Is the English language lingua franca?

[Citiprime]

This is an American TV show, so sometimes you have to go with these things, but one thing that's always fascinated me is Star Trek's version of the future largely goes with the idea that English is the de-facto language not only used by United Earth but the United Federation of Planets as a whole as "Federation Standard."

This is usually explained away by the universal translator, but all of the official signage of the Federation is in English too. Also, in the Discovery episode where the universal translator goes on the fritz, the only person understandable was Saru who could understand all of the other languages but speak in English to the crew, who could presumably understand him. Also, the UFP flag uses English, the marking on Federation starships are written in English (e.g., the marking near the main navigational deflector very clearly state in English "United Federation of Planets").

• Not only is English the standard, but American English seems to be the dialect with supremacy, since Scotty doesn't use the British pronunciation of aluminum, but the American iteration when discussing transparent aluminum.
• "Federation Standard" has survived to the 32nd century since Osyraa presents Admiral Vance with a copy of a proposed armistice with the Emerald Chain in the format.
• The universal translator isn't shown translating visual text within the show. Klingon displays show Klingon text, and it's the same for all the other species. The implication being that this isn't something being done for the audience but what is being shown is how it exists.
• The dominance of English as a language across Earth and the Federation would explain how a Frenchman like Picard speaks like he's from Yorkshire.

The ubiquity of English could be the result of humanity's importance within the Federation and Starfleet's role in opening dialogue with other cultures and assimilating those cultures into the Federation.

However, I've seen it pointed out that if aliens were to show up tomorrow, if aware of our cultures, the first message to Earth might be in Mandarin Chinese since it's the most spoken language by most humans on Earth

 

[Nerys Myk]

However, I've seen it pointed out that if aliens were to show up tomorrow, if aware of our cultures, the first message to Earth might be in Mandarin Chinese since it's the most spoken language by most humans on Earth

If they base it on number of speakers it very well might. If other critera are used it might be something else. And there's always math.

 

[drt]

However, I've seen it pointed out that if aliens were to show up tomorrow, if aware of our cultures, the first message to Earth might be in Mandarin Chinese since it's the most spoken language by most humans on Earth

Mandarin may have the most native speakers, but English has the most speakers (combining native and non-native), but who knows if that would be the case in 100 years.

That being said, I was always partial to the novel-verse/fanon explanation that everything that sounds or reads as English on the show to accommodate its largely US-centric audience is actually “Federation Standard”, even if a couple of episodes here and there specifically call it out as English.

 

[Christopher]

The dominance of English as a language across Earth and the Federation would explain how a Frenchman like Picard speaks like he's from Yorkshire.

Hardly necessary. Presumably United Europe includes both England and France, so it stands to reason that Europeans would learn English with a British accent. Young Picard could've very possibly gone to boarding school in England, or commuted by transporter from La Barre to an English school.

Presumably quite a lot of Europeans would be bi- or multilingual from childhood, able to speak two or more languages fluently, so Picard could speak both French with a French accent and English with an English accent, the same way many Latin American actors can switch languages and accents on a dime from American English to Spanish.

Fiction has conditioned us to assume that foreigners always speak English with a foreign accent, but in reality, many people can speak another language without an accent if they learn it from childhood, or if they're just good with accents. So there's no mystery why Picard speaks English with an English accent. It would only be strange if he spoke French with an English accent. (Which he kinda does, in the pronunciation of his own name. I've always found it ironic that Riker pronounces "Picard" more correctly than Picard does.)

Mandarin may have the most native speakers, but English has the most speakers (combining native and non-native), but who knows if that would be the case in 100 years.

English is the current lingua franca of the global scientific, engineering, and aerospace communities, so it stands to reason that it would become the primary language of spacegoing humanity if we colonize space within the next century or so, regardless of whether it retains its prominence Earthside.

That being said, I was always partial to the novel-verse/fanon explanation that everything that sounds or reads as English on the show to accommodate its largely US-centric audience is actually “Federation Standard”, even if a couple of episodes here and there specifically call it out as English.

Many episodes have explicitly called it English, and the term "Federation Standard" was never spoken in the shows until the Secret Hideout era. Moreover, it's explicitly an English comprehensible to people from the 20th or 21st century.

I've seen it argued that it's reasonable to expect language to remain fairly unchanging over the centuries ahead, because recorded media will preserve 20th-century pronunciations and usage for all time. Although that doesn't account for how different languages might blend and produce new creoles. And there's a lot of vocabulary from older movies and TV that has massively changed meaning since then, like "gay," so the thesis may have been disproven by now.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

It's not about number of native speakers alone, but which language one is more likely to a) speak, read and write as a first language in addition to b) which language one is most likely to choose to learn and use.

the term "Federation Standard"

Might that be the 23rd century "politically correct" term for English, favored by some? As it's moved beyond being merely England's language to the Federation's default language.

 

[Christopher]

It's not about number of native speakers alone, but which language one is more likely to a) speak, read and write as a first language in addition to b) which language one is most likely to choose to learn and use.

