Darmok Questions

[Smiley]

1. How does the alien race tell the stories and teach the language to children?

2. Why didn't they use this approach with the Federation?

3. How do they communicate technical information like starship courses and shield nutation?

I know a lot of people have high opinions of this episode, but the sheer illogic of the concept makes it hard for me to enjoy it.

 

[Nebusj]

Hard to say. But what it looks like is that they understand words assembled into sentences just fine; it's just that they need to be part of a narrative to be, you know, speech. An individual sentence seems to them to be like an isolated word to us: it may make some sense and you can get the gist if you have enough of that together, but try to put up with that for five minutes and you'll be reduced to a homicidal frenzy.

As for how does communicating technical details or strategies or whatnot ... well, is ``Execute pattern Kirk epsilon'' really any better or worse than ``Burnham Wood come to Dunsanane''? Obviously there are some strategies and approaches that are familiar enough to be allusions. Others? We don't have canonical evidence so there's plenty of room to make up the implementation details.

 

[Ro_Laren]

Smiley said:
1. How does the alien race tell the stories and teach the language to children?

2. Why didn't they use this approach with the Federation?

3. How do they communicate technical information like starship courses and shield nutation?

I know a lot of people have high opinions of this episode, but the sheer illogic of the concept makes it hard for me to enjoy it.

That's what always bothered me about the episode. Don't get me wrong I thought it was a good episode, but I got headaches when I started to think too hard about how they communicate.

 

[Balthier the Great]

Smiley said:
1. How does the alien race tell the stories and teach the language to children?

2. Why didn't they use this approach with the Federation?

3. How do they communicate technical information like starship courses and shield nutation?

I know a lot of people have high opinions of this episode, but the sheer illogic of the concept makes it hard for me to enjoy it.

I've always wondered how they told the story of DArmok on the Sea or whatever. It seems like it would be kinda circular.

But with kids you tend to learn language be hearing it spoken. Like if you live in China, you'd be able to learn what ma means in every tone, just because you hear it all the time. So that's not a huge mystery -- they learn the language by hanging around DArmok and hearing it. I don't think that would work as well for forgeiners, because you wouldn't have the context to interpret the language, and you don't necessarily have years to learn.

The concept of not being able to understand alien speech isn't bad. It was badly executed IMO, not only the language itself, but the scenario around it. It would have been better if the Darmokians hadn't created the situation to begin with, maybe both ships get caught in a natural phenomena of some sort. The way it actually happened was kinda silly -- since the Darmokians created the entire situation, they weren't in serious danger, as they could be brought back at any point.

 

[Christopher]

Smiley said:
1. How does the alien race tell the stories and teach the language to children?

2. Why didn't they use this approach with the Federation?

3. How do they communicate technical information like starship courses and shield nutation?

I explore all these questions about the Tamarians in my short story "Friends With the Sparrows" in the TNG: The Sky's the Limit anthology which has just come out. I've also posted an analysis of the Tamarian language on my website, an essay that addresses at least the third one of your questions:

http://home.fuse.net/ChristopherLBennett/Tamarian%20grammar.htm

And my take on the first question is pretty similar to Balthier's.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I think they would tell their bedtime stories just as we do. Stories for their children would be comprised of mostly the basic metaphors that they'd been hearing all their lives.
Why they didn't send over some Tamarian ABC books to the Federation is a good question. It may have helped, or may not. We can assume that the universal translator is translating the Tamarian words anyway, so the words and even the grammar weren't the real problem. I think, because the Tamarian mind is so accustomed to operating in metaphor, they may not even realize that they use metaphor at all. I think it would be harder for a Tamarian to pick up English, for instance, than the other way around, because English uses metaphor part time, but Tamarians apparently never even concieve of direct language.
The Tamarian ship was a near match to the Enterprise. So the Tamarians absolutely must have an advanced math and number system. The metaphors in their technical books would be much more ridgid than in their speech.

 

[scottydog]

Christopher said:

Smiley said:
1. How does the alien race tell the stories and teach the language to children?

2. Why didn't they use this approach with the Federation?

3. How do they communicate technical information like starship courses and shield nutation?

I explore all these questions about the Tamarians in my short story "Friends With the Sparrows" in the TNG: The Sky's the Limit anthology which has just come out. I've also posted an analysis of the Tamarian language on my website, an essay that addresses at least the third one of your questions:

http://home.fuse.net/ChristopherLBennett/Tamarian%20grammar.htm

And my take on the first question is pretty similar to Balthier's.

That is so cool. Thanks for sharing this, Christopher.

 

[Smiley]

That's a nice essay, Christopher. I look forward to reading the story and learning more.

 

[Computer]

If humans spoke like that we could easily relate scenarios to technical situations.

"Riker at Veridian, his eyes closed when the shields fell" could be an order to repeat the same action that caused the BoP to cloak and allowing the Enterprise to destroy the BoP" In other words, repeat the action Riker took in our present situation.

Come to think of it that way of speaking makes everything sound kinda good.

"Janeway and Paris when the Lizards came"... ok maybe not.

 

[Mojochi]

I think if you consider that the Tamarian language is not less evolved than ours, but the next step of language evolution, then it makes more sense. To us they sound like they are talking about nonesense, but to them, we may sound like we're talking with no substance whatsoever.

None of that changes the universals of emotion or math, or physics. all things they seemed to have a complete grasp of

 

[Unicron]

Christopher, I like your essay. Have you ever been to a site called the Darmok Dictionary?

 

[Christopher]

Look closer: I cited the Darmok Dictionary a couple of times in the essay, and linked to it (as well as another excellent analysis) in the introduction at the top of the page.

 

[Unicron]

Sorry. Didn't see that.