Should the Irish be decanonized?

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The God Thing said:

JD said:
How do we know that the characters are actually always speaking english? It could easily just be that we are hearing everything from a Universal translator that is changing everthing into English.

The language the crew of the NCC-1701 spoke was specifically called "English" by 20th century natives Captain John Christopher and Khan Noonien Singh in - respectively - Tomorrow is Yesterday and Space Seed. The signage on the hulls of Starfleet spacecraft also strongly suggests that English has become the lingua franca of the UFP.

TGT

But then again, on DS9's Little Green Men it turns out that the Ferengi don't speak English at all, and have been relying on a UT all along.

My guess is that given that Bajor isn't part of the Federation, none of the non-Starfleet personnel speak English, although Major Kira who had to work with the Feds, and Nog who eventually joined Starfleet would have had to learn it.

Also it would have been a poor spy who couldn't speak his enemies' languages, so Garak would have been bilingual.

It brings up the perennial question of why the UT was so crap with Klingon.

Worf: "I must follow the rite of GHGUHF UJKHFGUK T U, with added apostrophes. It translates into English as a birthday party."

 

[M'Sharak]

The Giggling Elf said:

It brings up the perennial question of why the UT was so crap with Klingon.

Quantum muKt'uQ matrix weevils, endemic to the near moon orbiting Qo'noS/Kronos/whatever the fuck the name of that planet is. These weevils spread via RF and subspace comm transmission, making them extremely difficult to control.

 

[captcalhoun]

as you said, Worf speaks English as a Starfleet officer and when he mention Mauk to'vor or whatever, it's not translated because he's not using a UT for it to be translated.

 

[Twain]

Sci said:


And not just British accents: English RP accents. You'd never mistake the Picards for Welshmen or Scotsmen, or, for that matter, Northerners or Cockneys.

Au contraire, Picard's accent - though refined - is quite clearly Northern English in origin. The vowels don't lie.

 

[MNM]

Twain said:

Sci said:


And not just British accents: English RP accents. You'd never mistake the Picards for Welshmen or Scotsmen, or, for that matter, Northerners or Cockneys.

Au contraire, Picard's accent - though refined - is quite clearly Northern English in origin. The vowels don't lie.

That's because Patrick Stewart is from huddersfield.

 

[Sci]

Twain said:

Sci said:
And not just British accents: English RP accents. You'd never mistake the Picards for Welshmen or Scotsmen, or, for that matter, Northerners or Cockneys.

Au contraire, Picard's accent - though refined - is quite clearly Northern English in origin. The vowels don't lie.

Hmm. I'll defer to you, since I'm no expert in English accents, but it always sounded very RP to me.

In any event, the point stands, though: Picard isn't just British. He's very distinctively English in his accent.

 

[CoveTom]

The God Thing said:
The language the crew of the NCC-1701 spoke was specifically called "English" by 20th century natives Captain John Christopher and Khan Noonien Singh in - respectively - Tomorrow is Yesterday and Space Seed. The signage on the hulls of Starfleet spacecraft also strongly suggests that English has become the lingua franca of the UFP.

I suppose one could make the argument that Kirk and Company were utilizing some form of universal translator such that Khan and Captain Christopher heard English regardless of the language the person was actually speaking. Still, the point about the signage is hard to dispute...

 

[Kegek]

Sci said:
In any event, the point stands, though: Picard isn't just British. He's very distinctively English in his accent.

What point is this? There's no such thing as a 'British' accent.

It's like me saying I'm not just European, I'm Irish. Every European is not just European. Likewise, all with British accents have a specific accent.

What does remain true, though, is almost all the French in TNG speak with British accents, including Picard's immediate family.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Twain said:
The vowels don't lie.

Ah, the scoom froom oop neth.

TGT

 

[Mike Farley]

Kegek Kringle said:
What does remain true, though, is almost all the French in TNG speak with British accents, including Picard's immediate family.

