Language pack issue has me stumped!

"Cannot instantiate mail function"

This error is appearing after the registration submission when the official Joomla French language pack is set as the default for the site; no activation email is sent. English works fine, no errors and the activation email is sent. Thought it may be something with the host/email, but nope, installed the official Spanish and Dutch language packs to test that theory, and they too work just fine; activation emails sent to the registrant, nicely in Spanish and Dutch :)

Went ahead and got the full French Joomla install and tried that on the same hosting account. Same thing: when French is the default front end language, the error; switch to English, Spanish or Dutch and all works fine.

I went through all off the FR language (.ini) files that I thought may be involved (user, contact, "main") but I am obviously missing something :) Any one have an idea of where else to look? I posted this on the Joomla.fr forum as well, but as yet, no reply.

Cheers!
Lyle