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Was the kid adopted or did someone actually marry and reproduce with this guy?

haha, way beyond geek

I always thought that people who lived their lives vicariously through their children (stage moms, soccer dads etc) were beyond sad. I also think that people who devote their lives to knowing the minutiae of a television show like some Star Trek weirdos are even sadder. But to combine the two, projecting your twisted closet-case mentality on an innocent child seems to me to be bordering on criminal. WTF is the point of filling a child's head with a non-existent language, understood only by a small band of freaks? This confirms my growing belief that parenthood should be subject to sanity checks. We can't drive on a road until we prove we know the basic rules, nor can we practice medicine or engineering without evidence of proper qualifications - somone might get hurt. So why should anyone with such manifest intellectual, moral and psychological inadequacies be given free reign to screw up another human being. Sure, the kid might have enough sense to run away from home at the age of three, but the chances are, any "parent" capable of such idiocy is likely to get up to all sorts of bad craziness. And when he succeeds in producing a mutant sociopath, suddenly it becomes society's problem/responsibility.

funny how some of the smartest people can do some of the most stupid things...

This is just weird. But to all those people who read this & say 'Why teach a useless language?' I say; I had to learn Welsh...

It's worse than I thought! As illustrated, it's original series Klingon. What kind of sick bastard teaches their kid OSK?

This isn't really about geekery; it's about academia. Still child abuse, though. Using your child as a human test subject = not cool.

If English was also spoken you could argue that learning another language (although useless) would have helped the kid become better and processing linguistics. In this case, not so much.

Why not, parents indoctrinate their children into all kinds of nonsense. At least this isn't particularly harmful, unlike say religion.

I have known some children, whose parents might as well have been speaking in Klingon to them, for all the notice that was taken of them!!

Have some sympathy for this guy!, some kids today don't understand english.. Klingon might just make more sense to them!

Uh, what no one, including the article, mentions is the kid was probably learning English at the same time from his MOTHER! So, he is probably bilingual. And there is ONE redeeming feature to learning Klingon: for me, it helped me grasp pronunciation in other language groups totally different than English.
Weird, I guess. Child abuse? Grow up, people. How many give their kids weird names, every toy ever made, and worry more about self-esteem than whether the kid behaves?

Anytime someone comments with crap like "child protective services" or bad parenting...piss off! you want the government to start raising kids instead of parents? Leave the parents alone. This is America godamn it. You self righteous people out there blow my mind... our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.

It is interesting that a father who tries to expand his childs mental development is considered child abuse, while billions of people teach their children to believe in a fictional all-powerful-beaded-old-guy-in-the-sky and no one says anything.

Anyone who considers this child abuse should watch the Jesus Camp documentary and see where the real child abusers are. At least d'Armond didn't force his child into something. His child had the choice that millions of other parents never offer their children.

Like many Trekker/Trekkies I have the Klingon Dictionary, which is in essense how to speak Klingon, I remember what I wanted from it, and used a phrase on my answering machine.

Nuqneh? J'atll dah! (What do you want? Speak Now!)

Until they realise I'd be a better Young Picard, with the ability to speak like Kirk, that is likely all I'll ever use the Klingon language for.

Unlike French, its very simple to learn. My children are in French Immersion from Grade 1 on, so their French language learning was far different from mine which waited until Grade 7 to start.

My next goal is to make a homemade Borg costume for next Hallowe'en
I have a dead laptop and Vcr for parts. My hair is thin enough to pass for completely bald, hence my Picard likeness.

When my books start selling beyond 2 and into the millions, I'll pay J.J. Abrams to fit me into a movie.

Would I have exclusively taught my child Klingon...NO!

It is a very guttural sounding language probably more like Mongolian.
No doubt learning it could increase his child's ability to learn earth based languages, but that's a stretch most sane people wouldn't try.

My current books are comedy and fiction, and my next one will be a more popular genre under a psuedonym for various reasons, one being some Crime novelist is my namesake.

I will be writing scifi eventually based on a story I had critiqued by Michael Jan Friedman at a Trek Convention, his only critiques were Star Trek idioms not writing.

Wow. Wow.

Why not Spanish? French? or a language the child can use?

De' DamaSbogh DaqHommajmo', HollIj DawIvta'bogh lulo'laH Google juHDaq, QInmey, chu'wI'mey je. DaH Holmeyvam lo'laHtaH Google

(wrote in Klingon)

@Molly Buckley: Because he wanted to see if an artificial language could be learned in the same way as a natural language is. His experiment proved it could work, but only in an environment where the child is submersed in the language.

@Worf: majQa'. tlhIngan Hol jatlhwI' po' SoH. Google lumuch 'e' vIboQ. vItIvta'qu'.

HEY!

I have a new email address! Please contact me at: molly@THEmollybuckley.com

I have also moved my website. You may check out my new website at http://THEmollybuckley.com.

Thanks so much! :)

-Molly Buckley

Well, at least now I know there's a "language" called klingon... As for the child, no matter what second language he learns, it will always benefit him some way.

Hey! Let's all teach our kids made up pretend languages from old TV shows! YAYYY!

You're a FREAK!

My three year old speaks a language that might as well be klingon to me. It has done him no harm whatsoever. Despite his mother actively encouraging it. She is Danish.

I think polygamy is waaaaay worse.

How sad, he should be teaching his offspring the Tmelord language as Dr Who is a vastly better show than Star Trek.

Klingon is difficult, but Esperanto is worldwide. And easy, of course :)

As in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2LPVcsL2k0

I have an advantage over the original person who posted and those who responded quickly in denouncement: I know Dr. Speers, his wife, and his son. They all speak English, are successful in schooling to jobs and are well adjusted. The son was never spoken to “only” in Klingon when a toddler. A misplaced modifier can raise pseudo-ethical questions when one doesn’t know the facts, nor English grammar well enough, nor possess the intellectual curiousity to ask for an interview or fact check before offering up condemnations. Ah, America!

So what was the point of teaching this kid a language that's totaly useless and may confuse the wee guys brain?

It won't confuse him...he will just speak it with his dad, as well as English and any other languages that he has regular explosure to...and as he gets older...if his dad speaks to him less and less in Klingon or he naturally veers towards communicating in English or another language rather than Klingon...it will just drift away and not be used...but it will not confuse his wee brain...don't worry.

English is for white people and so is the langauge of the oppressor and should be replaced please.