d'Armond Speers

Dr. d'Armond Speers (Klingon name: Holtej, born 2 July 1968 in Miami) is an American Klingonist. He discovered Klingon and joined the KLI in 1992, subsequently serving for a short while in 1994 as Beginner's Grammarian of the KLI's mailing list. He became well known in the media for talking to his newborn son only in Klingon in 1994 (1); he has also been interviewed for the BBC documentary series Fry's Planet Word. He was honoured for his contributions to the Klingon language community by being inducted into the order of the Friends of Maltz in 1999.

Biography

He graduated from Georgetown University in 2002 with a doctorate in computational linguistics. Despite his experience with Klingon, Speers insists that he is not a Star Trek fan(2).

Raising son in Klingon

In 1994, d'Armond Speers decided to raise his newborn son Alec in Klingon. He said in an interview that he did this as a linguist in order to understand how children learn languages. During three years, he only spoke Klingon to his son, which he adapted quite easily. Speers stopped the project for two main reasons: First, the vocabulary was too incomplete so they could not talk about daily situations. For instance, at that time, there were no words for bottle (bal), table (raS), bread (tIr ngogh), and many others. (See number of words for the vocabulary growth over time). Second, his son started to refuse using Klingon, because he noticed that nobody else beside his father spoke that language, and it seemed clear that he did not enjoy speaking Klingon, so Speers did not want to force him.

After that time, Alec grew up normally and does not speak any Klingon any more.

Klingon language activities:

• Longtime administrator of the KLI's mailing list
• Author and maintainer of the mailing list's FAQ
• Editor for the KLI's journal, Qo'noS QonoS
• Author of the software tlhIngan Hol pojwI'
• Creator of the Klingon Language Certification Program (KLCP)
• Creator of the Klingon Word of the Day
• Played a small role in the translation of Hamlet
• Contributed his voice to the Star Trek: Klingon language lab
• "Friend of Maltz", words for "time period ago" and "time period from now"

See also

• List of Klingonists
• an article about "time period from now"

References

1 : Dad Spoke Only Klingon To Son For Three Years in Huffington Post, 18 March 2010

2 : Local company creates Klingon dictionary, Minnesota Daily, November 17, 2009

External Links

• Man Spoke Only Klingon to His Son for Three Years on Gizmodo
• Local dad spoke only Klingon to child for three years on CityPages
• Linguist Dr d'Armond Speers spoke only alien language Klingon on Daily Telegraph
• d'Armond Speers spoke only Klingon to his child for the first three years of its life. on Pope Hat
• Father Speaks Only Klingon Until Son Turns Three on Tom's guide

Beginners' Grammarian of the KLI 1. Barbara Dobelbower • 2. d'Armond Speers • 3. Will Martin • 4. Randall Franklin • 5. Alan Anderson • 7. David Trimboli • 8. Robyn Stewart • 9. Eric Andeen • 10. Tad Stauffer • 11. Roger Cheesbro • 12. Lieven L. Litaer • 13. Scott Willis • 14. Rhona Fenwick • 15. Terrence Donnelly • 16. John Harness

Friends of Maltz 1999: Alan Anderson •  Will Martin •  Mark Shoulson •  d'Armond Speers •  Rich Yampell 2000: Nick Nicholas 2001: Eric Andeen •  Robyn Stewart 2016: Jeremy Cowan •  Chris Lipscombe •  Lieven L. Litaer •  Robyn Stewart