One interesting, if seemingly silly thing I heard someone say once was that they basically talk in reaction gifs, just with a more mythology-text flavor. Picard, his palm upon his head. A dog, sits within a burning house. A man blinks twice, his head tilted. etc Also even in the episode, there''s some pretty extreme non-verbal components. Practically every time they say something there's a full body motion involved (such as when the 1st office guy is irritated... he is leaning forwards aggressively and almost baring his teeth) that is actually more in line with thngs we'd understand then the metaphors. Along with vocal tones. Which many humans (some neurodivergencies aside) pick up an understanding of without being formally taught. As a technical manual goes, you can do pretty complex instructions simply with diagrams and shapes. Many folks can follow the directions to build a shelf from IKEA even if they lose the one in their language just off the pictures. We also never encounter their math or science, which even on earth are effectively separate from common languages (ie, no one talks in standard conversation about drinking dihydrogen monoxide, but in a chem lab you might use that context)
Everyone seems to forget just how far our own languages have come over time. Would you know what a metaphor an ancient Egyptian or Englishman from the 14th century meant? If all you knew were metaphor that had been passed down through your society over time it would develop just like ours. The metaphor would replace words over time.
I like the idea that Tamarians rely heavily on pantomime. It's actually kind of charming to imagine Tamarian parents teaching children by dramatically acting out scenes from history.
I like to imagine a future where we communicate this way but using pop culture and memes.. For example, I can describe the plot this way: Enterprise and Tamarians: "Challenge accepted" Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra" Enterprise: "No, this is Parick" Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra" Enterprise: "Confused Travolta" Picard: "X-Files theme song" Enterprise crew: "Surprised Pikachu face", "Ackbar: It's a trap!" Picard: "A whole new world" Tamarian ship: "Gandalf: You shall not pass!" Picard to Enterprise: "Beam me up, Scotty!" Tamarian Captain: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" Picard: "Confused Travolta" Tamarian Captain: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" Picard: "Picard Facepalm" Tamarian Captain: "Shaka, when the walls fell" Picard: Bad Luck Brian. "Jaws theme playing" Tamarian Captain: "Temba. His arms wide" "Avengers Assemble" "Release the Kraken" "Houston, we have a problem" Tamarian Captain: Bad luck Brian. Tamarian: The beast at Tanagra. Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra. Picard: Mind blown. Picard: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" Tamarian: "Sokath, his eyes uncovered!" Picars: 07 Tamarian Captain: "The beast at Tanagra!" Psycho shower scene. Tamarian Captain: "Game over man. Game over!" O'Brien: Epic Fail. Tamarian Captain: "Temba, at rest." Picard: "F in the chat" Picard: "Beam me up Scotty!" Success Kid. Picard to Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra." Tamarian Ship: "Sokath, his eyes uncovered!" Picard: "Temba, at rest." Tamarian Ship: "Feels bad, man"
I just said the same. I like to imagine a future where we communicate this way but using pop culture and memes.. For example, the plot: Enterprise and Tamarians: "Challenge accepted" Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra" Enterprise: "No, this is Parick" Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra" Enterprise: "Confused Travolta" Picard: "X-Files theme song" Enterprise crew: "Surprised Pikachu face", "Ackbar: It's a trap!" Picard: "A whole new world" Tamarian ship: "Gandalf: You shall not pass!" Picard to Enterprise: "Beam me up, Scotty!" Tamarian Captain: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" Picard: "Confused Travolta" Tamarian Captain: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" Picard: "Picard Facepalm" Tamarian Captain: "Shaka, when the walls fell" Picard: Bad Luck Brian. "Jaws theme playing" Tamarian Captain: "Temba. His arms wide" "Avengers Assemble" "Release the Kraken" "Houston, we have a problem" Tamarian Captain: Bad luck Brian. Tamarian: The beast at Tanagra. Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra. Picard: Mind blown. Picard: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" Tamarian: "Sokath, his eyes uncovered!" Picars: 07 Tamarian Captain: "The beast at Tanagra!" Psycho shower scene. Tamarian Captain: "Game over man. Game over!" O'Brien: Epic Fail. Tamarian Captain: "Temba, at rest." Picard: "F in the chat" Picard: "Beam me up Scotty!" Success Kid. Picard to Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra." Tamarian Ship: "Sokath, his eyes uncovered!" Picard: "Temba, at rest." Tamarian Ship: "Feels bad, man"
when Flubber came out, I found myself drawn to the adorable li'l robot who constantly posted clips from TV and movies to make comparisons to the situation at hand. I WANTED that power. Then internet happened, and now I can. not quite as easily, but it's the way that feels most natural to communicate.
(Excuse the really long comment but this is one of my favorite Star Trek episodes) This is just from memory of Darmok so I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the things we hear the Tamarians say are always descriptions of people at particular places and times, but not what those people are doing. What that suggests to me is that this language might lack verbs-so all actions have to be inferred from the situation that’s described. I think it’s also possible that the universal translator is extrapolating the language’s structure; we hear “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”, but it could be that the Tamarian Captain is actually saying “Darmok Jalad Tanagra” with the relationship coming entirely from word order or context. Another possibility is that the mythohistorical context the Tamarians draw from makes it possible for the same word to mean totally different things; “Napoleon at Austerlitz” conveys a very different meaning from “Napoleon at Waterloo”, and there’s no way you’d understand the difference even if you knew that Napoleon is a person and the other two words are places. If we allow all these possibilities, what we get is a language that conveys a lot of information in very few words (a feature that many engineered languages try to have-maybe the Tamarians are speaking an in-universe conlang!), but which even an incredibly powerful language processing computer couldn’t hope to solve. Maybe it could work out the general grammatical structure, but it would be hopeless in figuring out what anyone actually means by what they’re saying. As to math, if the language really is this compact and relies on multiple levels of abstraction, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imagine technical material could be similarly represented in an abstracted form: “Newton (at) Cambridge” might express “take the derivative”. On the other hand, it’s not like we express mathematical ideas in natural language either; “c^2 = a^2 + b^2” is already an abstracted form that relies on conventions totally separate from the rules of English-so the Tamarians could equally have developed a highly symbolic written language for scientific use that has little to do with their spoken language, or even their ordinary written language. We’re perfectly comfortable expressing things using the specialized notation used for mathematics or music that ordinary spoken English is insufficient for.
I have to admit that even with my love for this episode, I never really realized we weren't hearing what that Tamarians were actually saying, we were hearing what the Universal Translator was saying. Or maybe I did, I remember having that sort of thought during the episode but never really considered it in subsequent discussions of the episode. I sort of forgot that what we should be hearing are random grunts and growls. (Or clicks or whistles or whatever sounds an alien vocal organ can make)
Also, something I wanted to point out is that we humans have to absorb a lot of culture to explain our language. To the point where most of us don't even know the origin of the reference, we just learn it in context. This is described quite well in this video. It's possible their children learned their culture the same way ours did. They watched recreations of it. Or, they simply absorbed the context through repetition.
once in a while, especially as often as crews like to joke with each other, you'd expect an alien crew member to be like "i don't get it.. oh wait, does that rhyme in your language? or do those words sound the same? they don't in mine."
This is what always fascinated me about the episode. The language is just so alien to our understanding. It causes you to consider so many different possibilities. I'm not a language expert, so I'm coming from this practically blind. Still fascinating
But it's also not that alien. There are so many stories and pieces of media that are considered universal in our culture. People already quote these stories all the time in casual conversation to invoke the shared memory of them. If we did it to convey meaning or context we'd basically be doing exactly what that species does.
Life imitates art in surprising ways. It's basically just a species that developed language based on describing reaction images. "The baby, clenching his fist." "The cat in the ceiling, always watching." "The crab with laser eyes, the brand in silence." "Nicolas Cage, his eyes wide." "Homer Simpson, vanishing into the bushes." To anyone without context, all of those sound alien and impenetrable.
@@MrDj232 I'm reminded of someone who did reviews in a style similar to Chuck's who was completely unaware of the story of "Jonah and the Whale," and was left rhetorically fumbling when the show he was summarizing made the reference.