It's been forever since I've seen "Where No-One Has Gone Before" but didn't Picard's mother (or rather the image of her) speak with a French accent?

And somewhere in the middle of this it suddenly struck me that Worf probably speaks Russian too. Maybe he and Chekov would have been buddies if they'd served on the same ship?

 

[Sisu]

^ If you count, "orrrrr do you seeeee zis assss ze beginning?" as a French accent!

 

[Mike Farley]

As an American...yes. Yes I do count that as a French accent.

 

[Twain]

MNM said:

That's because Patrick Stewart is from huddersfield.

No he isn't. He's from Mirfield - which is between Huddersfield and Leeds.

 

[Twain]

The God Thing said:

Twain said:
The vowels don't lie.

Ah, the scoom froom oop neth.

TGT

I have no idea what that means, but I hope your therapy is progressing well.

 

[Yassim]

The Giggling Elf said:
It brings up the perennial question of why the UT was so crap with Klingon.

They do not discuss that either, with outsiders.

 

[Edward Jellico]

CommanderRaytas said:

Kegek said:

CommanderRaytas said:
Actually, I find those rather insulting. And not just the implication, but also the accents. Why oh why would Germans talk amongst themselves in terrible English instead of their native language? And if it's "supposed" to be German but it's English so the public will understand...well, you might as well drop the bogus, ridiculous, embarrassing attempt of emulating someone's way of pronouncing foreign sounds.

All Germans I've met and known have spoken impeccable English, but have done so with German accents. I don't see the problem in principle, but I'm not claiming the accents on Star Trek are any good either.

That's not the problem. My problem is:

The accent is fake. But okay. That's only a small issue, though the misuse of suprasegmentals is painful to my ears. The real problem is the Space Nazis talking to each other in English with those accents. If they're "really" talking in German, then for God's sake drop the accent.

It's like in Zorro where they're supposedly communicating in Spanish yet everyone except Anthony Hopkins has a Spanish accent (Banderas's was real, I know). It drives me up the wall.

The space Nazis per se are insulting, though. Those ENT episodes were ridiculous and nearly turned me off the show.

Anyway, I guess it makes everyone angry when their country is portrayed as a cliche. That goes for the Irish, the Germans, the Latin-Americans etc... only I, as a linguist, tend to notice the speech-connected things more.

I'm pretty sure that real experienced German troops wouldn't have been so incompetant. Lightly armed gangsters taking out an MG-42 nest, oh please.

 

[zenophite]

I'm pretty sure that real experienced German troops wouldn't have been so incompetant. Lightly armed gangsters taking out an MG-42 nest, oh please.

well if the Nazi's were as competent and cartoonish as portrayed in many movies WW2 would have ended in about 5 minutes.

 

[Nebusj]

zenophite said:
well if the Nazi's were as competent and cartoonish as portrayed in many movies WW2 would have ended in about 5 minutes.

And sometimes you wonder how it could have taken more than that ... in the Sandhurst war game scenarios the ``Operation Sealion'' -- German invasion of southeastern England, sometime in the summer of 1940 -- is often played out. Even when you spot the Germans the advantage of absolutely no Royal Navy or Royal Air Force response for the first 24 hours of the invasion, the German invasion tends to suffer things like thirty percent casualties and that without the British having any forces to counter them. It's hard not to suspect time-travelling agents shifting things to their own agendas, frankly.

 

[flandry84]

The whole argument about accents is interesting.We live here in Ireland,my Dad sounds like Barry Fitzgerald(less the begorrah factor)I don't really know what I sound like,but my daughters are pure Valley-girl.I swear to God I'd gladly strangle bloody Jennifer Aniston.Point is,accents in200-300 years time...who knows.

 

[Kegek]

^
Mmm. A valid point. There's Americanisation afoot when a Burger King resides in a former Georgian loft... but then, as American accents appear to be dominant in the future, Star Trek seems to reflect that idea.