# (ST: TNG) Is it ever explained... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2014, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854 "2014-10-09T12:26:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/21 "2014-10-09T15:34:16Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > …My personal theory is that somewhere in the near future, the Second Hundred Years War happens, and this time the right side wins. I _love_ this theory! > [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > He is shown to speak fluent French, although so rarely I can’t find a clip but I can point you to the episode; _11001001_ he speaks French with a hologram…_“Oui, au fond, nous sommes tous Parisiens.”_ _Voila!_: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk1E986Szc4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk1E986Szc4) ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/22 "2014-10-09T15:38:45Z")
Going strictly from memory, doesn’t the series finale _All Good Things…_ begin with a flash forward to Picard as an old man pruning grapes on his (I assumed French) family vineyard? ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/23 "2014-10-09T15:42:01Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > And changes his mouth movements to match. 😛 Nah. The UT just makes you _think_ that the mouth movements match. What? If it can mess with your hearing, why wouldn’t it mess with your sight? ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/24 "2014-10-09T15:44:19Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Going strictly from memory, doesn’t the series finale _All Good Things…_ begin with a flash forward to Picard as an old man pruning grapes on his (I assumed French) family vineyard? yeah and there’s a whole episode _Family_ about him visiting his French family on the vineyard in France ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/25 "2014-10-09T16:13:46Z")
I thought canon was that yes, Picard is French, but learned to speak English in England and with an English accent. I’ve know people who learned English as a second language but were taught British pronunciation/spelling and sounded so much like a BBC presenter that you would have no idea they were actually from a different country. However, I don’t see anything in Memory Alpha that backs me up on that. ---
**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/26 "2014-10-09T16:18:05Z")
[According to Futurama](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO_1dEOkb_U), by the year 3000 the French language will be completely unknown: > [@](#): > > **Professor Hubert Farnsworth:** And this is my Universal Translator. Unfortunately, so far it only translates into an incomprehensible dead language. > **Cubert J. Farnsworth:** Hello. > **Translator Machine:** Bonjour! > **Professor Hubert Farnsworth:** Crazy gibberish! ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/27 "2014-10-09T16:39:01Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > That bit was comedy. French is NOT an obscure language in Picard’s time. Data is the only one not to realise this. In the Wild West time travel story arc, the team bumps into a Cajun guy and we find that Data can speak fluent French, and, in fact, claims to be French in order to excuse his social awkwardness. Though that may not say much since he’s jam-packed with so much technology that he can probably speak fluent Ancient Sumerian while simultaneously translating Mayan inscriptions into Zulu with his left hand and Serbian with his right hand. It doesn’t mean that French is _necessarily_ a common language in the 24th century, only that it has not been lost. > [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > My own headcannon, Picard is speaking French all the time, but the Universal Translator renders in into perfect, accentless English. Really interesting idea! We sort of gloss over the Universal Translator. DS9 did one episode where the Ferengi characters went to Earth but ended up time-traveling back to the 20th century with broken translators - and we find that Quark, Rom, and Nog speak Ferengi (or at least a Ferengi language) to each other. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I thought he learned Federation Basic, or English, from an British person. > Consider all the people in Africa or the Middle East who speak with an British accent. And this happens today in all sorts of unusual situations. Perhaps a Japanese person ends up working in the Congo and learns Congolese French, then moves to France or Canada and gets weird looks because of the way he speaks French. Given that TNG takes place in the 24th century, there could have been significant cultural changes that made it very easy or common for people to learn British accents. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/28 "2014-10-09T16:41:40Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Going strictly from memory, doesn’t the series finale _All Good Things…_ begin with a flash forward to Picard as an old man pruning grapes on his (I assumed French) family vineyard? Yes, but it’s an alternate future that ends up not happening. I can’t recall though whether or not it was an ancestral farm or just one that he bought after retirement - anyone remember? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/29 "2014-10-09T16:46:15Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > He’s a complicated man. But no one understands him but his woman… Actually, we find out in _Generations_ that Picard is quite upset over the fact that he never married and never had any children and that it was then too late. We also find out that his close family line (and perhaps the Picard last name) is dying because his brother and all of his nephews are dead, and there will be no one left to carry it on once he is gone. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/30 "2014-10-09T16:48:33Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > He’s a complicated man. But no one understands him but his woman. Le Shafte! 