TNG Rewatch: 5x02: "Darmok"
- Thread starter Trekker4747
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Mutai, the laughter ringing.
A translation of all the Tamarian dialog 
Translation: We are two people that have come to embark on an understanding between us. You seem capable of two different relationships, peaceable or not. We are looking to solidify a new beneficial direction with you
Translation: A person's comprehension that is beneath another's
Translation: Stop
Translation: A failure, possibly of disastrous proportions
Not enough information to translate properly. Given the context of the conversation though, it would seem to be an injection of disagreement. Basically, 2 people who had a disagreement, Zima & Bakor at Anzo.
Translation: Commence departure
Translation: An exchange or offering
Translation: Not wanting to look on something
Translation: Ceasing conversation. Silence
Translation: A strategic maneuver of an accepting posture, that leads to a trapping posture.. To openly bait and then trap.
Translation: To see, recognize, or comprehend
Translation: The awaited moment is at hand
Translation: Forging a bond by coming together to face a common foe
Translation: No cause for alarm
Translation: Pain, suffering, and dying
Not enough to translate properly, but from the context, it means resign or acceptance. Basically he's saying "Don't bother. There's nothing you can do."
Not enough to translate properly, but from the context, it could mean to be looking for something (In this case Dathon is looking for Picard to tell him something)
The offering is not needed or required
Honestly, I think you're stretching a lot on those or coming up with the translations from seeing the episode numerous times and thus having a better grasp of the context the characters are in than they do themselves.
It's also a lot of supposition on your part based on no information other than the names given and the context they are given in. The phrases, as presented, could really mean anything without knowing more about the proper names of people and places that are being stated. The whole point of the confusion in the episode.
The key phrase: "Darmok and Jillad at Tanagra" could mean anything and depending on the circumstances when it is said one could take the phrase and interpret it in hindsight to figure out what it means. Sort of like people who read excerpts from Nostradamus and makes the phrase fit present-day events and make them into predictions. When really the phrases are so vague that they could be interpreted to mean anything. Sort of the classic "cold reading"/"remote viewing" parlor trick.
When they first encounter the Tamarians there's no reason for Picard to hear the phrase "Rai and Jiri at Lungha. Rai of Lowani. Lowani under two moons. Jiri of Ubaya. Ubaya of crossed roads. At Lungha. Lungha, her sky grey." and go, "Oh! That means 'We are two people that have come to embark on an understanding between us. You seem capable of two different relationships, peaceable or not. We are looking to solidify a new beneficial direction with you."
That's assuming a LOT and making a lot of leaps in logic in a series of words that put together is pretty much gibberish.
I can see *how* you got to that conclusion, but only slightly. And I doubt you came to that conclusion the very first time you watched the episode and, instead, came to it after having to listen to it a few times to get what is being said, writing it out, analyzing and then trying to rationalize where the Tamarians are coming from and then figuring the context in which is was said, the framework of the episode.
That's not how communication works. Hell, just to figure out the "Darmok" phrase took Troi and Data some time to figure out what it likely meant and with a bit more time to study the mythology of the characters they could have probably gotten a fair translation. Still not a great way to communicate to hear a phrase, have to de-code it, or even think about it for a few minutes and then try and to form a response using the same syntax meaning that THEY have to do the same thing. Pretty damn inefficient.
Give me a phrase in a foreign language, the context I'm being told it in and let me read it/hear it over and over again over the course of 25 years and I'll come up with a fairly accurate translation too. That doesn't mean me and the person who speaks this phrase are capable of communicating.
It's also a lot of supposition on your part based on no information other than the names given and the context they are given in. The phrases, as presented, could really mean anything without knowing more about the proper names of people and places that are being stated. The whole point of the confusion in the episode.
The key phrase: "Darmok and Jillad at Tanagra" could mean anything and depending on the circumstances when it is said one could take the phrase and interpret it in hindsight to figure out what it means. Sort of like people who read excerpts from Nostradamus and makes the phrase fit present-day events and make them into predictions. When really the phrases are so vague that they could be interpreted to mean anything. Sort of the classic "cold reading"/"remote viewing" parlor trick.
When they first encounter the Tamarians there's no reason for Picard to hear the phrase "Rai and Jiri at Lungha. Rai of Lowani. Lowani under two moons. Jiri of Ubaya. Ubaya of crossed roads. At Lungha. Lungha, her sky grey." and go, "Oh! That means 'We are two people that have come to embark on an understanding between us. You seem capable of two different relationships, peaceable or not. We are looking to solidify a new beneficial direction with you."
