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Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
Father Teaches his Son Klingon as a First Language
Chart Shows How Transhumanism Went Mainstream
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Orangutans and Bonobos Make Art for Charity
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How Could We Talk To Alien Life Forms?

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LittleDragon
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
Since the Na'vi have tails, I would think that the tails would possibly be integrated in to the language. Sort of a body language thing. Animals with tails often use them to communicate. But perhaps I am making things far to complicated.

"Why did she slap me? I said she had nice eyes"
"You said she had winged thighs. Nice eyes has a tail swish from left to right, not a twirl"
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Demonbird
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
I think they should stop saying this is going to be the enxt big thing, and wait to see if it actually happens before celebrating. Honestly, it doesn't look groundbreaking.
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GreyHammer
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
this language will come in handy if i need any smurf berries.
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dry-roasted-peanuts
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
"It may be too early to start translating Hamlet into the language of Pandora's blue aliens, but it's fascinating to read about Frommer's process and the detail that went into creating Na'vi."

Wasn't Hamlet originally done in Klingon?
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Aaron Altman
11/23/09

@dry-roasted-peanuts: Yep. And, also? Sherlock Holmes was a descendant of Spock's. :-)
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LittleDragon
11/23/09

@Aaron Altman: Lies. LIES.....Data was Sherlock Holmes.
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firstanointed
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
Hey, to all 12 people who are going to run out and learn Na'vi, more power to you. I just figured out what p'tach means, so I'm happy.
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Makidian
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
What if, one day, we find an alien race(s) that speaks all the made up languages humans have created? It would be just as mind blowing to find one that speaks English though....
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evildead1971
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
after hearing zoe speak a bit of it, i'm all for it
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ManchuCandidate
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
Now that I think about, will Navi been the new Codetalker language to replace Navaho?

[en.wikipedia.org]
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CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard)
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
As long as we dont have to get semi naked and paint our skin blue at conventions......

...........Oh damn! Thats going to happen isnt it???? Thats really going to happen?!
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Obee Juan
11/23/09

@CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard): Well we do need a refreshing change from the Princess Leia Slave Girl attendees.
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CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard)
11/23/09

@Obee Juan: Yeah...but im worried that the Na'vi are both female AND male semi naked aliens!!

Thats my problem!!
#calendar
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MonkeyT
11/23/09

@CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard): I really didn't need to conceptualize that.
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korybing
11/23/09

@CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard): All the furry bodypainters have been waiting for a movie like this to have a legitimate reason to be at mainstream conventions.
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ManchuCandidate
11/23/09

In reply to Avatar Linguist Wants Na'vi Language to be the Next Klingon
I miss the days when Esperanto was the only fictional language.
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atrus123
11/23/09

@ManchuCandidate: Go drink a beer, watch Incubus again, and remember the good-old-days.
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hamshank
11/23/09

@ManchuCandidate: and the Stainless Steel Rat spoke it ... I even tried to learn, as an impressionable kid...
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LittleDragon
11/23/09

@hamshank: Any thing the Stainless Steel Rat knows is worth trying to learn once.
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Chip Overclock
11/19/09

In reply to Father Teaches his Son Klingon as a First Language
To my knowledge, this is the first attempt to experimentally verify the Sapir-Worf Hypothesis .

All puns intended.
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Elizabeth Weinbloom
11/19/09

@Chip Overclock: Marry me.
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Chip Overclock
11/19/09

@Elizabeth Weinbloom: Alas, I've enjoyed the last twenty-five years of wedded bliss to Mrs. Overclock (a.k.a. Dr. Overclock, Medicine Woman).

But I know exactly how you feel. :-)
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CmdrHunt (aka Clarence Colton)
11/19/09

In reply to Father Teaches his Son Klingon as a First Language
Klingon is not a useless language. What is athe hubbub about teaching a child Klingon since day one?

