax and inflection.

On the negative side, evoking the aforementioned BF Skinner, the child will have the lifelong urge to live in his parents basement everytime he hears Klingon spoken.

And an Esperanto speaking Sponge Bob would be preferable in my opinion.

I've heard it suggested that bi-lingualism is a skill in itself, making adding future languages easier. Casual acquaintances in Europe suggest this may be the case. If thats so, a little Klingon at an early age may help learn useful languages (Mandarin?) later.