That's assuming a LOT and making a lot of leaps in logic in a series of words that put together is pretty much gibberish.
I can see *how* you got to that conclusion, but only slightly. And I doubt you came to that conclusion the very first time you watched the episode and, instead, came to it after having to listen to it a few times to get what is being said, writing it out, analyzing and then trying to rationalize where the Tamarians are coming from and then figuring the context in which is was said, the framework of the episode.
That's not how communication works. Hell, just to figure out the "Darmok" phrase took Troi and Data some time to figure out what it likely meant and with a bit more time to study the mythology of the characters they could have probably gotten a fair translation. Still not a great way to communicate to hear a phrase, have to de-code it, or even think about it for a few minutes and then try and to form a response using the same syntax meaning that THEY have to do the same thing. Pretty damn inefficient.
Give me a phrase in a foreign language, the context I'm being told it in and let me read it/hear it over and over again over the course of 25 years and I'll come up with a fairly accurate translation too. That doesn't mean me and the person who speaks this phrase are capable of communicating.
Yeah, but Picard did get it in only a handful of exchanges, once he invested in what he was hearing. He made connections, without a computer database
& yeah, the knife thing has bothered me since the first time I saw the episode. I didn't' spend 25 years trying to understand them. He jumps to a conclusion & never stops to think that it could mean something else. Never dives into the conversation he's heard
Context is important. "Kiazi's children, their faces wet." Even the 1st time I heard that, I knew he meant "No big deal" just from the context of an alarming situation & his general calming tone & demeanor, as well as the image of those words he used they we do get. That's how you learn what it means.
"His face black, his eyes red." If you heard that from any mouth, that would seem bad wouldn't it? We all knew what that meant on the 1st viewing. They wrote it so we would. "His eyes uncovered!!!!" Well, who didn't know what that meant right off? If you take out the proper names on some of what they're saying, there's stuff there we all get
I mostly posted all that translation stuff up there for us, not to say they should have gotten it as easily as I wrote it down, and yeah, there's a couple of them that I'm reaching, specifically "Kailash, when it rises" & "Zima at Anzo. Zima and Bakor. ", and maybe "Kira at Bashi" which Dathon realizes is lost on Picard, so he follows up with the his "arms wide" line, because he knew Picard got that one. That's them communicating
Interpretation of someone isn't just knowing what the words coming out of their mouth mean. We know that by how easy it is to misinterpret someone in print on the net. You factor in the conditions, the surroundings, the circumstances, what you know of the speaker, their body language, their inflection & emotional presence
These guys aren't speaking a foreign tongue. Some of it is being translated. So there's words in there you recognize. That's where you start
You make an assumption that they've come to open relations in some way, & then listen, and if you don't get it, try to sound it out with them, so they realize that it will work, but saying it slowly and repeatedly is necessary. I'm not saying it would be doable in the few minutes before Dathon decided it was a failure, but he decided it was a failure because nothing was happening.
The Feds never took the initiative to gain an understanding. They passively threw out their greeting & then did nothing, and left the ball in The Tamarian court. That's shitty 1st contact practice there. People who made contact with secluded primitive tribes had to think on their feet way better than that
Under 2 moons! I heard you say under 2 moons! & keep repeating it until they get that you are trying to figure out what they said. Some times learning to communicate means figuring it out. A river in winter. That paints a picture of what a river is versus what it is in winter
Certainly it would be frustrating, because you don't get it, and in that event, everyone would have to sloooow things down a lot, but if they had jumped in there, then Dathon would've had another option
& yeah, the knife thing has bothered me since the first time I saw the episode. I didn't' spend 25 years trying to understand them. He jumps to a conclusion & never stops to think that it could mean something else. Never dives into the conversation he's heard
Context is important. "Kiazi's children, their faces wet." Even the 1st time I heard that, I knew he meant "No big deal" just from the context of an alarming situation & his general calming tone & demeanor, as well as the image of those words he used they we do get. That's how you learn what it means.
