Two days in a row, we have posts related to Star Trek. It’s not intentional, mind you, although I will not deny that I have a penchant for all things Star Trek. It just so happens that while browsing the Internet today, I came across an article describing how a guy with dyslexia improved his condition by studying Klingon.
Yes, Klingon is a language of the fictional Star Trek race. But yes, it is also a real language spoken on Earth today. The warrior race has aroused a wide variety of emotions from viewers and readers, but there is no doubt that the Klingons are very much a part of the franchise. In fact, it is safe to go as far as to say that Star Trek will not be the same without the Klingons.
The Klingon sub-culture has even expanded into real life, much like other elements of science fiction and fantasy. The language used in The Motion Picture was devised by James Doohan, who we may know better as Montgomery Scott. For the movie, The Search for Spock, the language was created by Marc Okrand, still based on the original words that Doohan made up. From there, the inevitable happened. There is now a working language called Klingon, which some humans actually speak.
All that is not so remarkable at this point, with several languages from fiction transcending books and movies. What is remarkable, however, is how Klingon supposedly helped a British guy named Jonathan Brown deal with dyslexia. He spent 12 years of his life learning the language, although the intent was quite different. He did not set out to learn Klingon thinking it would help him with his condition. He just wanted to learn the language. For that, he has become the expert that he is now. He even is the lead linguist for a project by EuroTalk – a CD series for the Klingon language.
Jonathan says that in his quest to master the Klingon language, he discovered certain things about dyslexia and the specific issues he had faced all his life. For example, he has always had problems remembering names, but this never happened with the Klingon language. He soon discovered that the reason was that his brain was storing names in English and Klingon in different areas. How cool is that?
While the thought of learning Klingon is awesome (I tried a couple of times but didn’t have the determination to go through with it), wouldn’t it also be great if learning another “Earthian” language helped dyslexics?
Photo via statelyenglishmanor