# Jean Luc Picard--how is he viewed in France? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** star-trek-paramount\ **Created:** [September 29, 2025, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jean-luc-picard-how-is-he-viewed-in-france/1023479 "2025-09-29T13:18:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 15
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jean-luc-picard-how-is-he-viewed-in-france/1023479/15 "2025-09-29T20:21:14Z")
In Season 1, Episode 4 of TNG, Data calls French an “obscure language”. Combine that with “French” people like Picard not speaking it, and the show seems to at least heavily imply that it died out at some point in the past (maybe outside of academia at least). In this previous thread, the discussion of languages in Star Trek, and the idea that every species had just one language (including humans of Earth) started here: > [@Did this conversation ever happen in the Star Trek universe?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-conversation-ever-happen-in-the-star-trek-universe/998094/51): > > Fascinating (pun intended) that ST presumed that alien races would always speak a single language. All Vulcans speak Vulcan! All Klingons speak Klingon! All Terrans speak… thinking --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jean-luc-picard-how-is-he-viewed-in-france/1023479)._