@@hariman7727 Imagine someone unfamiliar with meme culture coming into contact with two different unconnected meme descriptions of this kind and confounding them. "So I'm really confused: Why do people say that you have to be really intelligent to understand the Rick doing his roll?"
I always figured they learn the words as they learn the story and as they grow up they’re taught to use the metaphors kinda like we get taught how to be polite. Kid: “Thanks, Mister!” Mum: “No, what do you say instead?” Kid *sigh* “Sumak knelt before Shumon.” (or whatever)
Maybe they have multiple languages for different contexts. For example, they use a more detailed and descriptive language to teach children, so that adults can easily communicate with the story references. So human language sounds like baby talk to them. Or maybe there's a different language used for technical work that communicates more specific details, like a recipe or instructions on how to repair a vehicle. So human language sounds like engineering jargon. Or even the referential languages is used exclusively for diplomatic situations because they view sharing stories as important to finding common ground.
@@alexanderf8451 In regards to the third part, the whole reason that they set up the situation on the planet so that Picard and Dathan can have the shared experience of the battle. So it's possible their form of diplomacy is heavily reliant on shared experiences.
So they've never tried to talk to anyone who didn't already share their entire cultural context? That doesn't just require the Federation to be their first interstellar contact, it requires them to have been a monoculture ever since they first developed language! If they have other languages for other contexts, it would be extraordinarily stupid to rely solely on the one language that is, by definition, going to be completely opaque to outsiders as their "diplomatic language."
@@Philistine47 i mean, these are just random speculation. Also almost every planet in star trek is a monoculture. Monoculture is the norm, earth is the odd one out. Which is why earth is the core of the federation, humans are better at forming communities out of separate groups.
Then you'd think they'd try those other languages when talking to the Federation, rather than have to try something so dramatic as kidnapping the other captain and risking death.
I always took this episode as a deconstruction of the universal translator itself (perhaps even unintentionally). All language exists in a cultural context, all language is full of metaphor and allegory, even in the connotations of common words. I imagine even if the UT could reliably work out basic vocabulary and grammar, you might realistically run into roadblocks like this in translating any language - especially from someone who doesn't have even the most basic shared context of specifically human experience.
Yeah, it reminds me of watching a video explaining how haiku works and why it's a mistake to explain it's structure in terms of syllables, because Japanese is rhythmically structured around a unit known as a mora instead. Because every mora in Japanese takes an equal length of time to speak, but in English they vary in length based on whether the word is stressed or not, the rhythm of haiku cannot be properly translated into English at all! And so the structure of haiku only really works in it's native language, and any attempt to make an English Haiku will at best merely approximate the way they sound in Japanese (let alone translating Japanese poems, which is a nightmare). Plus there is the difficulty in translating communication styles, which goes beyond language and into culture. It gets into things like high context and low context (whether the things we say can be taken at face value or whether environmental and behavioral cues are intended to alter their meaning) or perceptions of time and organization. Darmok sounds like a story that was developed when someone in the writing room first heard about high context speech and how that breaks translation algorithms in real life, and decided to make a story that takes it to the extreme. They don't quite get how high context communication actually works, but at least reminding their audience that there is more to translation than just finding word equivalencies, which don't always exist, was something they succeeded at conveying in this episode.
I always assumed that as children they are taught the language in stages, and perhaps because of how their mind works, they automatically revert to metaphor as that's how information is reinforced. At a very young age they learn basic rules and grammar, and perhaps at the same time it's very culturally ingrained to tell stories. So a bed time story for them is an even more important educational tool than it would be for us. At some point, their language class becomes ancient history class. They aren't necessarily taught to speak in metaphor, the way they process their thoughts naturally organizes that way. It also serves as a strong community bond as everyone would have to share the same stories so everyone could be understood.
I had this random idea that the aliens in Darmok, may not have been an "amnesia species". Meaning they remember everything from previous incarnations of the self. So context is built in to their metaphor language by default. It just doesn't make itself useful when communicating with other species.
I honestly don't think that the aliens actually spoke in metaphors. Instead, I think the language was just so alien that metaphors were as close as the Federation's translators could get at deciphering it until the language could be properly learned at a later time.
right, the computer was having trouble figuring out the where the verb and object and so on. ever do a goggle translate on a language and then reverse it back. the phrase sometimes change in meaning when reverse. So the computer was mixing context. also someone mention body language also play a role in it something the computer may miss.
Long time ago I was privileged to have several chats with Arthur C Clarke. (Mid 80s. I'm Sri Lankan) 2001/2010 space oddesey... tycho monoliths influence on human evolution etc. He said language has two aspects, artistic/literary and scientific/engineering technology related. Whilst the former can be colorful the latter must be very precise... Can't solve concepts of quantum physics in allegory can you? Has to be solved in terms of the very precise language of mathematics Under his and similar influence why nasa had the prime numbers and i think the fabenaci sequence included in voyagers data repository on earth...
People picking the language apart miss the point. The universal translator could translate the words but not their context or intent. It was a genius way to have a communications barrier even with a device like a UT.
I like all the discussion around the Darmok episode, I wonder if the writers considered the same discussions when creating the episode or if the goal was just to have a proper communication episode without the universal translator.
My biggest gripe with this episode is the scene where Data and Troi find out that "Darmok" and "Tanagra" are terms from Chantil III. They then didn't proceed to ask the computer about the story itself. I'm pretty sure it's in there.
7:55 It's interesting you mention this, because when I (rather cryptically, at least on my Facebook wall where I posted it) put togther a clever (if somewhat contrived) Emoji interpretation of the Phonetic Alphabet, I ended up choosing the Knife 🔪 emoji for Juliet, because of this very same subtext. Of course that's also confusing when, in the line-up of emojis, it's parked right next to the emoji representing the letter K, or Kilo. But it was interesting experiment, nonetheless 😅
It's a cool idea (and explains pretty much everything) if the Tamarians are a telepathic species who use a hybrid of verbal and telepathy to communicate. Then, the metaphor they speak is more like a summary or TLDR version of the more complicated thought they're transmitting. Alternatively, they could be a culture that at first developed a more typical language, but then began to use more and more figures of speech which they themselves only knew partial origins to (like english-speakers talking about going "the whole nine yards" or "rocking the boat" or "whipping into shape.") Then, over time, more literal constructions of speech lost critical context for them, to the point where saying "two guys on an island" made no sense because there was no inherent context to give meaning. But "Darmok and Jilad at Tanagra" makes perfect sense because of the context inherent to the story. Contextless / literal speech thus became a kind of gibberish to them, the way "balls to the wall" types of figures of speech must sound to non-english-speakers. It would require that they have an absolutely vast number of aphorisms to cover all categories / situations they might need to describe, but you can get that with specialized dialects, similarly to how two ornithologists might be able to hold an entire conversation out of which a volcanologist could only understand a handfull of words. The crew of the Tamarian vessel would have lots of precise metaphors for how to fly a ship, and they're struggling to use alien-contact-related metaphors given that it's such an unusual situation, so it sounds clunky and everyone feels frustrated.
Drake his hand blocking his face from the text "it doesn't make sense." Drake his finger pointing to your explanation A woman holding a sign that says this with an arrow pointing up.
The 'Foreigner' series by Cherryh shows the sci-fi story telling potential behind understanding translation is more than words. The hero is a translator who has spent their life trying to understand an alien culture. The aliens have no concept of 'friend' their society operates on hierarchy. How do you translate "I couldn't betray him, he's my friend" when the aliens don't understand what personal affection is? To them it's like saying "I couldn't betray him, he's my tax collector". Even when you have the right words, the meaning seems like nonsense
I read the Wikipedia entry for the episode, and one criticism someone pointed out was "How is this race able to achieve faster-than-light travel if they can't say 'Hand me a ¾" wrench'?"
I've always considered the following possibility: The language itself is not metaphors. The metaphors are actually the Federation's universal translators' attempt at deciphering a new language that was so alien that the metaphors were as close as the translators could get until the language could be properly studied later on.
@@BioGoji-zm5ph Yes, that's my take on it too. The universal translator would need to have all the Tamarian stories loaded into its database for it to come up with a usable translation. Rather as it took the Rosetta stone's greek text along with inspired guesswork to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphics.