"His face black, his eyes red." If you heard that from any mouth, that would seem bad wouldn't it? We all knew what that meant on the 1st viewing. They wrote it so we would. "His eyes uncovered!!!!" Well, who didn't know what that meant right off? If you take out the proper names on some of what they're saying, there's stuff there we all get
I mostly posted all that translation stuff up there for us, not to say they should have gotten it as easily as I wrote it down, and yeah, there's a couple of them that I'm reaching, specifically "Kailash, when it rises" & "Zima at Anzo. Zima and Bakor. ", and maybe "Kira at Bashi" which Dathon realizes is lost on Picard, so he follows up with the his "arms wide" line, because he knew Picard got that one. That's them communicating
Interpretation of someone isn't just knowing what the words coming out of their mouth mean. We know that by how easy it is to misinterpret someone in print on the net. You factor in the conditions, the surroundings, the circumstances, what you know of the speaker, their body language, their inflection & emotional presence
These guys aren't speaking a foreign tongue. Some of it is being translated. So there's words in there you recognize. That's where you start
You make an assumption that they've come to open relations in some way, & then listen, and if you don't get it, try to sound it out with them, so they realize that it will work, but saying it slowly and repeatedly is necessary. I'm not saying it would be doable in the few minutes before Dathon decided it was a failure, but he decided it was a failure because nothing was happening.
The Feds never took the initiative to gain an understanding. They passively threw out their greeting & then did nothing, and left the ball in The Tamarian court. That's shitty 1st contact practice there. People who made contact with secluded primitive tribes had to think on their feet way better than that
Under 2 moons! I heard you say under 2 moons! & keep repeating it until they get that you are trying to figure out what they said. Some times learning to communicate means figuring it out. A river in winter. That paints a picture of what a river is versus what it is in winter
Certainly it would be frustrating, because you don't get it, and in that event, everyone would have to sloooow things down a lot, but if they had jumped in there, then Dathon would've had another option
Walkerbait, his head shaking.
I'm actually more puzzled why the Tamarians didn't understand humans. There's enough phraseology intact, it would seem, for basic concepts to be clear. Saying 'the planet below', or 'my ship', for instance, are pretty clear. Maybe Picard should have stuck to easy words.
If I were speaking to a person who is not fluent in English, I'm not going to invite them for coffee by going on about 'mountain-grown folgers' or 'water temperature' or 'decaffeinated or caffeinated' or other irrelevant filler. I might say 'hot drink in the morning' or something like that. Not a great example, but you get what I mean...keep it simple.
I had that problem with a German native in my younger years. I'd try to explain something, and in response I'd get "I'm standing at the train station.", which I learned, Picard-like I guess, that it meant that my meaning passed her by!
Another one was my befuddlement at first, when she said she "had chicken skin". I soon learned what she meant was goose bumps. She was cold!
I'm actually more puzzled why the Tamarians didn't understand humans. There's enough phraseology intact, it would seem, for basic concepts to be clear. Saying 'the planet below', or 'my ship', for instance, are pretty clear. Maybe Picard should have stuck to easy words.
If I were speaking to a person who is not fluent in English, I'm not going to invite them for coffee by going on about 'mountain-grown folgers' or 'water temperature' or 'decaffeinated or caffeinated' or other irrelevant filler. I might say 'hot drink in the morning' or something like that. Not a great example, but you get what I mean...keep it simple.
I had that problem with a German native in my younger years. I'd try to explain something, and in response I'd get "I'm standing at the train station.", which I learned, Picard-like I guess, that it meant that my meaning passed her by!
Another one was my befuddlement at first, when she said she "had chicken skin". I soon learned what she meant was goose bumps. She was cold!
Yeah, there's phrases in there, "His eyes red!" line, "the arms wide" and others have obvious meaning to them but I still argue that's not strictly communicating.
Sure, "arms wide" is a gift. "His face black" is an expression of anger, "their faces wet" is an expression of shrugging things off, but when Picard and Dathon work to fight the creature it takes some effort on Dathon's part (a credit to the actor in how he's pulling this off) in order to explain his strategy to flank the creature to Picard. And it takes considerable effort on Dathon's part to explain to Picard the story of Darmok and even then Picard only gets a rough synopsis of one of their legends. (Which I assume a more complex form of communication the Tamarians have makes it into a grander story than the one we get from Dathon.)
But, to me, this is like talking to a child (perhaps "The Children of Tama" is something of pejorative term created by people in the Federation due to the struggles in communicating with the Tamarians.) Talking in stories, basic terms, and so-forth from which you may be able to gleam emotional states or with a degree of effort a battle strategy but this isn't effective communication. At least not in the way we do it.
