[DammitJim]

I've discovered that there are other threads concerning this topic

for housekeeping sake, how do I get it locked or deleted?

[chator]

At least provide us with links, since you brought this topic up.

[DevilEyes]

Originally Posted by chator

I've always wondered that myself, Picard's accent is just too cool to discard. I wonder if Stewart ever even tried to play him using a French accent, but just couldn't do it. I always thought they should have done this. It's just too hard to buy into him being a Frenchman with a British accent. Maybe the novel was already out and they couldn't change the character, maybe they were too pressed for time? So many possibilities. I haven't come across anything in the interviews i've seen or read relating to this. But i know Roddenberry had a problem with Stewart because of his baldness, even wanting him to wear a toupe to play the Captain.

Why is a Frenchman with a British accent supposedly such an impossible concept? Many people who learn English as a second language learn to speak it in the standard British accent - because that was traditionally the way English was taught in schools and universities. (Nowadays it's split between standard British and General American, but traditionally it was just British.) That's why many educated people whose second language was British spoke it with the standard British accent. Now, this might change in 4 centuries (as I said, it had already been changing, with standard American accent being introduced, although British accent is still dominant in schools) but then again, maybe it will not? And there is no reason why an educated man like Picard could not speak English with a British accent.

Why would he need to have a French accent while speaking English? Say if he started learning English at a very young age and has been speaking it for all of his career if he has any talent for languages, he'd have a perfect command of English together with an English accent. It's even somewhat insulting to suggest that a French person can never learn English so well that you couldn't notice a trace of French accent in his speech. And what are the alternatives, providing Picard learned English perfectly, including the pronounciation? Either British, American, Australian, Canadian, or a regional accent. So why not British? And no matter how much fun I have imagining Picard speak with a US Southern accent or Cockney , his accent still suits his character the best.

[RedShirtsRuS]

It's really interesting since Jean-Luc Picard's brother Robert Picard actually did sound like a Frenchman. A Frenchman that spoke English anyway.

[chator]

Originally Posted by DevilEyes

Why would he need to have a French accent while speaking English? Say if he started learning English at a very young age and has been speaking it for all of his career if he has any talent for languages, he'd have a perfect command of English together with an English accent. It's even somewhat insulting to suggest that a French person can never learn English so well that you couldn't notice a trace of French accent in his speech. And what are the alternatives, providing Picard learned English perfectly, including the pronounciation? Either British, American, Australian, Canadian, or a regional accent. So why not British? And no matter how much fun I have imagining Picard speak with a US Southern accent or Cockney , his accent still suits his character the best.

Because it lends authenticity and credibility to the role.

[RedShirtsRuS]

It's not that far off actually, listen to an Arabic British national speak, they can speak perfect Arabic and perfect English(with a British accent). It can be done.

[DevilEyes]

Originally Posted by chator

Because it lends authenticity and credibility to the role.

So, you're saying that it is unauthentic and incredible that a foreigner can ever learn to speak English perfectly?

Or that they have to speak in a foreign accent because the audience is too dumb to realize that they're foreigners if they don't?

[chator]

I suppose Picard could have been born in France at a young age and raised or schooled in England, until he decides to join Starfleet, and moves again to San Francisco. That's my best solution to the problem.

But i wouldn't want to get rid of Stewart as Picard or his English accent, it adds real gravitas to the role, which is why they probably decided to let him use it.

[Futureguy]

Why would he need to have a French accent while speaking English? Say if he started learning English at a very young age and has been speaking it for all of his career if he has any talent for languages, he'd have a perfect command of English together with an English accent. It's even somewhat insulting to suggest that a French person can never learn English so well that you couldn't notice a trace of French accent in his speech. And what are the alternatives, providing Picard learned English perfectly, including the pronounciation? Either British, American, Australian, Canadian, or a regional accent. So why not British? And no matter how much fun I have imagining Picard speak with a US Southern accent or Cockney , his accent still suits his character the best.[/quote]

I know some students that I went to university with that came from several different areas of the world. After they had stayed here for a while and then went on vacations trips back home, many of them came back saying that their native dialects had been found by family to be "somewhat corrupted" by the quaint southern accent of our many other teachers and students. Not replaced, mind you, with English words, though that has also happened, but impacted by the inflections of vowels and syllables they have learned speaking "Southern" English.

[cbx550bertie]

Future guy hits the nail on the head i`ve a friend who has lived in wisconsin for a decade or so now and when he comes home to the uk his blackcountry accent has gone and been replaced with an american accent its quite wierd really cause it slowly reappears the longer he stays and it drives his wife and kids mad as they cant understand him when he starts going"yow aye and our kid".....Ahhh yow ave to bae there our kid tow see it!!!