I'm very glad for your explanation, because this always bothered me that they did not catch that it was metaphors quickly or that those before had not.
About teaching a kid language, couldn't they use picture books? Also, I think numbers might be used without metafor. In fact, I think I heard one metafor referencing a number.
One thing that I don't think most people appreciate is just how much metaphor factors into all human languages. Almost everything that we say, almost every word, is an encapsulation of a conceptual metaphor, likening one thing with another. Example #1: all of our temporal terminology is based on terms for spacial distances, in English and in just about every other natural language. Example #2: many emotional descriptions involve words for temperatures; hot with anger, cool and aloof, even the word temperment in general with all of its derivations. The list of examples could easily exceed the character limit here. Suffice to say, we don't even think of these as metaphors anymore, but they are, and we could actually say very little if we attempted to forego all metaphorical speech and only use non-derived roots.
But the problem is that the metaphors come AFTER the basic language structure, even the ones that break the rules. How to people learn Darmok is a hunter without a simple definition of WHAT a hunter is and what hunting is. Even that pretty much comes after learning what animals are. There needs to be some basic sense of vocabulary unless the people are, in fact telepathic. How could you understand the metaphor of "Taking a bite of the apple" without knowing the story of Adam & Eve? After that, how can you know that story without knowing about the concepts of apples, serpents, paradise, temptation, etc. There are an incredible number of building blocks required before you get to using metaphors within conversation.
@@carlrood4457 do you know what O.k. means? Most people have no clue what the context of O.k. but cause the way we use it we get an idea what it means. So when we hear it we know its meaning. as long as anyone use the same phrase for a particular meaning then even children know what it means. a good example is the phrase Hosted by your own petard. A phrase that like ok most people have no history what where it comes from but we know it mean you just fk up
These days, I find myself regularly quoting memes in text messages. Not the image, just the caption. For example: everywhere I wonder if this episode, should it ever be remade, would stick to the word metaphor, or if they would update it to memes as I feel like that would be more relatable to an audience's life experiences.
I've always thought of their language as being made exclusively out of cultural references. Something like an internet reviewer who makes a video in which the script is completely composed of popculture memes. It's just one reference right after another only making sense to the target audience because they are already familiar with the stories & characters being referenced, but sounding like gibberish to anyone else. I figure that's how their young learn the language. They watch a lot of plays, shows or movies, or read a lot of comic books; it's from there they pick up the context and eventually they can speak fluently. Or in other words: their people speak entirely in memes. Which just might be the future of all online discorse. Eventually we'll all be *Picard in Darmok.*
Tibetan and Cajun. Also, British English and American English are actually two different languages, but share so much in common that communication is possible.
@@tarvoc746 Finnish is another good example. It's REALLY hard to speak for outsiders because a lot of the syntax/structure of the language is different from everywhere else.
@@hariman7727 Most people don't even know Frisian is a different language, because Frisia is politically and culturally part of Germany (except for the little bit that belongs to the Netherlands) and the two languages can intercommunicate almost seamlessly as long as the Frisian speaker doesn't lean into it really hard. But from a linguistic point of view, Frisian is actually its own language situated kinda inbetween Dutch, English and German, and at least in some ways closer to the former two.
Language and writing systems can be funny. Here in Europe, I can see Finnish words, and probably know what they generally sound like, because they use the same alphabet and basic vowel pronunciation as my native Dutch, but I will have no idea what it means, because Finnish isn't an Indo-European language, so there are common roots missing for me to try and understand it. In contrast: Japan adopted the Chinese script, so a Japanese person could see a Chinese text, and basically understand the general meaning, because they would understand the concept behind the characters, however, they would have no idea how to pronounce it, the opposite to the first example.
Ok Rob Schnider did a bit on the most versatile word in the English language is dude. Depending on the situation and emphasis it conveys many different meanings. Hello. Goodbye. How are you? Astonishment. Exasperation or other emotions. That or the word fuck.
Darmok points to one of the most egregious issues with the universal translator and why it would not realistically work: Language is not logical. Language is filled with history, with words originating somewhere completely else, with words changing meaning over time (e.g. "gift" means "present" in English, but changed its meaning to "poison" in German despite common ancestry due to sarcasm). And, most importantly, with metaphor. So much we speak is grounded in metaphor, in common cultural ideas. Names of heroes, of old gods, mythical places and events, animals and plants, even quotes from recent pieces of literature and media permeate our communication. For these reasons, a real universal translator encountering a completely new language would put out barely recognizable gibberish as it does here. It's still somewhat stupid in that a spacefaring civilization should be able to recognize other species won't share their cultural background and more plain language is needed, but they might just be psychologically incapable of such a thing. We have seen planets wearing far dumber hats in Trek.
More plain language may not be possible while continuing to use their native tongue. They are still trying to figure out how English works as well, and hearing Gilgamesh made the Tamarians captain laugh-- perhaps he was hearing a really weird translation and finally realized what was going on the whole time? You know, some anime dubs will use the Japanese prefixes "-san", " -chan", "-sama", and so on even though otherwise everything has been translated into English. Those are honorifics, so ingrained into Japanese that not using an honorific in addressing someone is itself an honorific, signifying either the closest of affection, or the most sarcastic insult, depending on the relationship between the speaker and the person being addressed. Because English lacks a good equivalent system of address, and because so much relationship information is covered through honorifics, a complete and accurate translation of an ordinary Japanese conversation into English isn't always possible in a reasonable amount of time or space, you just have to learn the honorific system or choose to leave it out and live with the loss of meaning. This kind of problem inevitably pops up between any two language; for instance, the common trick in English literature where a narrator's identity is hidden by the choice of using first person narration doesn't work in many other languages because the grammar insists on revealing a minimum number of details about the person talking, like their gender or their age. We take it for granted that the word hides details, but it doesn't actually have a direct equivalent in some languages.
I'm always happy when people speculate on the alien language, but I dislike it when some say that it's a plot hole because their language would be impractical. They are aliens! If something's a plot hole, that would be how most of the aliens in science fiction are so much like us! So yeah, they're different, their brain is different, and their society works in ways that we have issue conceiving. This is good science fiction. As for my guess, the metaphors evolve with the aging. First it's "mommy with the spoon" to indicate eating, then it just gets more complicated. No need for a psychic link.
Just because incredible things are possible in the setting doesn't mean that literally any thing that seems strange to you must immediately be accepted. There are limits to what makes sense, though those will differ depending on sensibilities and maybe imagination.
@@KairuHakubi I think the actual translation of the whole "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra" is "We opposed parties must work together to come to an understanding." And that sort of thing is shown in Lower Decks, with a Tamarian crewman joining the cast.
@@hariman7727 yeah that sounds about right. why uh, why'd you reply to me? I don't think I was really on that specific subject Now that I look at my initial reply actually I forgot to mention that star trek DID answer the question of why the aliens are all so human.
Actually, to me at least, the bigger thing about this episode is the truly alien species it creates. The translator, as I understand it, kinda works from brainwaves and translates different languages. Great. But the communication difficulties in this episode go deeper than that. Even species never seen before that act in ways totally unlike humans (like the borg) can be translated. But with the aliens here... it can't be. So that'd indicate a species with such a totally different mental makeup that the thing that works for everything else just doesn't work. A lot could be extrapolated in the trek universe from that. The idea that species exist that are totally unlike other ones in the galaxy and therefore have a different root from every other species...
Or would if they didn't have a universal translator that normally takes no time at all to work, even with languages that no one has ever encountered before.
Or its just a religous/cultural thing for tamarians to speak in official situations like this and they gave a more informal language for casual/private conversations. Just saying.
That's a very specific level of desperation, where the Tamarian captain is desperate enough to kidnap his opposite number and strand the pair of them in a wilderness with a dangerous predator and nothing but speculative teamwork and sharpened metal for protection, but not desperate enough to break linguistic protocol.
gooder is wrong because the English language is a grab of words and rules from 4-5 other languages. check any ancient language surviving = not frustrating to children
@@BioGoji-zm5ph okay well I was gonna suggest reviewing that series as it's sci fi, but thinking about it you might be better off with neon genesis evangelion.
