That’s what I figured. Who’s a guy from the wine country in France going to learn English from? Andy Griffith or David Attenborough?
I have a vague recollection of Stewart being interviewed back in TNG days and being asked about Picard’s accent, and he replied something like, “What do you mean? Picard speaks impeccable English.”
He did toss out a French term now and then. Theoretically, the universal translator would have translated that to English on the show, which may be one reason why Data had remarked on the obscurity of French by their time. (See my earlier post for cites.)
Do people actually think that humans of the 23rd and 24th century speak more than one language on the ships? That on the Enterprises, the UT is translating Picard’s French, Spock’s Vulcan, Chekov’s Russian, Troi’s Betazed, Worf’s Klingon, Singh’s Hindi, Admiral Jarok’s Romulan, Khan’s…whatever into English? Because I don’t. And not just because it is a TV convention to have everyone speak the same for the audience. I think all these characters speak English* along with their native languages. If you get in Starfleet, you speak what everyone speaks, and some “aliens” master it, too, out of ether necessity or cunning.
Admittedly the show is ambiguous. Why would nervous planets need to learn to speak “Klingonese”? Clearly the Ferengi in Little Green Men use the UT, because it is a plot point. But the UT “lets” the Klingon and Romulan curse words remain untranslated in The Defector, which implies Jarok is speaking the same language as everyone else. (or that the UT is sentient with a sense of drama)
And in real life, the UT would be very obvious. You’re going to hear the native language coming out the mouth, and a second (lagged?) translation coming from…somewhere. It only works if you know what it is and accept it as necessary. The scenes in Little Green Men would be a confusing mess in real life, and DS9 would be a noisy mess.
* It may not be English. Could be Chinese, or Esperanto, or Russian. But it’s a common language.
I used to say that, since it leaves curse words untranslated, the UT obviously has a built-in family values filter.
Cold got to be! Y’know? Shiiiit!
UT translation: How true! Golly!
I always figured that during the Eugenics Wars, the Brits put paid to their losing the Hundred Years War and rolled over the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. So for the last couple hundred years (in universe) English has been the official language of France, as well as Star Fleet. That would explain Picard’s accent as well as Data’s dis of French.
As for Scotty…I go with the “accents change over time” theory.
On the set of ST:NG, Patrick Stewart used to occasionally cuddle and play with Marina Sirtis’ pet Yorkie. According to reports, he would speak to it in his native and rarely-heard broad Yorkshire accent.
I’m chuckling to myself at James Doohan doing Scotty as a Glaswegian: “Ah cannae gie ye more power, sir! The fookin’ c**t’ cannae take it!” No wonder the producers were appalled.
They could have made him Irish.
“When will the warp core be back online, Irey?”
“You’ll get it when you fekkin get it!”
The two clips you posted ARE regional variations.
When she was about four, my daughter and I boarded the Glasgow Subway with four drunken Glaswegians who were discoursing rather colorfully. After a couple of minutes, one of them registered that we were there, gestured to my daughter and apologized. I told him “don’t worry about it; she can’t understand you anyway”. We were best buds for the rest of the ride.
At least I think so. I could only understand about a third of it, myself!
And a great many regions there are! But, with a totally made-up-from-scratch fake accent, I suspect many people will be able to tell, rather than assume it is yet another regional accent.
My point is that there is no Irish accent nor is there a scottish accent.
Or, as a friend of mine put it, “There was a second Hundred Years’ War, and it went very badly for the French.”
Thing is, “the Brits” weren’t involved in the Hundred Years War*, since Britain as a nation didn’t yet exist. In fact, Scotland was on the winning side in the war, on occasion helping France to victory in battles.
And for the record, not only was Scotty’s Scottish accent shit, we laughed out loud when he said he was going for an Aberdeen accent since he was so far off the mark.
*Uunless you want to argue that the Welshmen in the English army were “Britons”.