The Economist

One of my many interests is the Klingon language; I've been learning and speaking this language for almost 20 years.  Every now and then there's a little media attention to the Klingon language, and every now and then, I get mentioned by name.  The current issue of The Economist has a nice little story about learning constructed languages, and I'm in there.

Why?  When I was in grad school studying linguistics and learning Klingon, my son was born.  I spoke to him only in Klingon.  Now, before you go off on an Internet-crippling viral hate meme, you should realize that his first language was English: everyone spoke English around him and to him.  I spoke English around him, but when I was speaking with him, I spoke Klingon and encouraged him to speak Klingon back (as he got older), by playing language games, singing songs, etc.

This was great until the time that he was about three, when he started to resist, so I stopped.  End of story.  Until I was interviewed to be in the City Paper of Washington DC, which lead to an appearance on Howard Stern, which lead to many other radio, television and print media stories through the years, as well as a spot in the documentary Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water for both me and my son.  The bottom line was: it was something fun that he and I shared a long time ago, and we stopped as soon as it stopped being fun.  He's now 17.  He doesn't eat raw bloodworms, doesn't walk around with a Klingon sword strapped to his back, and hasn't experimented with forehead augmentation.  He's fine.