@@ginkoflow7376 I've seen that too. Oh, by the way, I'm not the guy who posted this video. I'm just a random passerby who had just hoped he'd found a fellow Gintama fan.
@@ginkoflow7376 Elizabeth. I haven't watched Gintama in a few years, though, but when I still did, He... she... that person in the costume was my favorite character.
It's the same with English translation programs. They work fine with European languages. But with a language like Japanese it makes numerous mistakes with pronouns and gender.
Idiom works this way. Like the phrase he hit a home run...if you know nothing of baseball, it's a meaningless phrase, especially when used in a situation that has nothing to do with the game. I think that is what is going on is that the aliens language is so laden with idiom and metaphor that the UT can't make heads or tails of it. The REAL mystery is why isn't this a more common problem.
"Metaphors are everywhere in language; why is it a problem here?" combined with "If simple understanding is proving difficult, why not use simpler, less compact language?" explain everything wrong with the story as shown. I also think it's somewhat beside the point, because even if you can ostensibly talk to each other you can't necessarily make a connection without some sort of shared experience, which was the Tamarian solution to the problem.
I've seen this in fansubbing. In one theme song, a Japanese phrase got translated as "fire it like a bullet liner", but the actual translation is "Hit it out like a line drive", because it's a baseball metaphor.
Your solution to that equation he showed on screen? Personally I got "2" as a result. Resolved the brackets first, then any multiplications, then did the additions & subtractions in turn. Hoping I remember my maths education properly here...
@@ChrisGJ700 I was treating the numbers not in parenthesis, like they were also in them. So: (4+2) 3-9+2 (1+1) -11 = (6) 3-9+2 (2) - 11= 18 -9+4-11= 9+4-11= 13-11= 4 How does that look?
Being generous, "Darmok" does for linguistics what "Threshold" did for biology. Could the Tamarians have multiple languages, including one or more written languages - and perhaps even mind-to-mind communication, as Chuck speculates here? Absolutely! In fact, it's not merely possible, but probable - bordering on certainty. The idea that they evolved all the way from primordial soup to advanced spaceflight without ever once encountering even one foreign language, including from different cultures on their home planet, beggars belief. (Related: it's _really freaking weird_ that every race in the Star Trek galaxy appears to have only a single language. That _could_ just be an artifact of the Universal-except-when-the-plot-says-no Translator... if only so many different characters didn't refer to "the (group) language" as singular tongues spoken by their entire interplanetary empires.) But given that they probably do have other, inherently more useful and teachable languages, why don't the Tamarians use them when they're trying to establish communications with outsiders who _they know_ don't share the cultural framework to understand their allusions?Supposing that the Tamarians in fact have multiple working languages doesn't make the episode _smarter._ From the Federation side, meanwhile, we know they have both telepaths and empaths. There's an empath right there on the command staff (for some reason) of the _Enterprise!_ So if this is such a thorny problem, and the UFP considers it such a high priority, why aren't they sending in a team of psychics to meet the Tamarians? We know that Vulcans can establish communication with creatures _far_ more alien than the Tamarians via mind meld (see for example the Horta from TOS), after all. Jean-Luc Picard may not actually be the worst person in the Federation to try to establish communications with this new culture, but there's zero chance he's the _best_ choice. There are entire planetary populations better suited to the job. But what's even worse is that the episode repeatedly breaks its own rules. The whole point is that supposedly nobody has managed to establish communication with the Tamarians. At all! Ever! But the Tamarians sent the Federation some mathematical expressions. I almost hate to break it to the episode, but _that's communication._ It's a bit limited, sure - but if you put a Federation mathematician and a Tamarian mathematician in a room together, they should be able to give the linguists a basis, a place to start. And it gets worse. "Chucklehead, his arms wide"? Okay, just in that sentence we've got a proper noun, a possessive, a noun, and an adjective. That's a fantastic starting point! "Arms" (pointing), "Legs" (pointing), "Head" (pointing), "Dagger" (pointing). No stupid "metaphors" required (trust Trek writers to not understand what freaking _metaphors_ are, BTW). And of course, at one point Counselor Catsuit claims that Alien McBumpyface and Xeno McLatexface were important figures in Tamarian culture. She would know that... _how,_ exactly? Via their long and detailed communications from the Tamarians? _Oh, wait._
"The Vodka is good but the meat is rotten." "bullet liner" They're both mistranlations from EARTH languages because context is missing. Also yes, there's SOME stupid here because the writers only have so much time and skill in writing, but the episode gets across more than enough that the "Threshold" comparison is utterly unfair.
@Hariman The problem is not that Picard & Co. don't have the context to make sense of the Tamarians' allusions. That's normal and expected for anyone attempting to make contact with a genuinely alien culture. The problem is that the Tamarians do not, according to the episode's premise, possess any way to _give_ the Feddies (or anybody else, including young Tamarians!) that context. Otherwise, why wouldn't they employ that means when they're explicitly trying to establish communication with people who they know are totally ignorant of their cultural context? And yes, that _is_ a "Threshold" level of That's Not How That Works: it's not just wrong, it's bizarrely and incomprehensibly wrong. But give the devil his due: as dumb and awful as "Threshold" is, at least that episode didn't have to violate its own premise in order to make the plot happen. "Darmok" _did._ The adoration lavished on this episode blows my mind.
Keep in mind that's a bit of a time capsule, written when the public knew Trump as a rich reality TV star, three or so years before he seriously joined the political scrum and became the Bad Orange Man.
@@boobah5643 some of us are aware nothing has changed and this is just a character he's playing to rip on us republicans.. sadly not that many, which is surprising given how obvious a troll it is.
@@KairuHakubi ...If it were a troll, he would have never ran in the first place. Trump actually did a LOT of good in office, but got opposed by both sides and stabbed in the back by supposed allies.
@@hariman7727 not following that logic. how can you troll everyone without running for office he literally just saw stephen colbert backing out and said 'hey that almost worked, i can play that character too' or his liberal media masters did or whatever. remember when the nomination debates were being run like a carnival sideshow, and the _real_ republican candidates objected, and were told they can either play ball and answer the goofy inflammatory questions or they can not run? because the media gets money for attention? this is not a tough process to follow.
One interesting, if seemingly silly thing I heard someone say once was that they basically talk in reaction gifs, just with a more mythology-text flavor. Picard, his palm upon his head. A dog, sits within a burning house. A man blinks twice, his head tilted. etc
Also even in the episode, there''s some pretty extreme non-verbal components. Practically every time they say something there's a full body motion involved (such as when the 1st office guy is irritated... he is leaning forwards aggressively and almost baring his teeth) that is actually more in line with thngs we'd understand then the metaphors. Along with vocal tones. Which many humans (some neurodivergencies aside) pick up an understanding of without being formally taught.
As a technical manual goes, you can do pretty complex instructions simply with diagrams and shapes. Many folks can follow the directions to build a shelf from IKEA even if they lose the one in their language just off the pictures. We also never encounter their math or science, which even on earth are effectively separate from common languages (ie, no one talks in standard conversation about drinking dihydrogen monoxide, but in a chem lab you might use that context)
DHMO, a horrible chemical that kills thousands every year...
So the Tamarians are essentially extreme Bronze Age Shitpost enjoyers?
Rich Evans, superimposed, sits on couch.
Everyone seems to forget just how far our own languages have come over time. Would you know what a metaphor an ancient Egyptian or Englishman from the 14th century meant? If all you knew were metaphor that had been passed down through your society over time it would develop just like ours. The metaphor would replace words over time.
I like the idea that Tamarians rely heavily on pantomime. It's actually kind of charming to imagine Tamarian parents teaching children by dramatically acting out scenes from history.
the eu material does state that is how the spoken language is taught.
*HES BEHIND YOU!* 🐴🤡
I like to imagine a future where we communicate this way but using pop culture and memes.. For example, I can describe the plot this way:
Enterprise and Tamarians: "Challenge accepted"
Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra"
Enterprise: "No, this is Parick"
Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra"
Enterprise: "Confused Travolta"
Picard: "X-Files theme song"
Enterprise crew: "Surprised Pikachu face",
"Ackbar: It's a trap!"
