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star trek - Was Picard speaking French and being translated the entire time?


Someone forwarded me this link titled Sudden Star Trek realization :


Sudden Clarity Clarence: If characters in Star Trek use universal translators, Then Picard has been speaking French the entire time


(Also found on reddit)


So, is there any clue that indicate that Picard is really speaking French and being translated to English by the universal translator?



Answer



No. In fact, I would say there is small evidence to suggest he is speaking Federation Standard (thought to be a form of English).



In 11001001 (S1E15), the Bynars upgrade the Holodeck to create characters and environments that produce more realistic interactions. Riker creates a jazz bar and it is populated with a sophisticated holographic women named Minuet. At some point, Picard goes to the Holodeck to see how Riker is doing, and meets Minuet. She recognizes his French surname and begins talking to Picard in French, and he replies in French. Meanwhile, Riker stands there looking impressed that Minuet knows French. (The entire script for the episode can be found here.)


The point of that little anecdote is that if the universal translators were constantly altering Picard's speech from French to English, then it would have been no different in this situation. Riker, and us, would have heard the conversation in English anyway. We can confirm that Riker heard French from the episode's script:



Riker is surprised that she speaks French and a little jealous that she and Picard are hitting it off so well.



Since Riker heard French in this interaction, we could assume that this is not standard for Picard to speak French. It is more likely that he uses Federation Standard in everyday interactions.


I think you could also make a logical argument that Picard uses Federation Standard rather than French. In order to be captain of a ship, it would be much easier to have a common language. What if the universal translators broke down? From a command perspective, this would be pretty detrimental to making sure things run smoothly. Memory Alpha also notes that Federation Standard is



used in official documents by the Federation government




so it must have been used by Picard regularly.


I think the anecdotal evidence and widespread use of Federation Standard shows that Picard was not speaking French for the entire show.


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