Why limit it to first languages? The whole purpose of a lingua franca is to be a second language shared by the speakers of multiple different first languages, so that they have a common basis for communication. It isn't even necessarily the language of the politically dominant power; in the Roman Empire, Latin was the lingua franca in the West, but in the Eastern Empire, Greek was the LF, which is why the New Testament was written in Greek.

Might that be the 23rd century "politically correct" term for English, favored by some? As it's moved beyond being merely England's language to the Federation's default language.

In the shows, until recently, they always just called it English. So there's nothing to explain.

 

[evilchumlee]

Hardly necessary. Presumably United Europe includes both England and France, so it stands to reason that Europeans would learn English with a British accent. Young Picard could've very possibly gone to boarding school in England, or commuted by transporter from La Barre to an English school.

We know that the Picard family is sort of... French/English. They fled France in WW2 and lived in England for nearly two centuries. They have more ancient roots in France, but... the Picards are probably more culturally English, and the family would likely have some sort of roots there.

DSC muddied the issue of English a bit. We know English is "Federation Standard"... but also when the Universal Translator broke down on the ship, people had a hard time communicating as they were speaking whatever their native language one. One would assume they could speak... Federation Standard. (although I suppose the malfunctions may have actually been kind of randomly translating into different languages no matter what was being said.)

 

[Christopher]

We know that the Picard family is sort of... French/English. They fled France in WW2 and lived in England for nearly two centuries. They have more ancient roots in France, but... the Picards are probably more culturally English, and the family would likely have some sort of roots there.

Perhaps, but that's still unnecessary to explain why someone born in France would speak English with an English accent. The belief that that's somehow anomalous is based on taking a fictional convention too literally. Plenty of people can speak a second language without their first language's accent, particularly if they learned it from childhood, as any 24th-century French person in united Europe would probably have learned English from childhood.

I mean, really, in a future where transporters have existed for two centuries and the Earth has been politically united for even longer, it seems illogical to treat France and England as fundamentally alien cultures to one another, rather than just adjacent states within a unified European culture. I'd expect the difference between French and English culture in the 24th century to be no greater than the difference between, say, Pennsylvania and Virginia culture today. There'd be regional differences that natives still took pride in, but they would just be variations within a common, more global identity.

DSC muddied the issue of English a bit. We know English is "Federation Standard"... but also when the Universal Translator broke down on the ship, people had a hard time communicating as they were speaking whatever their native language one. One would assume they could speak... Federation Standard. (although I suppose the malfunctions may have actually been kind of randomly translating into different languages no matter what was being said.)

Yeah, that's really the only way to justify it. That bit made sense when Prodigy did it, because the characters explicitly didn't know each other's languages and depended on translators to communicate. But it was just silly when DSC did it. It is utterly absurd to believe that Starfleet wouldn't teach a common language to all its members. It would be stupid to rely absolutely on computer assistance, given how often starship computers break down in response to attacks or strange phenomena. Every crew member would be trained to do things for themselves rather than depending utterly on computers, and that would surely have to include communicating to each other. So of course everyone who attended the Academy would be required either to know English already or to learn it in their first year, unless their anatomy made them incapable of producing English phonemes.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

DSC muddied the issue of English a bit. We know English is "Federation Standard"... but also when the Universal Translator broke down on the ship, people had a hard time communicating as they were speaking whatever their native language one. One would assume they could speak... Federation Standard. (although I suppose the malfunctions may have actually been kind of randomly translating into different languages no matter what was being said.)

I just checked and it was a virus randomly translating what they said into different languages. Saru "localized the backup bridge translator" which made it so that everyone on the bridge who knew Earth English could communicate, which seemed to be all of them, including Nhan and Saru. Though they made a point earlier of showing that Linus definitely couldn't speak English, as the way he spoke was too different.

 

[The Wormhole]

Not only is English the standard, but American English seems to be the dialect with supremacy, since Scotty doesn't use the British pronunciation of aluminum, but the American iteration when discussing transparent aluminum.

And everyone uses uniquely American pronunciations, even characters who are stated to not be American. IE, Lieutenant is the American "Loo-tenant" as opposed to "Leftenant" or the letter Z is pronounced Zee instead of Zed.

The dominance of English as a language across Earth and the Federation would explain how a Frenchman like Picard speaks like he's from Yorkshire.

That was rather clumsily addressed in S2 of Picard as the result of Picard's ancestors spending time in England during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

However, I've seen it pointed out that if aliens were to show up tomorrow, if aware of our cultures, the first message to Earth might be in Mandarin Chinese since it's the most spoken language by most humans on Earth

Mandarin Chinese might be spoken by the largest percentage of the species, but English is considered to be the world's "international language." IE, all planes and ships operating internationally are required to communicate in English regardless of their native language or country of origin, or even which country they are currently in.