😃 > [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Actually, we find out in _Generations_ that Picard is quite upset over the fact that he never married and never had any children and that it was then too late. We also find out that his close family line (and perhaps the Picard last name) is dying because his brother and all of his nephews are dead, and there will be no one left to carry it on once he is gone. …le whoosh? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/31 "2014-10-09T16:49:13Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > I thought canon was that yes, Picard is French, but learned to speak English in England and with an English accent. I’ve know people who learned English as a second language but were taught British pronunciation/spelling and sounded so much like a BBC presenter that you would have no idea they were actually from a different country. > > However, I don’t see anything in Memory Alpha that backs me up on that. He wouldn’t have had to go to England, I know plenty of people in Western Europe who speak English with a British accent courtesy of the BBC. I’d suspect that by that time (and even ToS time) English would have completed its insidious spread as everyone’s second language, thanks to the refusal pf native English speakers to learn another. Scotty’s accent is natural pride, and Chekov’s is also. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/32 "2014-10-09T16:59:25Z")
And then you have characters like Joe Mannix (typically an Irish name), but the character, like Mike Connors himself, was of Armenian extraction, from the first season. And Theo Kojak was an obvious Greek-American, just like Telly Savalas, but his name is apparently some generic Slavic(?) sounding name–but not Greek, whatever it is. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/33 "2014-10-09T17:05:45Z")
Clearly, he’s a product of gross miscagenation: a proper English gentlewoman was seduced by a French winemaker, _et voila_, nine months later we have a future starship captain. So Jean-Luc’s father game him his name, love of wine and the land, open intellectualism and not very well disguised smugness, while from his mother he got a proper accent in the only language that matters, love of Earl Grey and English Christmas, strict sense of duty, and English inability to wear clothes stylishly. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/34 "2014-10-09T20:33:32Z")
How does an obviously Japanese guy like Hikaru Sulu end up speaking American accented English in TOS? How does an obviously African woman like Nyota Uhura speak American accented English? It’s obviously plausible in 1967 to have a Japanese character who speaks without a Japanese accent. That’s because we understand that over the years some Japanese people moved to America, and grew up here, and therefore learned American English as native speakers. If Picard were a French guy who spoke with an American accent, people wouldn’t think anything of it. Because American don’t have accents, we just speak normal. It’s all you foreigners who have accents. And some Americans, they have accents, but normal Americans don’t, only Americans from particular places. If you’re looking for a canonical explanation, in the next 200 years there will surely be movements of people and changes in language comparable to the movements that have happened in the past 200 years. Any combination of ethnicity and language is possible. Like Canadians with Scottish accents, or Russians with American accents, or Russians with Russian accents. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/35 "2014-10-09T20:38:08Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Like Canadians with Scottish accents, or Russians with American accents, or Russians with Russian accents. Nuclear wessels. > [@Quercus](#): > > Clearly, he’s a product of gross miscagenation: a proper English gentlewoman was seduced by a French winemaker, _et voila_, nine months later we have a future starship captain. So Jean-Luc’s father game him his name, love of wine and the land, open intellectualism and not very well disguised smugness, while from his mother he got a proper accent in the only language that matters, love of Earl Grey and English Christmas, strict sense of duty, and English inability to wear clothes stylishly. In _Tapestry_ we see [Picard’s father](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0lXjz8Qzwlo#t=121), who is even more of a stuffy Englishman than Jean-Luc, as is [his brother](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRRrL4wKDgg) from _Family_. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/36 "2014-10-09T21:43:42Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Because American don’t have accents, we just speak normal. I am torn between saying, “we speak normally” and “we’uns talk normal.” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/37 "2014-10-09T21:53:40Z")
Picard learned English so well he knows songs like “Hearts of Oak” by heart. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/38 "2014-10-09T21:55:22Z")
That vineyard he owned looked more like it was in Southern California than in France. So did the one his brother had too, now that I think of it. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/39 "2014-10-09T21:56:48Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > How does an obviously Japanese guy like Hikaru Sulu end up speaking American accented English in TOS? He too was from Southern California, obviously! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854/40 "2014-10-09T21:59:09Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Picard learned English so well he knows songs like “Hearts of Oak” by heart. :rolleyes: Ah, but that was an alien replacement of the captain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-tng-is-it-ever-explained/700854.md?page=3)