Seeing that it's Calvin's 500th birthday I though this would make for an interesting bit of trivia... for what it's worth.

The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies John Calvin’s mother tongue

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Trevor James
Ruling Elder, St. Paul's RBC
Oreland, PA.

1689 London Baptist Confession

That's interesting. I wonder if that was also the mother tongue of Guy de Bres.

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Wes Bredenhof
Pastor, Providence Canadian Reformed Church
Hamilton, Ontario
www.bredenhof.ca
Gospel Talk Radio Program

Hmmm... I thought Picard was the captain of the Enterprise D.

Theognome

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Bill Cunningham
Covenant Reformed Church, URC
Kansas City
There are three kinds of people- those who can count, and those who can't.

Well... at least this thread is good for something.

-----Added 7/5/2009 at 06:59:49 EST-----

Hey Wes,

I don't know who that is. I'm sure that ruins the joke if there was one, but could you fill me in?

Picard was one of five major dialects of the northern French that became modern French. I'd guess that if Calvin were asked, he'd have said he grew up speaking French.

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Tim Vaughan
Member, Redeemer Presbyterian, OPC,
Santa Maria
California

This is interesting! I would have never considered this. However, Picard looks pretty intelligible with French from what little I looked into it.

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Jake; Hold to Original WCF, member of SBC; Greater Atlanta, Georgia Area

The cross does not give us a minor shift or two with regard to a few of our ethical and moral and religious values; the cross radically disrupts the very center and citadel of your life from self to Christ. —Albert N. Martin

And here I thought Calvin spoke French. Now I discover he speaks either Federation Standard or alcohol... which is it?

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Jonathan
Audio Engineer
Reformed Anabaptist
Ohio

Moroni's magical glasses of proper interpretation:

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought the title was John Calvin's mother's tongue.

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Rangerus
Southern Baptist
Austin, TX
Teacher and Volunteer
1689 LBCF & BF&M 2000

And the Enterprise E, after a certain somebody went and crashed the D on a planet...

Me too... and many others as well. That's why I thought this would be interesting.

The question is- did the effect of the nexus mean he actually crashed it twice?

Theognome

Many patois words are very similar to French, but a large number of words are totally specific to Picard, principally terms relating to mining.
Here are several typical northern phrases in Picard, accompanied by French and English translations:

Mi, à quatre heures, j'archine eune bonne tartine.

Moi, à quatre heures, je mange une bonne tartine.

"At four o'clock, I eat a good slice of bread."

Quind un Ch'ti mi i'est'à l'agonie, savez vous bin che qui li rind la vie ? I bot un d'mi. (Les Capenoules (a music group))

Quand un Nordiste est à l'agonie, savez-vous bien ce qui lui rend la vie ? Il boit un demi.

"When a northerner is in his death-throes, do you know what revives him? He drinks a beer."

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Gil Garcia
Rehoboth Reformed Church (RCUS)
La Habra, CA

"Ignorance of this distinction between Law and Gospel is one of the principal sources of the abuses which corrupted and still corrupt Christianity." - Calvin's successor


"By the words of the law man is admonished and taught, not what he can do, but what he ought to do. How is it that you theologians are twice as stupid as schoolboys, in that as soon as you get hold of a single imperative verb you infer an indicative meaning...?"
-Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will