From this you still can't open up trade agreements, alliances, or any kind of meaningful relationship other than one between an adult and a child who only knows a handful of words.
So, yeah, with what we're given the Federation and Tamarians should be able to have a very, very rough relationship but only because the Federation now has some idea in how the Tamarians communicate verbally to others. But it's very rough and still has plenty of potential for confusion or misunderstanding.
And, really, it's only half the problem. So, now the Federation has some idea in how to talk to the Tamarians. But, the Tamarians still don't know how to talk to the Federation. There's a rough understanding here, but some phrases and such can still be lost without a common mythology. I wonder what the Tamarians and Tamarian linguists were doing to understand how the Federation communicates?
As I said above, the Tamarians must have some *other* form of communication in order to have a technologically advanced society and in order to tell these stories that makes up their mythology that's the basis of their primary form of communication. A form of communication closer to what we think of when we think of language. So, wouldn't the Tamarians get what the Federation is saying and go, "You know they talk sort of like how we tell our stories and communicate in more complex ways to operate or technology."
Sort of like how Data and Troi manage to figure out that the Tamarians are speaking in stories and symbolism. You'd think the Tamarians would have people working to figure out the Federation is speaking in a "less concise" manner.
Now, depending on how the more complex half of the Tamarian language works this may not be useful if their written, telepathic or other form of communication isn't able to be translated verbally but I do wonder what they were doing to better communicate. Why is it all on us?
Well, because it's a story about us, Star Trek that is. lol, but I get your point, & I've always also felt that their verbal communication was only a portion of how they interrelate & evolve. Maybe mathematics is the real ticket in their culture. It is, after all, what they used to put out the welcome mat to begin with, and it would certainly be necessary in developing to the levels of interstellar travel. I guess we should just be grateful it wasn't as basic as the Close Encounters of The 3rd Kind first contact situation.
Also, any time someone is grasping a new language that is alien, there's a certain degree of child thinking that must go into it, a damn syllable at a time if you must. We're also dealing with an alien culture. It's quite possible that they don't handle things in a way similar to ours, by having linguistic specialists. (Which I've no clue why the ENT-D has only Data & Troi working on it) They instead employ a more hands on practice, clearly involving more extreme measures.
Frankly, I always found it a little odd that after only a very few words from Picard, The Tamarian XO just accepts that Dathon died & that's fine, as long as the Darmok plan worked. We'd never send people out in such risk and be fine with their loss so long as the mission succeeded, when we could devise less severe methods. So in a way, maybe they know. "Hey, we don't do that whole figure out everybody we meet thing. We just try to get them to understand us, and that means we have to play it risky a bit more". So in that sense, maybe Picard's thickness is not entirely to blame for Dathon's death. That's maybe kind of how they roll
Also, any time someone is grasping a new language that is alien, there's a certain degree of child thinking that must go into it, a damn syllable at a time if you must. We're also dealing with an alien culture. It's quite possible that they don't handle things in a way similar to ours, by having linguistic specialists. (Which I've no clue why the ENT-D has only Data & Troi working on it) They instead employ a more hands on practice, clearly involving more extreme measures.
Frankly, I always found it a little odd that after only a very few words from Picard, The Tamarian XO just accepts that Dathon died & that's fine, as long as the Darmok plan worked. We'd never send people out in such risk and be fine with their loss so long as the mission succeeded, when we could devise less severe methods. So in a way, maybe they know. "Hey, we don't do that whole figure out everybody we meet thing. We just try to get them to understand us, and that means we have to play it risky a bit more". So in that sense, maybe Picard's thickness is not entirely to blame for Dathon's death. That's maybe kind of how they roll
I like the idea of mathematics being the foundation for their communication. I always assumed the communication that brought the Enterprise over was something along the lines of prime numbers in an attempt at an "we're intelligent" signal. But it's a little more harmonious that it'd be the more complicated, written, way they communicate.
We'll, they're the main characters.
Well, the Tamarians would have had access to the same sensor data the Enterprise had and likely were closely monitoring the events on the surface just as our crew was. Hell, it's even possible Dathon had a device/"bug" on him since he's the only one that got to plan for the trip. In either case the Tamarians would have been just as aware that the creature and Dathon were in close proximity for a period of time and that afterwards Dathon's life-signs became unstable so they would have come to the conclusion the creature had critically injured Dathon.