Picard: "A whole new world"
Tamarian ship: "Gandalf: You shall not pass!"
Picard to Enterprise: "Beam me up, Scotty!"
Tamarian Captain: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"
Picard: "Confused Travolta"
Tamarian Captain: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"
Picard: "Picard Facepalm"
Tamarian Captain: "Shaka, when the walls fell"
Picard: Bad Luck Brian.
"Jaws theme playing"
Tamarian Captain: "Temba. His arms wide"
"Avengers Assemble"
"Release the Kraken"
"Houston, we have a problem"
Tamarian Captain: Bad luck Brian.
Tamarian: The beast at Tanagra. Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra.
Picard: Mind blown.
Picard: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"
Tamarian: "Sokath, his eyes uncovered!"
Picars: 07
Tamarian Captain: "The beast at Tanagra!"
Psycho shower scene.
Tamarian Captain: "Game over man. Game over!"
O'Brien: Epic Fail.
Tamarian Captain: "Temba, at rest."
Picard: "F in the chat"
Picard: "Beam me up Scotty!"
Success Kid.
Picard to Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra."
Tamarian Ship: "Sokath, his eyes uncovered!"
Picard: "Temba, at rest."
Tamarian Ship: "Feels bad, man"
I imagine this is how it's like talking to the Junkions from Transformers G1. Or Johnny 5.
The language of the Tamarians makes a lot more sense when you consider Internet Memes.
I just said the same. I like to imagine a future where we communicate this way but using pop culture and memes.. For example, the plot:
Enterprise and Tamarians: "Challenge accepted"
Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra"
Enterprise: "No, this is Parick"
Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra"
Enterprise: "Confused Travolta"
Picard: "X-Files theme song"
Enterprise crew: "Surprised Pikachu face",
"Ackbar: It's a trap!"
Picard: "A whole new world"
Tamarian ship: "Gandalf: You shall not pass!"
Picard to Enterprise: "Beam me up, Scotty!"
Tamarian Captain: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"
Picard: "Confused Travolta"
Tamarian Captain: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"
Picard: "Picard Facepalm"
Tamarian Captain: "Shaka, when the walls fell"
Picard: Bad Luck Brian.
"Jaws theme playing"
Tamarian Captain: "Temba. His arms wide"
"Avengers Assemble"
"Release the Kraken"
"Houston, we have a problem"
Tamarian Captain: Bad luck Brian.
Tamarian: The beast at Tanagra. Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra.
Picard: Mind blown.
Picard: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"
Tamarian: "Sokath, his eyes uncovered!"
Picars: 07
Tamarian Captain: "The beast at Tanagra!"
Psycho shower scene.
Tamarian Captain: "Game over man. Game over!"
O'Brien: Epic Fail.
Tamarian Captain: "Temba, at rest."
Picard: "F in the chat"
Picard: "Beam me up Scotty!"
Success Kid.
Picard to Tamarian Ship: "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra."
Tamarian Ship: "Sokath, his eyes uncovered!"
Picard: "Temba, at rest."
Tamarian Ship: "Feels bad, man"
when Flubber came out, I found myself drawn to the adorable li'l robot who constantly posted clips from TV and movies to make comparisons to the situation at hand. I WANTED that power. Then internet happened, and now I can. not quite as easily, but it's the way that feels most natural to communicate.
@@DamonCzanikwow.
You went off - amazing work.
It's not quite though. It's like trying to explain a meme with zero context, using only other memes. You already need to know what the memes mean.
Hieroglyphs.
Pikachu, with his mouth agape.
Delighted this is back up, this was one of my favorite side vids back in the day and is a good balance of serious analysis with snarky jokes.
(Excuse the really long comment but this is one of my favorite Star Trek episodes) This is just from memory of Darmok so I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the things we hear the Tamarians say are always descriptions of people at particular places and times, but not what those people are doing. What that suggests to me is that this language might lack verbs-so all actions have to be inferred from the situation that’s described. I think it’s also possible that the universal translator is extrapolating the language’s structure; we hear “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”, but it could be that the Tamarian Captain is actually saying “Darmok Jalad Tanagra” with the relationship coming entirely from word order or context. Another possibility is that the mythohistorical context the Tamarians draw from makes it possible for the same word to mean totally different things; “Napoleon at Austerlitz” conveys a very different meaning from “Napoleon at Waterloo”, and there’s no way you’d understand the difference even if you knew that Napoleon is a person and the other two words are places. If we allow all these possibilities, what we get is a language that conveys a lot of information in very few words (a feature that many engineered languages try to have-maybe the Tamarians are speaking an in-universe conlang!), but which even an incredibly powerful language processing computer couldn’t hope to solve. Maybe it could work out the general grammatical structure, but it would be hopeless in figuring out what anyone actually means by what they’re saying.
As to math, if the language really is this compact and relies on multiple levels of abstraction, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imagine technical material could be similarly represented in an abstracted form: “Newton (at) Cambridge” might express “take the derivative”. On the other hand, it’s not like we express mathematical ideas in natural language either; “c^2 = a^2 + b^2” is already an abstracted form that relies on conventions totally separate from the rules of English-so the Tamarians could equally have developed a highly symbolic written language for scientific use that has little to do with their spoken language, or even their ordinary written language. We’re perfectly comfortable expressing things using the specialized notation used for mathematics or music that ordinary spoken English is insufficient for.
I have to admit that even with my love for this episode, I never really realized we weren't hearing what that Tamarians were actually saying, we were hearing what the Universal Translator was saying.
Or maybe I did, I remember having that sort of thought during the episode but never really considered it in subsequent discussions of the episode. I sort of forgot that what we should be hearing are random grunts and growls. (Or clicks or whistles or whatever sounds an alien vocal organ can make)
Also, something I wanted to point out is that we humans have to absorb a lot of culture to explain our language. To the point where most of us don't even know the origin of the reference, we just learn it in context. This is described quite well in this video.
It's possible their children learned their culture the same way ours did. They watched recreations of it. Or, they simply absorbed the context through repetition.
once in a while, especially as often as crews like to joke with each other, you'd expect an alien crew member to be like "i don't get it.. oh wait, does that rhyme in your language? or do those words sound the same? they don't in mine."
Where’s a Babel fish when you need one.
This is what always fascinated me about the episode. The language is just so alien to our understanding. It causes you to consider so many different possibilities. I'm not a language expert, so I'm coming from this practically blind. Still fascinating
But it's also not that alien. There are so many stories and pieces of media that are considered universal in our culture. People already quote these stories all the time in casual conversation to invoke the shared memory of them. If we did it to convey meaning or context we'd basically be doing exactly what that species does.
Life imitates art in surprising ways. It's basically just a species that developed language based on describing reaction images.
"The baby, clenching his fist."
"The cat in the ceiling, always watching."
"The crab with laser eyes, the brand in silence."
"Nicolas Cage, his eyes wide."
"Homer Simpson, vanishing into the bushes."
To anyone without context, all of those sound alien and impenetrable.
@@MrDj232 I'm reminded of someone who did reviews in a style similar to Chuck's who was completely unaware of the story of "Jonah and the Whale," and was left rhetorically fumbling when the show he was summarizing made the reference.
@@KertaDrake "The Rick, doing his roll."
@@hariman7727 Imagine someone unfamiliar with meme culture coming into contact with two different unconnected meme descriptions of this kind and confounding them. "So I'm really confused: Why do people say that you have to be really intelligent to understand the Rick doing his roll?"
I always figured they learn the words as they learn the story and as they grow up they’re taught to use the metaphors kinda like we get taught how to be polite.
Kid: “Thanks, Mister!”
Mum: “No, what do you say instead?”
Kid *sigh* “Sumak knelt before Shumon.” (or whatever)
Maybe they have multiple languages for different contexts.
For example, they use a more detailed and descriptive language to teach children, so that adults can easily communicate with the story references. So human language sounds like baby talk to them.
