Sci-fi ... Klingon warship
Posted on 11/21/2009 2:58:43 PM PST by Stoat
Linguist Dr d'Armond Speers came up with the idea after watching an episode of Star Trek. He spent days translating phrases into Klingon - hoping his toddler's first word would be "vav" rather than "dad".
Dr Speers, of Minnesota, US, battled on with commands like "find the USS Enterprise", - but his wife only spoke English to the infant.
He said: "He was definitely starting to learn it. When Alec spoke back to me in Klingon his pronunciation was excellent."
Dr Speers experienced problems with his project as the alien language lacked common words like "diaper" and "bottle."
He was forced to use phrases like "thing which is flat" for "table". Eventually he abandoned his scheme, admitting his son "stopped listening to me when I spoke in Klingon". He added: "It was clear he didn't enjoy it."
Alec, now 13, doesn't speak a word of Klingon.
Dr Speers denied being a Trekkie, saying: "I don't go to conventions or wear fake foreheads. I'm a linguist. I get nostalgic when I look back at singing the Klingon lullaby May The Empire Endure."
Actor Leonard Nimoy, who played Capt Kirk's pal Mr Spock, and writer Harve Bennett wanted the alien Klingons to speak a "proper language" and roped in an expert to develop one.
Klingon has 21 consonants and five vowels and is the most spoken fictional language.
THINKING of teaching your Next Generation how to speak Klingon? Here are some words and phrases that might be useful to toddlers:
jIH neH wIj SoS: I want my mum
laH jIH ghaj 'op sweets: Can I have sweets?
jIH neH Daq jaH: I want to go home
jIH muSHa' SoH: I love you
baghneQ: spoon
bIQ: water
bor: gurgle
bur: hiccup
chuy: sneeze
qab: face
Quch: happy
qo'qaD: phlegm
Sa'Hut: bum
SenwI: thumb
Soj: food
tugh: hurry up
By LINDA BLAIR
Child Psychologist
IF you expose babies to two or more languages their language development is usually delayed.
A baby's brain is like a sponge. I always urge parents to teach kids more from the start. But to expose a child only to a language no one around him is speaking is irresponsible.
But this child was spoken to in English by others so I don't see the harm.
My son speaks to my granddaughter (age 2+) in English and my daughter-in-law speaks in Spanish. My granddaughter speaks mostly English, some Spanish, but understands the Spanish. It is interesting to see how this works. She has opportunities to speak Spanish, but mostly uses English.
Children pick up languages very quickly, and if they grow up bilingual, it makes it easier for them to learn others as well later in life. That said, Klingon would be one of the more useless languages to be multilingual in.
:)
When weird people (no, not us!) have kids ...
P.S. I include in that young adults of college age as well.
In a mixed language community (e.g. late 1800s Hawaiian pineapple plantations) the children entertain each other through the day while their parents work. Ordinarily they create a CREOLE ~ which is a totally new language with a wider vocabulary than any single contributing language but which usually has a grammar close to that of one of the major contributors.
My understanding is that Hawaiian Creole is based on Japanese, but has an incredibly varied vocabulary. English is a Creole based on Old West Saxon ~ kinda ~ which has morphed into a totally different sort of language than those found in Europe. English, BTW, has the largest vocabulary on Earth.
I am not sure the bi-lingual hypothesis has been demonstrated to be true. I can think of several people who know 2, 3 or even 4 languages but as adults have not been able to extend understanding to a 5th or 6th language.
Don't you know he would still blame "W" for starting the economic downturn in spite of all the evidence indicting "zerO!"
This guy has some real issues.
They can’t ship the inmates to Australia anymore, so I guess they’re going to bring the jailhouses to the streets!
Great Britain... Where the Criminals carry Shivs...
You know, if the cop had a gun he might not be afraid of Klingon cosplayers...
It sounds like child abuse to me but if he wanted to see if his son would speak an invented language why didn’t he pick Tolkien’s Elven language? Tolkien was a linguist too and I’m sure he made Elven much more complete than Klingon is.
The Libs want to teach American school children a similar song.
Mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmm.....
English is the result of Norman soldiers trying to set up dates with Saxon barmaids.
Sindarin or Quenya?
Which is more complete and if neither which is more sophisticated? I don't know!
Me not know neither.
I am only a baby Tolkien geek.
In Tolkien’s world Sindarin was the rough equivalent of Latin and Quenya of Greek in the England of the 19th century. All educated people were presumed to know some Sindarin, but only the real geeks had much Quenya.
I wish children would speak proper English.
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