As if his son's life had been negatively impacted because Klingon was his first language. Please... and you've currently got a mom on national news who may have sold her 5 year old into prostitution. That's more disconcerting.
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amy.a.sisson
11/19/09

@CmdrHunt (aka Clarence Colton): Just because one parent abused a child in a worse way (the prosititution) doesn't mean this man is not utterly wrong for doing this. The first three years are the most important time for language acquisition. Assuming this is true, now this child will be significantly behind his peers in developing the language he will need for school, work, and social interaction in general. Consider how little vocab Klingon has in relation to English. The father has deliberately put his son at a disadvantage on nothing more than a personal whim. (I'm a huge Trek fan, so this is not a matter of making fun of the Trekkies.)
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1Grand_Marquis
11/19/09

@amy.a.sisson: Eh. My mom was spoken to in Italian for the first few years of her life, because my grandparents were immigrants. Didn't actually affect her much. She was bilingual in elementary school, less so as time went on, and now she can't even speak the language.

So whenever someone brings up childhood language learning as somehow special, I call BS.
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tande04
11/19/09

@amy.a.sisson: What does one have to do with the other?

You know how many words I knew for shoe I knew when I was two years old? One. This kid knew two and knew when to switch between one and the other. Sounds like a huge freaking advantage for developing further language skills later in life to me.
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Paul_Is_Drunk
11/19/09

@amy.a.sisson: What? I don't get this. I have two friends who were born in Germany, and moved to the states at 2 & 6. (Well, one went Japan then the U.S.) Both speak perfect English, and have a very good grasp of German. I see no disadvantage.

My fiancée is also a native French speaker, and since were getting married in Switzerland, I imagine our children will have a few years of nothing but French before we return to the states. I may try to slip some English in, but even if I didn't, I would call this an advantage and not a disadvantage.

Calling this abuse is like crying wolf.
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Lassus
11/19/09

In reply to Father Teaches his Son Klingon as a First Language
Also, Speer wrote into Gizmodo, you can see what he had to say from the update:

[gizmodo.com]
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tande04
11/19/09

In reply to Father Teaches his Son Klingon as a First Language
Awesome to see that the people at io9 are more reasonable than the people at Giz.

Here was the little write up I did there cause their hackneyed retelling was even worse. The real story is much more fascinating than either blurb makes it out:

First off this all happened about 15 years ago.

Speers wanted to see if the child would pick up a constructed language just like he would a traditional language. He had already learned Klingon himself because he saw it as a challenge and he choose to teach the kid Klingon because it had a culture (albeit also constructed) behind it as opposed to Esperanto which was a larger more complete constructed language. He also said that Klingon still represented a challenge to him because he'd have to think about how to say certain things that might not have a direct translation.

The idea was that a second language would still benefit the child later in life and it didn't really matter what the language was when he was a kid. The Mom supported it as did all his friends and family.

The child was exposed to plenty of English. The mom spoke only English and the kid got plenty of it at day care.

[www.washingtoncitypaper.com]

At two the kid was speaking Klingon and English (well like kids that are 2 speak). Dad was just Vavoy. Some of the ages are kinda hard to piece together but it sounds like by 3 the kid had moved completely to English (which the dad knew was inevitable since he was exposed to English much more) and so dad did too.

[www.wired.com]

At 15 the kid has none of the "ill effects" so many of you predicted. For all intents and purposes he seems as well adjusted as any other kid (as Speers put it in one posting update "the kid isn't a hall monitor"). He doesn't know a lick of Klingon but he is multilingual in other languages that his parents taught him.
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Althestane
11/19/09

@tande04: thanks for the links! that helps smooth out the wrinkles out a bit, and is actually an interesting exercise. If only the Tolkein-elven language has been a complete constructed language, since i would argue that there was WAY more culture/mythology/history put into that imaginary race than the Star Trek universe put into Klingon.
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Dr Emilio Lizardo
11/19/09

In reply to Father Teaches his Son Klingon as a First Language
Today is a good day to elarn to potty!
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RandomFrequentFlierDent
11/19/09

@Dr Emilio Lizardo: Peas are dish best served mushy!
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CmdrHunt (aka Clarence Colton)
11/19/09

@Dr Emilio Lizardo: You have not experienced Winnie the Pooh until you have read it in the original Klingon!
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SJ_Edwards
11/19/09

@CmdrHunt (aka Clarence Colton):
I believe that in the original Klingon, Winnie the Pooh makes a blood sacrifice of Piglet to the Heffalumps.

The only part of this that has made it through the 'humanisation' of this Klingon cultural masterpiece, is a 'dream sequence' (it's always a dream sequence, isn't it?), in which Pooh utters the original "...... and when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Heffalumps were licking their jaws ......" and that's it!

Tragic!

Our children are so deprived :(
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