Suppose I were married and had a child. We decide to give the child a Klingon name, and around him the only language we speak around him is Klingon. This is the only language the child is fluent in. He doesn’t know English.
Eventually this kid has to go to Kindergarten.
How would the Public School system deal with this?
Would I be declared an unfit parent for doing this?
Yeah, pretty much.
poor kid will be SOL as soon as puberty hits…not only will he not be able to find any girls to talk to, but gay trekkies are even harder to come by.
I guess this is darwinism in action, your curse will only last one generation.
My grandparents came off the boat from Greece. My father spoke Greek until the day he started kindergarden. I don’t know exactly how they dealt with it, but they dealt with it. Kids learn fast. When you get older than you lose the ability to learn languages quickly.
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Around here (rural Pennsylvania)? Almost guaranteed.
In someplace like Los Angeles? Who knows. Based on some of the court rulings I’ve heard about out there you could probably sue the county and make them provide a Klingon translater.
Same way as they deal with any other monglot non-English speaker, I guess. Look for a teacher with some mastery of Klingon and (whether or not they can find one) devise a programme to teach the kind English. If he starts at kindergarten age, he’ll learn quickly enough.
What does being “declared an unfit parent” mean in Oregon? Do you mean, would they take the child away from you and put it in the care of the state?
Don’t know how they make these decisions in Oregon, but I guess the obvious question would be “why did you do this to the child”? If you did this because Klingon is the only language you and your wife speak, then, fine. If you did this because you hate the little bastard and you want to do everything you can to make his life a living hell and this is just one of the many tortures you have devised for him then I guess, yes, you’re at risk of losing your child.
If you did this because of a cultural and ideological commitment to the Klingon language (or, slightly more plausibly, to the preservation and revival of, say, a near-dead native American language) then I think you;'d be OK. They can’t take your child away just because they don;t like your cultural preferences, and it can’t be said that being a monoglot non-English speaker until the age of four is going to do any lasting damage to your child.
Well, if you lived in Multnomah County, Oregon, no problem at all.
An unfit parent is frequently abusive. What is ‘normal’ in one culture may be viewed as abusive behavior in the wider community of a dominant, larger culture. If your kindergarten Klingon goes to school wanting to eat his food live, unusally aggressive, hyperactive/bored, unable to speak the language and sporting any fresh cuts/bruises because you’ve been studiously teaching him how to master the bat’leth and mek’leth so he doesn’t end up like that wimpy kid, Alexander Roshinko – your ass is grass and call the High Council
You’ve made a wonderful choice, Blalron. Qapla’!
Gesundheit.
Someone actually did this, though they did teach their child English as well. Unfortunately I can’t refine a google search well enough to get a cite.
I didn’t speak English when I first started kindergarten, and I didn’t have an interpretor or anything. I think I remember the first time I actually understood what was being said. In anycase, I picked it up pretty fast.
I don’t know what your specific legal responsibilities are. More generally, though, you have a moral obligation to raise your child–to the best of your abilities–with a clear idea of what society expects from him (What he eventually does with this knowledge is his own business) and to equip him with the best survival skills you know. Deliberately withholding the knowledge of a functioning, real world language (especially the local one) abrogates both of these responsibilities.
Have you considered the merits of a vasectomy?
Imagine the teacher taking attendance:
Billy?
Here.
Suzy?
Here.
Andrew?
Here.
Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan?
I wouldn’t do it. Klingon children can be … willful…
In my kindergarten class, there were five kids who spoke no English at all - one Russian, a pair of identical twins who only spoke Chinese, a boy who only spoke Indian, and a girl who spoke both Vietnamese and French, but no English.
Eventually, our school and teacher managed to handle it. However, between that and the 3 special-needs students in our class, the rest of us really suffered because our teacher was too busy to deal with us.
May I suggest you not do that?
On the plus side, raising a Klingon child means you won’t have to worry about him or her being bullied at school.
On the minus side, raising a Klingon child means, odds are, yours is the one who will be the class bully. Whether or not that’s truly a minus is up to you…
(As for the OP: I went into Kindergarden not speaking a lick o’ English, and picked it up toot sweet anyway)
I read a magazine article about a guy who did this a few years ago. Eventually, he gave up because there weren’t enough Klingon words for it to be a really useful language. I remember that he ended up calling the table “the flat thing with legs” or something similar. The kid seemed ok. I don’t remember his name, though, but I don’t think it was a Klingon name.
Just make sure you don’t ever shove your hot, throbbing, uh … “pain stick” up the child’s ass. That’d DEFINITELY get you tossed in jail.
I come from a multicutural school background, and if it’s kindergarten and your kid doesn’t speak English, they’ll just throw them in there. Kids that age learn pretty quickly.
It isn’t until around middle school or so that translators and bilingual educations become issues. At this age, total immersion can harm other academic fronts, and there is much debate about how to handle it.
And if the kid gets bad grades, you can tell him that he has brought dishonor to your family and unless his grades improve, he’ll never go to Sto-vo-kor.