DSC muddied the issue of English a bit. We know English is "Federation Standard"... but also when the Universal Translator broke down on the ship, people had a hard time communicating as they were speaking whatever their native language one. One would assume they could speak... Federation Standard. (although I suppose the malfunctions may have actually been kind of randomly translating into different languages no matter what was being said.)

The virus was randomly translating into different languages. Michael was speaking Klingon, which most certainly is not her native language.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

The program may have malfunctioned in that it incorrectly defaulted to the person's secondary (or any other) language they spoke, rather than their primary.

 

[Christopher]

And everyone uses uniquely American pronunciations, even characters who are stated to not be American. IE, Lieutenant is the American "Loo-tenant" as opposed to "Leftenant" or the letter Z is pronounced Zee instead of Zed.

I often hear actors in British shows these days say "lootenant" or "skedjule" instead of "leftenant" and "shed-yule." I guess the predominance of American media has influenced their pronunciation.

That was rather clumsily addressed in S2 of Picard as the result of Picard's ancestors spending time in England during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

I suppose it's not that clumsy, since Picard's English-ness isn't just in his accent, but in his fondness for tea, Shakespeare, and all that stuff arising from the writers adapting the character to fit Patrick Stewart. For the accent alone, I'll always insist it's unnecessary, but for the other stuff, it kind of makes sense.

Mandarin Chinese might be spoken by the largest percentage of the species, but English is considered to be the world's "international language." IE, all planes and ships operating internationally are required to communicate in English regardless of their native language or country of origin, or even which country they are currently in.

Yes, which is why I expect English to become the universal language of spacegoing humanity, since the spaceship crews, asteroid miners, etc. who settle space will probably all be using English in their operations, so it'll be the lingua franca by default.

The virus was randomly translating into different languages. Michael was speaking Klingon, which most certainly is not her native language.

Okay, but in that case, the simpler thing would've been just to turn off the translator rather than localizing the backup translator, which still implied that the crew needed a working translator to communicate. As I've remarked elsewhere, I have a problem with the assumption that the translator is permanently active aboard ship. If that were the case, how come all the Vulcan and Klingon words spoken by Spock and Worf don't get translated into English automatically? It makes more sense to assume that everyone's speaking English by default, and they only engage translators when they need them.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Is there a different part of a person's brain that lights up or some such thing when you speak a language with the intent that it not be understood by all/translated by a computer, vs with the intent that it does (which the translator can detect)?

 

[at Quark's]

Is there a different part of a person's brain that lights up or some such thing when you speak a language with the intent that it not be understood by all/translated by a computer, vs with the intent that it does (which the translator can detect)?

Probably. Otherwise we'd hear a lot of repeats, like

Worf: I am experiencing the feeling I have done this before. <brief pause> The feeling I have done this before. (Cause and Effect)

 

[Christopher]

Probably. Otherwise we'd hear a lot of repeats, like

Worf: I am experiencing the feeling I have done this before. <brief pause> The feeling I have done this before. (Cause and Effect)

If the translator were constantly active (which I still say is a stupid idea), that would come out more as, "I am experiencing 'already seen,' the feeling that I have done this before."

 

[at Quark's]

I was only joking of course. If the translator were constantly active, the main characters would be aware of that and most probably not try to introduce alien terms and then translate them in the first place.

Worf: I'm experiencing déjà vu.
Everyone: what's that?
Worf: nIb'poH
Everyone: Why didn't you say so in the first place? Did you want to sound interesting?

 

[Darth Thanos]

If Earth is going to be the utopia it is meant to be in the Star Trek universe, the Chinese dictatorship has to come to an end (along with all other remaining dictatorships in the world). That would have HUGE consequences in China, perhaps including a rise in people using English...

 

[Christopher]

If Earth is going to be the utopia it is meant to be in the Star Trek universe, the Chinese dictatorship has to come to an end (along with all other remaining dictatorships in the world). That would have HUGE consequences in China, perhaps including a rise in people using English...

That doesn't make a bit of sense. The Chinese language is far older than the current political regime, and is spoken by over a billion people whose lives would continue pretty much unchanged even if that regime fell. Surely if the people of China gained their freedom, they would choose to express their own historic culture, heritage, literature, etc. instead of giving it all up to adopt an outside language. For instance, ethnic minorities in China would probably reassert their own historic languages like Tibetan, Uighur, etc.

For that matter, more than a seventh of the population of China, over 200 million people, already speak English as a second language, because the PRC government likes doing profitable business with the English-speaking world and has been strongly encouraging English education since 1979. So you have it completely backward. If anything, a post-PRC government and culture might equate the teaching of English with the old regime they rejected, in which case English-speaking might become less common in China.

 

[Frontis]

English is quite easy to learn compared to other languages.

 

[at Quark's]

Speaking foreign languages (for example English) is usually considered an advantage, so institutions in most countries offer that option. It doesn't say that much about how the government of that country views other countries that have it as their native language.

Even in North Korea, people can learn English. (Well, probably only when you're deemed suitable by the government, but still.)