How did the Tamarians learn to talk in Federation standard?

[Shawnster]

When you scratch the surface, the Tamarian language doesn't seem to work. How does one speak in idioms before the idiom exists? Before Darmok was created, how did anyone express anything that was later expressed by the Darmok idiom? Any idiom that is used had a beginning.

How are brand new concepts expressed? Like the invention of flying craft or the computer? New concepts that has never been thought of before?

What about simple concepts of daily life like asking what someone wants to eat or if they may be excused or they need to go to the bathroom?

"Elaine when the roll was empty."

 

[Timofnine]

There is a cool fanfic going on here at the moment by @hbquikcomjamesl which kind of threads in to all of this.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

. . . which I mentioned in post 12 of this thread.

 

[vulcancicada]

When you scratch the surface, the Tamarian language doesn't seem to work. How does one speak in idioms before the idiom exists? Before Darmok was created, how did anyone express anything that was later expressed by the Darmok idiom? Any idiom that is used had a beginning.

How are brand new concepts expressed? Like the invention of flying craft or the computer? New concepts that has never been thought of before?

What about simple concepts of daily life like asking what someone wants to eat or if they may be excused or they need to go to the bathroom?

"Elaine when the roll was empty."

Agreed, I really don't think this one was well-thought out by the writers so I feel silly even discussing it. The writers should have consulted with a linguist or something instead of (I assume) taking a bunch of mushrooms. Not to sound like a Vulcan but, anecdotal idioms would be an illogical way to communicate and I cannot see a language being comprised entirely of them.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Agreed, I really don't think this one was well-thought out by the writers so I feel silly even discussing it. The writers should have consulted with a linguist or something instead of (I assume) taking a bunch of mushrooms. Not sound like a Vulcan but, anecdotal idioms would be an illogical way to communicate and I cannot see a language being comprised entirely of them.

Think it could make a lot of sense if the Tamarians are a genetically engineered species like the Vorta or the Jem'Hadar who got programmed with this language by their creators for some reasons like making it easier to control them.

 

[Jayson1]

Telepathic teachers. Telepaths can give them words and then input a telepathic image inside their head that matches up with that word.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I thought SFDebris had a pretty good stab at explaining it

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I saw that bit. I concur with SF Debris that the concept of the analogies is similar to how Chinese Characters are supposed to be a Metaphor for larger concepts by using a pictogram.

For a alien to use the same "Analogy" as the primary spoken language is similar in base concept.

But if that alien has that concept, they must have a simpler word construction system like BoPoMoFo in Chinese.
You teach this to children to understand Chinese Characters since BoPoMoFo is far simpler and MUCH closer to English in that you're combining sounds to form a word. That word however, is usually converted to a traditional Chinese character.

You got to remember that classical Chinese characters was invented WAY back in the day when they didn't want outsiders to understand the Chinese language, they got what they wanted because it's a PitA (Pain in the Arse) to learn since you have to brute force memorize all the possible meanings for each character.

I predict, that over a long period of time, BoPoMoFo will take over as the written portion IRL; similar to how Katakana/Hiragana is so much more popular for younger generations who understand Japanese. Writing Kanji characters is just annoying, slow, and requires WAY too much brute force memorization compared to Katakan/Hiragana which has a similar Word Construction method to English.

Telepathic teachers. Telepaths can give them words and then input a telepathic image inside their head that matches up with that word.

But do Telepaths think in their native language?
If they do, Telepaths of some species might not understand Telepaths of another species that have never met.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

How does one speak in idioms before the idiom exists?

My fanfic treatise takes this into account.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

My way of looking at it: the Tamarian language is a metaphor for incomprehensibility.* Picking the language apart is like trying to unravel the technobabble of how a transporter or warp drive works: it rather misses the point.

* - Isn't that meta?

That said:

When you scratch the surface, the Tamarian language doesn't seem to work. How does one speak in idioms before the idiom exists? Before Darmok was created, how did anyone express anything that was later expressed by the Darmok idiom? Any idiom that is used had a beginning.

Perhaps they used other metaphors. English is chock-full of synonyms. Why can't the Tamarian language also have synonyms?

By the way, in "Darmok," we witness the creation of a new Tamatian metaphor: "Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel." The Tamarian script in the log that Dathon's former first officer indicated thereby implicitly seemed to provide the definition of that new metaphor.

 

[Mojochi]

I may be the only one, but I always assumed the universal translator WAS working, such that phrases like "his arms wide" & " on the ocean" were translated from whatever the Tamarian mother tongue is. It's just that it wasn't enough to make any sense of their conversation?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I may be the only one, but I always assumed the universal translator WAS working, such that phrases like "his arms wide" & " on the ocean" were translated from whatever the Tamarian mother tongue is. It's just that it wasn't enough to make any sense of their conversation?

It was ½ working, it got the words translated correctly, but the grammatical structure failed.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

such that phrases like "his arms wide" & " on the ocean" were translated from whatever the Tamarian mother tongue is. It's just that it wasn't enough to make any sense of their conversation?

Yes, exactly. But that does not constitute a full translation. In the real world, when idioms are translated, word-by-word translation does not (usually/in general) suffice for a full and comprehensible translation.

For example,

https://etranslationservices.com/languages/what-are-idioms-and-how-to-properly-translate-them/
https://leaftranslations.com/ultimate-guide-translating-idioms

An example at the first link:

The idiom in Swedish: Att glida in på en räkmacka
Literal translation: “To slide in on a shrimp sandwich.”
The meaning “It refers to somebody who didn’t have to work to get where they are.”​

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" does NOT mean "The vodka is strong, but the meat is rotten."

What Dathon was saying, as it came out of the UT, was perfectly understandable, IF you understood that cultural allusions replaced verbs in their syntax, AND you had referents for the references.

(Oh, how long I have waited for an excuse to use "referents" and "reference" in the same sentence!)

 

[Mojochi]

It was ½ working, it got the words translated correctly, but the grammatical structure failed.

Right. It could account for what was being said, but being so alien, it couldn't account for how those things' syntax come together to make sense. Are we supposed to be thinking that the UT HAS translated in that way at other times, or is this just an expected inability of it?

My point is, it's not that the UT failed, but that it was never intended for this type of application?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Nope, the UT was failing. Idiom translation happens all the time, but in this case it did not have the database for the Tamarian metaphors.