Or maybe there's a different language used for technical work that communicates more specific details, like a recipe or instructions on how to repair a vehicle. So human language sounds like engineering jargon.
Or even the referential languages is used exclusively for diplomatic situations because they view sharing stories as important to finding common ground.
I love this explanation!
@@alexanderf8451 In regards to the third part, the whole reason that they set up the situation on the planet so that Picard and Dathan can have the shared experience of the battle.
So it's possible their form of diplomacy is heavily reliant on shared experiences.
So they've never tried to talk to anyone who didn't already share their entire cultural context? That doesn't just require the Federation to be their first interstellar contact, it requires them to have been a monoculture ever since they first developed language!
If they have other languages for other contexts, it would be extraordinarily stupid to rely solely on the one language that is, by definition, going to be completely opaque to outsiders as their "diplomatic language."
@@Philistine47 i mean, these are just random speculation. Also almost every planet in star trek is a monoculture. Monoculture is the norm, earth is the odd one out. Which is why earth is the core of the federation, humans are better at forming communities out of separate groups.
Then you'd think they'd try those other languages when talking to the Federation, rather than have to try something so dramatic as kidnapping the other captain and risking death.
"Assuming they're not Rick Berman"
We must all abhor what is the Antikrist of Andorias .
Goddess dam... I saw your comment first. Without context it makes no sense. 2 min in... im dieing.... thank you...
I can’t get enough Darmok.
I always took this episode as a deconstruction of the universal translator itself (perhaps even unintentionally).
All language exists in a cultural context, all language is full of metaphor and allegory, even in the connotations of common words.
I imagine even if the UT could reliably work out basic vocabulary and grammar, you might realistically run into roadblocks like this in translating any language - especially from someone who doesn't have even the most basic shared context of specifically human experience.
Yeah, it reminds me of watching a video explaining how haiku works and why it's a mistake to explain it's structure in terms of syllables, because Japanese is rhythmically structured around a unit known as a mora instead. Because every mora in Japanese takes an equal length of time to speak, but in English they vary in length based on whether the word is stressed or not, the rhythm of haiku cannot be properly translated into English at all! And so the structure of haiku only really works in it's native language, and any attempt to make an English Haiku will at best merely approximate the way they sound in Japanese (let alone translating Japanese poems, which is a nightmare).
Plus there is the difficulty in translating communication styles, which goes beyond language and into culture. It gets into things like high context and low context (whether the things we say can be taken at face value or whether environmental and behavioral cues are intended to alter their meaning) or perceptions of time and organization. Darmok sounds like a story that was developed when someone in the writing room first heard about high context speech and how that breaks translation algorithms in real life, and decided to make a story that takes it to the extreme. They don't quite get how high context communication actually works, but at least reminding their audience that there is more to translation than just finding word equivalencies, which don't always exist, was something they succeeded at conveying in this episode.
I always assumed that as children they are taught the language in stages, and perhaps because of how their mind works, they automatically revert to metaphor as that's how information is reinforced. At a very young age they learn basic rules and grammar, and perhaps at the same time it's very culturally ingrained to tell stories. So a bed time story for them is an even more important educational tool than it would be for us. At some point, their language class becomes ancient history class. They aren't necessarily taught to speak in metaphor, the way they process their thoughts naturally organizes that way. It also serves as a strong community bond as everyone would have to share the same stories so everyone could be understood.
This is one of many of your awesome and really funny videos. Great to see it back up.
I had this random idea that the aliens in Darmok, may not have been an "amnesia species". Meaning they remember everything from previous incarnations of the self.
So context is built in to their metaphor language by default. It just doesn't make itself useful when communicating with other species.
Interesting ideas - especially that of the psychic storytellers/teachers.
I honestly don't think that the aliens actually spoke in metaphors. Instead, I think the language was just so alien that metaphors were as close as the Federation's translators could get at deciphering it until the language could be properly learned at a later time.
right, the computer was having trouble figuring out the where the verb and object and so on. ever do a goggle translate on a language and then reverse it back. the phrase sometimes change in meaning when reverse. So the computer was mixing context. also someone mention body language also play a role in it something the computer may miss.
Long time ago I was privileged to have several chats with Arthur C Clarke.
(Mid 80s. I'm Sri Lankan)
2001/2010 space oddesey... tycho monoliths influence on human evolution etc.
He said language has two aspects, artistic/literary and scientific/engineering technology related.
Whilst the former can be colorful the latter must be very precise...
Can't solve concepts of quantum physics in allegory can you? Has to be solved in terms of the very precise language of mathematics
Under his and similar influence why nasa had the prime numbers and i think the fabenaci sequence included in voyagers data repository on earth...
People picking the language apart miss the point. The universal translator could translate the words but not their context or intent. It was a genius way to have a communications barrier even with a device like a UT.
I like all the discussion around the Darmok episode, I wonder if the writers considered the same discussions when creating the episode or if the goal was just to have a proper communication episode without the universal translator.
My biggest gripe with this episode is the scene where Data and Troi find out that "Darmok" and "Tanagra" are terms from Chantil III. They then didn't proceed to ask the computer about the story itself. I'm pretty sure it's in there.
7:55 It's interesting you mention this, because when I (rather cryptically, at least on my Facebook wall where I posted it) put togther a clever (if somewhat contrived) Emoji interpretation of the Phonetic Alphabet, I ended up choosing the Knife 🔪 emoji for Juliet, because of this very same subtext. Of course that's also confusing when, in the line-up of emojis, it's parked right next to the emoji representing the letter K, or Kilo. But it was interesting experiment, nonetheless 😅
It's a cool idea (and explains pretty much everything) if the Tamarians are a telepathic species who use a hybrid of verbal and telepathy to communicate. Then, the metaphor they speak is more like a summary or TLDR version of the more complicated thought they're transmitting.
Alternatively, they could be a culture that at first developed a more typical language, but then began to use more and more figures of speech which they themselves only knew partial origins to (like english-speakers talking about going "the whole nine yards" or "rocking the boat" or "whipping into shape.") Then, over time, more literal constructions of speech lost critical context for them, to the point where saying "two guys on an island" made no sense because there was no inherent context to give meaning. But "Darmok and Jilad at Tanagra" makes perfect sense because of the context inherent to the story. Contextless / literal speech thus became a kind of gibberish to them, the way "balls to the wall" types of figures of speech must sound to non-english-speakers. It would require that they have an absolutely vast number of aphorisms to cover all categories / situations they might need to describe, but you can get that with specialized dialects, similarly to how two ornithologists might be able to hold an entire conversation out of which a volcanologist could only understand a handfull of words. The crew of the Tamarian vessel would have lots of precise metaphors for how to fly a ship, and they're struggling to use alien-contact-related metaphors given that it's such an unusual situation, so it sounds clunky and everyone feels frustrated.
My wife is not a native speaker of English and even she sometimes throws her hands up in exasperation at some English phrasing.
Now I'm trying to figure our how to explain rotating your tires in Darmok.....
Cletus and Jimbo move in circles with the round tires.
They talk in memes. A man, walking. Looking sad. A stronger man, staring after him, his legs spread.
Drake his hand blocking his face from the text "it doesn't make sense."
Drake his finger pointing to your explanation
A woman holding a sign that says this with an arrow pointing up.
You certainly have a much better grasp of linguistics than most lay people!
The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten.
(The spirit is willing, but the flesh is unable.)
You'd think that, if they used written language for complicated ideas, then they'd have tried using written language with the Federation.
The 7seven things in your memory thing has been discredited I understand. (First encountered in a book on the Forth programming language).
The 'Foreigner' series by Cherryh shows the sci-fi story telling potential behind understanding translation is more than words.
The hero is a translator who has spent their life trying to understand an alien culture. The aliens have no concept of 'friend' their society operates on hierarchy. How do you translate "I couldn't betray him, he's my friend" when the aliens don't understand what personal affection is? To them it's like saying "I couldn't betray him, he's my tax collector". Even when you have the right words, the meaning seems like nonsense
I read the Wikipedia entry for the episode, and one criticism someone pointed out was "How is this race able to achieve faster-than-light travel if they can't say 'Hand me a ¾" wrench'?"
