In fact, it's been stated numerous times in Trek canon that the language they speak is English. The term "Federation Standard" is entirely a creation of tie-in literature, never actually used onscreen.
The lack of national diversity in the Discovery cast...
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In fact, it's been stated numerous times in Trek canon that the language they speak is English. The term "Federation Standard" is entirely a creation of tie-in literature, never actually used onscreen.
Again, on the Expanse, which is certainly a show with a smaller casting budget, they have main cast members who are British (Dominque Tipper), French-Thai (Florence Faivre), Iranian (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and from New Zealand (Frankie Adams). Plus actors from Israel, England, Cambodia, Lebanon, and China who play recurring characters. And this is only counting people who are born in a given country.
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I don't have any problem with them saying English as Earth Official Language. It's an American TV show anyway. Japanese will use Japanese in their Sci-fi anime for everyone on Earth too. Chinese, Russian, etc.... Basically everyone use their own language as international language in their own show. So who care about it. I feel it arrogant, but I can accept it. No contest about it.
I'm not sure it's an "official language," just a consensus language, a lingua franca that people from different nationalities use to communicate with each other even if they use different languages at home or within their local communities.
Again, though, dwelling on language or accents is missing the point of the thread. The issue is where the characters come from originally, not how they communicate with each other when they're working together.
According to some modern projections, 90% of Earth's current languages will be be gone in a century (e.g., reduced from 6,000 to 600). If you extrapolate the same trends for another century plus, you could clearly see many languages we call "major" today dying out on Earth. Particularly in the Trekverse, where World War 3 presumably killed many minority cultures and jumbled up the remainder significantly as refugees.
Maybe, but that doesn't have to happen in order for a common language to exist. After all, most people on Earth are bilingual. They have a native language that they speak locally and a second language that they speak in interacting with outsiders. This has been the case for most of history. For instance, subjects of the Roman Empire spoke dozens of different languages in everyday life, but when it came to official Imperial business or trade and communication with people outside their local communities, they used Latin in the western half of the empire and Greek in the eastern half. In modern China, the main language is Mandarin (or Cantonese in the south), but most people learn English for interacting with Westerners, and even adopt Western given names for English-speakers to address them by.
I think if we get to a point where there is a one world government interfacing with alien civilizations, one earth language isn't so far fetched, and English would likely be a contender for the most surviving language.
I've always found this to be strangest thing. My employer is a multinational, with offices all over the world, including China, and they're are the only ones who change their names for the benefit of others. If ever there was something to insist be kept the same, I'd think it'd be one's own name.
It's interesting that most of the specific script references to people speaking English come from either TOS or Enterprise. The TNG era series references appear to be script notes, colloquial sayings ("speak English" in response to something too technical), or lines uttered by characters from the past (time travel stuff). A lot of the references are to English (from England) things, too, such as accents or saddles and such.
I'm not sure where that leaves us, except in the same infinite loop of inconsistency we find ourselves after any of these kinds of arguments.
Funny, I know plenty of my fellow countrymen who adore many accents and have no problem understanding them.
Aside from some of the broadest Scots accents, there's very few English-speakers that Americans cannot understand.
Balloon popping? That's disgusting and unnatural.
Everyone knows that you should let the air out slowly so you can blow it back up and do it again...
That's just not how language works. As I said, most humans are bilingual. It's common to have one language used with family and local community and another used when interacting outside that community. The existence of one common language would not require the erasure of other languages.
Besides, the Federation supposedly encourages diversity. Language is an important part of culture, and people who value their hereditary cultures would work to keep their languages alive, even while also using a more mainstream language for everyday use. The loss of linguistic diversity is often the result of a deliberate effort by those in power to eradicate cultural diversity, and that's just not how Trek's United Earth or Federation is supposed to operate.
Did I see you at that party Javid Iqbal threw last week?
couple points
1.) we are imagining what language will look like in a fictional future society. how language "works" is certainly up for debate no?
you think its simply impossible that a one world government who spearheads a federation of planets may lean on one language over others?
2.) federation may encourage diversity but diversity may look different then. in a natural pool of recritment there may simply be more of one group endeavoring to do something than others.
i dont think diversity in that future would like "lets make sure we have an even mix of this that and the other. i think by then everyone is accepted as equal and people have pure equal opportunity. no effort towards diverse recruitment, no walls in the way, chips simply fall where they may.
Shouldn't they be speaking Spanish then?
no habla klingon
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