Are they really speaking English?

[JarodRussell]

The language "Federation Standard" was actually never mentioned on screen (I was surprised to hear that, I always thought it had been mentioned somewhere), but in my opinion it's logical that they will not be speaking our current form of English in the Federation. First of all, look at how much the language changed in the last 300 years. That's a natural from of progression that will continue in the future. Second they have made alien contact, there are billions of aliens out there, billions who do not speak English or any other language spoken on Earth. Why would they suddenly all agree on making English the Federation Standard? Is it easy to learn by everybody?

Or are they in fact not speaking English, but an artificial language, created by a commission, a language that is easy to learn for all of the various species, something like Esperanto being based on alien languages?

Or don't they care at all about languages because of the universal translator? Would be then funny to watch if the translator fails and suddenly the bridge crew isn't able to talk to each other because they don't have a common language.

Something happened to Earth languages, so much is certain. Data described French as an "old, obscure language". Only traditionalists like Picard (who is known to have an "antique sense of humor") still speak it.

 

[barnaclelapse]

I always assumed it was English, but I must confess that I never gave it a ton of thought.

 

[Forbin]

Well, when Khan wakes up and hears our heroes speak he says something like "English! I thought I was dreaming hearing it!"

And the 20th century people awakened in TNG's The Neutral Zone had no trouble with language - except for 24th century folks understanding 20th centurty colloquialisms.

There's a theory that language won't evolve as much from here on as it has in the past, because of recorded media.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yeah, didn't think too much about it either. Just have seen Hunt for Red October recently, where they switch from Russian to English, and thought it would actually make sense that the Star Trek characters don't speak any English at all.


Well in one Voyager episode they find humans from the 1930s, and it is explained they have no trouble at all to understand them because of the universal translators. I think someone even asks "You speak Japanese?" or something.

So when Khan heard English, he might have actually heard just the translation.

 

[Sci]

For the record, T'Pol specifically identifies the language spoken aboard the NX-01 as English.

And I'd be mighty surprised if Federation Standard isn't either English or English-derived, given as how English seems to be the written language of the Federation, since it marks all its starship hulls and computer screens in written English.

And the idea that the French language, a language of 77 million native speakers and 50 million second-language-speakers, would dwindle and virtually die out in only four hundred years is absurd.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

I always assumed it was English as well, but in another thread a few weeks back someone suggested that everyone was speaking their own languages and the universal translater turned it into english (really, for our benefit). Its too complicated for me to think about....that and time travel gives me a headache!

 

[Crewman47]

The one thing I noticed the other day after watching the Enterprise episode Dawn is that whenever there is unofficial contact between a human and an alien (not just on Star Trek but across Sci-fi) and the UT is either non-existant or unavailable then the human will always be of English speaking origin. I always wondered how an alien would cope with a human who only speaks russian, german, spanish, italian or any of the asian languages.

Do you think they'd cope better or worse with them as they could be easier to pronounce based on there own language?

 

[DevilEyes]

And the idea that the French language, a language of 77 million native speakers and 50 million second-language-speakers, would dwindle and virtually die out in only four hundred years is absurd.

Agreed.

The language "Federation Standard" was actually never mentioned on screen (I was surprised to hear that, I always thought it had been mentioned somewhere), but in my opinion it's logical that they will not be speaking our current form of English in the Federation. First of all, look at how much the language changed in the last 300 years.

How much has it changed? You can read a novel from an 18th century - say, "Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding - without so much as a glossary for the few obsolete words, because you can understand everything anyway. The changes in the English language for the last 300 years have been pretty much insignificant.

 

[JarodRussell]

For the record, T'Pol specifically identifies the language spoken aboard the NX-01 as English.

Well, that was before the Federation was found, and the NX-01 was more of an American space ship if I remember correctly.

And I'd be mighty surprised if Federation Standard isn't either English or English-derived, given as how English seems to be the written language of the Federation, since it marks all its starship hulls and computer screens in written English.

Like in Indiana Jones 3, when a road sign in Germany/Austria was written in English.


Well, if it is indeed English, how did that happen? Is it easy to learn for every alien species? Was there a vote on "What language do you want to be official?"?

 

[FordSVT]

English is the current vehicular language, and seeing as it became so during the information/global communication age it may continue to be so in the future. It doesn't require a vote, language evolves naturally.

 

[JarodRussell]

English is the current vehicular language, and seeing as it became so during the information/global communication age it may continue to be so in the future. It doesn't require a vote, language evolves naturally.

On Earth, as of now, yes. But after contact with several alien cultures that have billions of people speaking their own language(s), and you want to create a Federation that includes all these cultures, you cant just go ahead and let the language of some tiny minority turn into the official language.