I've always considered the following possibility: The language itself is not metaphors. The metaphors are actually the Federation's universal translators' attempt at deciphering a new language that was so alien that the metaphors were as close as the translators could get until the language could be properly studied later on.
@@BioGoji-zm5ph Yes, that's my take on it too. The universal translator would need to have all the Tamarian stories loaded into its database for it to come up with a usable translation. Rather as it took the Rosetta stone's greek text along with inspired guesswork to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphics.
I'm very glad for your explanation, because this always bothered me that they did not catch that it was metaphors quickly or that those before had not.
About teaching a kid language, couldn't they use picture books?
Also, I think numbers might be used without metafor. In fact, I think I heard one metafor referencing a number.
One thing that I don't think most people appreciate is just how much metaphor factors into all human languages. Almost everything that we say, almost every word, is an encapsulation of a conceptual metaphor, likening one thing with another. Example #1: all of our temporal terminology is based on terms for spacial distances, in English and in just about every other natural language. Example #2: many emotional descriptions involve words for temperatures; hot with anger, cool and aloof, even the word temperment in general with all of its derivations. The list of examples could easily exceed the character limit here. Suffice to say, we don't even think of these as metaphors anymore, but they are, and we could actually say very little if we attempted to forego all metaphorical speech and only use non-derived roots.
But the problem is that the metaphors come AFTER the basic language structure, even the ones that break the rules. How to people learn Darmok is a hunter without a simple definition of WHAT a hunter is and what hunting is. Even that pretty much comes after learning what animals are. There needs to be some basic sense of vocabulary unless the people are, in fact telepathic.
How could you understand the metaphor of "Taking a bite of the apple" without knowing the story of Adam & Eve? After that, how can you know that story without knowing about the concepts of apples, serpents, paradise, temptation, etc. There are an incredible number of building blocks required before you get to using metaphors within conversation.
@@carlrood4457 do you know what O.k. means? Most people have no clue what the context of O.k. but cause the way we use it we get an idea what it means. So when we hear it we know its meaning. as long as anyone use the same phrase for a particular meaning then even children know what it means. a good example is the phrase Hosted by your own petard. A phrase that like ok most people have no history what where it comes from but we know it mean you just fk up
I like to remember that "Mood" evolved from "That is such a Mood" and also what does Mood even mean.
These days, I find myself regularly quoting memes in text messages. Not the image, just the caption. For example:
everywhere
I wonder if this episode, should it ever be remade, would stick to the word metaphor, or if they would update it to memes as I feel like that would be more relatable to an audience's life experiences.
4:33 That's a similar explanation as to how Ariana Grande got a tattoo that says 'bar-b-que grill'.
I've always thought of their language as being made exclusively out of cultural references. Something like an internet reviewer who makes a video in which the script is completely composed of popculture memes. It's just one reference right after another only making sense to the target audience because they are already familiar with the stories & characters being referenced, but sounding like gibberish to anyone else. I figure that's how their young learn the language. They watch a lot of plays, shows or movies, or read a lot of comic books; it's from there they pick up the context and eventually they can speak fluently. Or in other words: their people speak entirely in memes. Which just might be the future of all online discorse. Eventually we'll all be *Picard in Darmok.*
Tibetan and Cajun.
Also, British English and American English are actually two different languages, but share so much in common that communication is possible.
Kind of like German and Frisian.
@@tarvoc746 Finnish is another good example.
It's REALLY hard to speak for outsiders because a lot of the syntax/structure of the language is different from everywhere else.
@@hariman7727 I meant German and Frisian are an example for two technically different languages that can still intercommunicate.
@@tarvoc746 oh, my mistake.
@@hariman7727 Most people don't even know Frisian is a different language, because Frisia is politically and culturally part of Germany (except for the little bit that belongs to the Netherlands) and the two languages can intercommunicate almost seamlessly as long as the Frisian speaker doesn't lean into it really hard. But from a linguistic point of view, Frisian is actually its own language situated kinda inbetween Dutch, English and German, and at least in some ways closer to the former two.
Language and writing systems can be funny.
Here in Europe, I can see Finnish words, and probably know what they generally sound like, because they use the same alphabet and basic vowel pronunciation as my native Dutch, but I will have no idea what it means, because Finnish isn't an Indo-European language, so there are common roots missing for me to try and understand it.
In contrast: Japan adopted the Chinese script, so a Japanese person could see a Chinese text, and basically understand the general meaning, because they would understand the concept behind the characters, however, they would have no idea how to pronounce it, the opposite to the first example.
Ok Rob Schnider did a bit on the most versatile word in the English language is dude.
Depending on the situation and emphasis it conveys many different meanings.
Hello. Goodbye. How are you?
Astonishment.
Exasperation or other emotions.
That or the word fuck.
Darmok points to one of the most egregious issues with the universal translator and why it would not realistically work: Language is not logical. Language is filled with history, with words originating somewhere completely else, with words changing meaning over time (e.g. "gift" means "present" in English, but changed its meaning to "poison" in German despite common ancestry due to sarcasm). And, most importantly, with metaphor. So much we speak is grounded in metaphor, in common cultural ideas. Names of heroes, of old gods, mythical places and events, animals and plants, even quotes from recent pieces of literature and media permeate our communication.
For these reasons, a real universal translator encountering a completely new language would put out barely recognizable gibberish as it does here.
It's still somewhat stupid in that a spacefaring civilization should be able to recognize other species won't share their cultural background and more plain language is needed, but they might just be psychologically incapable of such a thing. We have seen planets wearing far dumber hats in Trek.
More plain language may not be possible while continuing to use their native tongue. They are still trying to figure out how English works as well, and hearing Gilgamesh made the Tamarians captain laugh-- perhaps he was hearing a really weird translation and finally realized what was going on the whole time?
You know, some anime dubs will use the Japanese prefixes "-san", " -chan", "-sama", and so on even though otherwise everything has been translated into English. Those are honorifics, so ingrained into Japanese that not using an honorific in addressing someone is itself an honorific, signifying either the closest of affection, or the most sarcastic insult, depending on the relationship between the speaker and the person being addressed. Because English lacks a good equivalent system of address, and because so much relationship information is covered through honorifics, a complete and accurate translation of an ordinary Japanese conversation into English isn't always possible in a reasonable amount of time or space, you just have to learn the honorific system or choose to leave it out and live with the loss of meaning.
This kind of problem inevitably pops up between any two language; for instance, the common trick in English literature where a narrator's identity is hidden by the choice of using first person narration doesn't work in many other languages because the grammar insists on revealing a minimum number of details about the person talking, like their gender or their age. We take it for granted that the word hides details, but it doesn't actually have a direct equivalent in some languages.
11:24 in your head? ARE YOU INSANE?! :p~~~~
Were the aliens delivering these metaphors in English?
The English language is impractical
I'm starting to see why he's no longer a teacher with after seeing how he teaches spelling
I'm always happy when people speculate on the alien language, but I dislike it when some say that it's a plot hole because their language would be impractical. They are aliens! If something's a plot hole, that would be how most of the aliens in science fiction are so much like us! So yeah, they're different, their brain is different, and their society works in ways that we have issue conceiving. This is good science fiction.
As for my guess, the metaphors evolve with the aging. First it's "mommy with the spoon" to indicate eating, then it just gets more complicated. No need for a psychic link.
Just because incredible things are possible in the setting doesn't mean that literally any thing that seems strange to you must immediately be accepted. There are limits to what makes sense, though those will differ depending on sensibilities and maybe imagination.
@@KairuHakubi I think the actual translation of the whole "Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra" is "We opposed parties must work together to come to an understanding."
And that sort of thing is shown in Lower Decks, with a Tamarian crewman joining the cast.
@@hariman7727 yeah that sounds about right. why uh, why'd you reply to me? I don't think I was really on that specific subject
Now that I look at my initial reply actually I forgot to mention that star trek DID answer the question of why the aliens are all so human.