 

[Kegg]

English is the current vehicular language, and seeing as it became so during the information/global communication age it may continue to be so in the future. It doesn't require a vote, language evolves naturally.

On Earth, as of now, yes. But after contact with several alien cultures that have billions of people speaking their own language(s), and you want to create a Federation that includes all these cultures, you cant just go ahead and let the language of some tiny minority turn into the official language.

This is pretty much what's happened on Earth. There are more native Mandarin speakers than English speakers, but English is the lingua franca. Why? Something about America being a superpower and the after-effect of the British Empire combined, pretty much. With humans as the cornerstone species in the founding of the Federation it's not that much of a stretch.

Besides, with the universal translators around a lot of these aliens would never have to learn English. We know Quark, Rom and Nog don't have two words of the language, despite living on a Starfleet run installation for years.

 

[JarodRussell]

Humans are just ONE cornerstone, aren't they? Vulcans and Andorians were the far superior powers.

 

[Kegg]

Humans are just ONE cornerstone, aren't they? Vulcans and Andorians were the far superior powers.

They're other major powers in founding it, but it's the humans that brought them - and the Tellarites - together. They're the catalsyt for the whole shebang, pretty much, and if future series are any indication they continue to make up a sizeable number of Federation citizens and Starfleet officers.

 

[Eyes]

Its a paradox. If they are speaking English, then how does every alien in the galaxy know it?

But if they're using the UT, which is much more likely, and everyone is speaking in their own language, how can Picard, Klingons, Bajorans etc, speak in their own language when it suits them. Shouldn't the UT automatically translate it for everyone there (e.g Way of the Warrior, Sisko doesn't understand Gowrons Klingon speech 'Today is a good day to die', when Gowron was probably speaking Klingon a second before that and Sisko understood perfectly)?

I would say some of the more educated peoples in the Federation e.g Vulcans study English, but the rest get along with the UT and its huge plot inconsistencies.

 

[Anika Hanson]

Travis Mayweather also confirmed that they spoke English on the Enterprise.

 

[Kegg]

Shouldn't the UT automatically translate it for everyone there (e.g Way of the Warrior, Sisko doesn't understand Gowrons Klingon speech 'Today is a good day to die', when Gowron was probably speaking Klingon a second before that and Sisko understood perfectly)?

This is the sort of stuff one has to throw your hands up in the air about.

Also, lip movements. Look at any foreign movie dubbed into English - the lips never exactly synch with what's being said. However, Star Trek aliens who even are specified to be using the universal translator and not speaking English absolutely do not have this problem.

Maybe Universal Translators alter people so that when they try to speak in their own language, it comes out as English instead, and what they hear of English translates again into their own language, though they may chose to use their own language if they feel like it... which sounds ridiculous admittedly and nonsense when, say, two Klingons are speaking to each other in English, but it's hard to explain this concept.

Bottom line, the more one thinks about the Universal Translator, the less sense it makes - it's probably best to just accept it as a needed dramatic conceit and move on.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

At least in my own fanfic, there are two consistent rules as to when you will hear an alien's native language.

1) If you are beginning to understand said language for yourself. The translator in my own work has something of a "training wheels" mode where it will withdraw its support gradually as you begin to understand and speak a new language for yourself. It's basically a phased immersion.

2) If someone deliberately overrides/deactivates their translator to keep certain things from being translated.

 

[Sci]

For the record, T'Pol specifically identifies the language spoken aboard the NX-01 as English.

Well, that was before the Federation was found, and the NX-01 was more of an American space ship if I remember correctly.

You remember incorrectly. Enterprise NX-01, and its sister ship, Columbia NX-02, were ships of United Earth, the planetary state created through the unification of all of Earth.

And I'd be mighty surprised if Federation Standard isn't either English or English-derived, given as how English seems to be the written language of the Federation, since it marks all its starship hulls and computer screens in written English.

Well, if it is indeed English, how did that happen? Is it easy to learn for every alien species? Was there a vote on "What language do you want to be official?"?

I would infer that English became the primary language of United Earth out of institutional inertia; the English language had become so pervasive in the decades prior to World War III that it had acquired the status of lingua franca for international trade, travel, and diplomacy.

From there, I would infer that it was agreed to make English the generic working language of the Federation government and its agencies for the same reason that Earth became the capital: A desire for neutrality. Earth was seen as the "honest broker," the neutral party that Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar (and, if you go by the novels, Alpha Centauri) all felt they could trust not to try to dominate the others or monopolize power.

 

[Myasishchev]

When not speaking Klingon, Worf speaks Ukrainian.

Chekov and Uhura could conceivably be speaking Russian and Swahili, respectively, instead of English--and Spock some Vulcan tongue.

The prevalence of English as a written language is odd, although I don't see why they couldn't develop invisibly small contacts or intraocular screens to translate that as well.