WOW DUDE😮
Actually, to me at least, the bigger thing about this episode is the truly alien species it creates. The translator, as I understand it, kinda works from brainwaves and translates different languages. Great. But the communication difficulties in this episode go deeper than that. Even species never seen before that act in ways totally unlike humans (like the borg) can be translated. But with the aliens here... it can't be. So that'd indicate a species with such a totally different mental makeup that the thing that works for everything else just doesn't work.
A lot could be extrapolated in the trek universe from that. The idea that species exist that are totally unlike other ones in the galaxy and therefore have a different root from every other species...
The fact our own languages are basically arbitrary grunts we have agreed means something kind of makes any criticism of their language moot.
Or would if they didn't have a universal translator that normally takes no time at all to work, even with languages that no one has ever encountered before.
Bro, all language is a metaphor.
Bro...
Or its just a religous/cultural thing for tamarians to speak in official situations like this and they gave a more informal language for casual/private conversations. Just saying.
That's a very specific level of desperation, where the Tamarian captain is desperate enough to kidnap his opposite number and strand the pair of them in a wilderness with a dangerous predator and nothing but speculative teamwork and sharpened metal for protection, but not desperate enough to break linguistic protocol.
SfDebries on the youtube.
Kurtzman, his mind empty.
gooder is wrong because the English language is a grab of words and rules from 4-5 other languages.
check any ancient language surviving = not frustrating to children
Have you seen Gintama?
Yes.
@@BioGoji-zm5ph okay well I was gonna suggest reviewing that series as it's sci fi, but thinking about it you might be better off with neon genesis evangelion.
@@ginkoflow7376 I've seen that too. Oh, by the way, I'm not the guy who posted this video. I'm just a random passerby who had just hoped he'd found a fellow Gintama fan.
@@BioGoji-zm5ph I am a fellow gintama fan! Who's your favorite character
@@ginkoflow7376 Elizabeth. I haven't watched Gintama in a few years, though, but when I still did, He... she... that person in the costume was my favorite character.
Sokath
It's the same with English translation programs. They work fine with European languages. But with a language like Japanese it makes numerous mistakes with pronouns and gender.
Idiom works this way. Like the phrase he hit a home run...if you know nothing of baseball, it's a meaningless phrase, especially when used in a situation that has nothing to do with the game. I think that is what is going on is that the aliens language is so laden with idiom and metaphor that the UT can't make heads or tails of it. The REAL mystery is why isn't this a more common problem.
"Metaphors are everywhere in language; why is it a problem here?" combined with "If simple understanding is proving difficult, why not use simpler, less compact language?" explain everything wrong with the story as shown.
I also think it's somewhat beside the point, because even if you can ostensibly talk to each other you can't necessarily make a connection without some sort of shared experience, which was the Tamarian solution to the problem.
@@boobah5643 very true.
I've seen this in fansubbing. In one theme song, a Japanese phrase got translated as "fire it like a bullet liner", but the actual translation is "Hit it out like a line drive", because it's a baseball metaphor.
-59?
Your solution to that equation he showed on screen?
Personally I got "2" as a result. Resolved the brackets first, then any multiplications, then did the additions & subtractions in turn.
Hoping I remember my maths education properly here...
@@ChrisGJ700 I was treating the numbers not in parenthesis, like they were also in them. So:
(4+2) 3-9+2 (1+1) -11 =
(6) 3-9+2 (2) - 11=
18 -9+4-11=
9+4-11=
13-11= 4
How does that look?
@@lynngreen7978 >.>
13 - 11 = 2
Being generous, "Darmok" does for linguistics what "Threshold" did for biology. Could the Tamarians have multiple languages, including one or more written languages - and perhaps even mind-to-mind communication, as Chuck speculates here? Absolutely! In fact, it's not merely possible, but probable - bordering on certainty. The idea that they evolved all the way from primordial soup to advanced spaceflight without ever once encountering even one foreign language, including from different cultures on their home planet, beggars belief. (Related: it's _really freaking weird_ that every race in the Star Trek galaxy appears to have only a single language. That _could_ just be an artifact of the Universal-except-when-the-plot-says-no Translator... if only so many different characters didn't refer to "the (group) language" as singular tongues spoken by their entire interplanetary empires.) But given that they probably do have other, inherently more useful and teachable languages, why don't the Tamarians use them when they're trying to establish communications with outsiders who _they know_ don't share the cultural framework to understand their allusions?Supposing that the Tamarians in fact have multiple working languages doesn't make the episode _smarter._
From the Federation side, meanwhile, we know they have both telepaths and empaths. There's an empath right there on the command staff (for some reason) of the _Enterprise!_ So if this is such a thorny problem, and the UFP considers it such a high priority, why aren't they sending in a team of psychics to meet the Tamarians? We know that Vulcans can establish communication with creatures _far_ more alien than the Tamarians via mind meld (see for example the Horta from TOS), after all. Jean-Luc Picard may not actually be the worst person in the Federation to try to establish communications with this new culture, but there's zero chance he's the _best_ choice. There are entire planetary populations better suited to the job.
But what's even worse is that the episode repeatedly breaks its own rules. The whole point is that supposedly nobody has managed to establish communication with the Tamarians. At all! Ever! But the Tamarians sent the Federation some mathematical expressions. I almost hate to break it to the episode, but _that's communication._ It's a bit limited, sure - but if you put a Federation mathematician and a Tamarian mathematician in a room together, they should be able to give the linguists a basis, a place to start. And it gets worse. "Chucklehead, his arms wide"? Okay, just in that sentence we've got a proper noun, a possessive, a noun, and an adjective. That's a fantastic starting point! "Arms" (pointing), "Legs" (pointing), "Head" (pointing), "Dagger" (pointing). No stupid "metaphors" required (trust Trek writers to not understand what freaking _metaphors_ are, BTW). And of course, at one point Counselor Catsuit claims that Alien McBumpyface and Xeno McLatexface were important figures in Tamarian culture. She would know that... _how,_ exactly? Via their long and detailed communications from the Tamarians? _Oh, wait._
"The Vodka is good but the meat is rotten."
"bullet liner"
They're both mistranlations from EARTH languages because context is missing.
Also yes, there's SOME stupid here because the writers only have so much time and skill in writing, but the episode gets across more than enough that the "Threshold" comparison is utterly unfair.
@Hariman The problem is not that Picard & Co. don't have the context to make sense of the Tamarians' allusions. That's normal and expected for anyone attempting to make contact with a genuinely alien culture. The problem is that the Tamarians do not, according to the episode's premise, possess any way to _give_ the Feddies (or anybody else, including young Tamarians!) that context. Otherwise, why wouldn't they employ that means when they're explicitly trying to establish communication with people who they know are totally ignorant of their cultural context? And yes, that _is_ a "Threshold" level of That's Not How That Works: it's not just wrong, it's bizarrely and incomprehensibly wrong.
But give the devil his due: as dumb and awful as "Threshold" is, at least that episode didn't have to violate its own premise in order to make the plot happen. "Darmok" _did._ The adoration lavished on this episode blows my mind.
@@Philistine47 man you are the embodiment of a pedantic "WELL AKTUALLY!" guy.
Very interesting, and informative.
Also, I like Trump. But that joke is pretty spot on.
Keep in mind that's a bit of a time capsule, written when the public knew Trump as a rich reality TV star, three or so years before he seriously joined the political scrum and became the Bad Orange Man.
Really? After he made a fool of himself while being escorted to trial, you're still a fan of that asshole?
@@boobah5643 some of us are aware nothing has changed and this is just a character he's playing to rip on us republicans.. sadly not that many, which is surprising given how obvious a troll it is.
@@KairuHakubi ...If it were a troll, he would have never ran in the first place.
Trump actually did a LOT of good in office, but got opposed by both sides and stabbed in the back by supposed allies.
@@hariman7727 not following that logic. how can you troll everyone without running for office
he literally just saw stephen colbert backing out and said 'hey that almost worked, i can play that character too' or his liberal media masters did or whatever.
remember when the nomination debates were being run like a carnival sideshow, and the _real_ republican candidates objected, and were told they can either play ball and answer the goofy inflammatory questions or they can not run? because the media gets money for attention? this is not a tough process to follow.
6 minutes in. U make Trump joke. Lame.
This video was originally posted about ten years ago.