Well, sure, & I wouldn't have removed them from the assignment. They'd have been spearheading it, but like I pose in another thread, had they just put 20 or so extras in uniform & put them in a data room, and made it look like there was a task force assigned to solving this dilemma, it would have really added effect. As it is, the captain has been kidnapped, and is in potentially mortal danger, & all they got on it is two officers sharing tea in a lounge somewhere on the ship or somebody's quarters. Hell, Troi is the one that makes the connection between Darmok & Tanagra. All total, there are less than a dozen proper names used by the Tamarians in the entire episode. Data could cross-reference them all in a matter of seconds
We'll, they're the main characters.
Yeah, that one is easily explained away, but they don't know why he had to die or the circumstances of it, and ultimately, it was Picard's inability to understand that opened the door for Darmok & Riker's call to interfere with a beamout attempt that caused Dathon's death, but they aren't all that upset about that, because it was their idea to go with Darmok in the first place. That's how they roll, & let the chips fall where they may
Is it really indicated that the Tamarians don't understand Picard?
As for the "Children of Tama" thing, it would seem likely that Picard's straightforward speech patterns appear like baby talk to the Tamarians. Perhaps "Children of Tama" is just Tamarian for "contact team", literally, "baby talkers"?
The mission of Dathon wouldn't be merely to learn to understand the Feds; that part might have been trivial. It would be to open full communications and proper contact, and for that it would not suffice that Tamarians learn Federationese. The Feds have to learn Tamarian, or else important treaties will have to be written in baby talk (from the Tamarian point of view) and thrown to utter ridicule. A life or two might be a suitable price to pay for that.
Timo Saloniemi
As for the "Children of Tama" thing, it would seem likely that Picard's straightforward speech patterns appear like baby talk to the Tamarians. Perhaps "Children of Tama" is just Tamarian for "contact team", literally, "baby talkers"?
The mission of Dathon wouldn't be merely to learn to understand the Feds; that part might have been trivial. It would be to open full communications and proper contact, and for that it would not suffice that Tamarians learn Federationese. The Feds have to learn Tamarian, or else important treaties will have to be written in baby talk (from the Tamarian point of view) and thrown to utter ridicule. A life or two might be a suitable price to pay for that.
Timo Saloniemi
When Picard gives his opening speech to Dathon him and the first officer sort of look around puzzled.
I didn't (and don't) get that one at all. You guys didn't seem to have any problem with it, but it always sounded to me like a image of crying.
I haven't seen the episode in years, but I'll just bet that Picard's speech was full of flowery phrases and verbal garnish such as 'mutual cooperation' and 'historical undertaking' and all that jazz he likes so much.
...Which in Tamarianeseanish probably counts as "I wanna play with you wanna wanna!", causing understandable puzzlement coming from the mouth of a seeming grown-up.
(For the record, this is what Picard says: "Captain, would you be prepared to consider the creation of a mutual non-aggression pact between our two peoples, possibly leading to a trade agreement and cultural interchange. Does this sound like a reasonable course of action to you?"... The Tamarian reaction is one of puzzlement, but also of amusement.)
Timo Saloniemi
(For the record, this is what Picard says: "Captain, would you be prepared to consider the creation of a mutual non-aggression pact between our two peoples, possibly leading to a trade agreement and cultural interchange. Does this sound like a reasonable course of action to you?"... The Tamarian reaction is one of puzzlement, but also of amusement.)
Timo Saloniemi
Kind of harkens back to the Sheliak & their thousands of pages of treaty stipulations & such, arranged basically because humanoids are so damn stupid, that it required that much specificity
I can't really say how much of the Feds speaking was lost on the Tamarians or not. It did seem to elude them to an impassable extent, for whatever reason. So Dathon just keeps repeating himself, hoping that he'd be able to get through
If their language truly hinges on the names and metaphor, then it's possible that all of the words we use, especially Picard with his excessive diplomatic wordiness just sounds like secondary sentence fill to them, like if I were to say you
What if to then by the early it would never really ever before
Too bad Barbara Billingsley wasn't part of the Enterprise crew, she can interpret alternate languages. 
I want to say again, I like this episode and it's one of my favorites of TNG, so anything further is not nitpicking but just discussion.
One thing, weren't there supposed to be dolphin crewmembers on the Enterprise? I know, not cannon so why mention it. Because the dolphin's language must be translated some way, right? Or dolphins don't speak in metaphor so it's translates right the first time, maybe.
I'm also thinking that Picard's and the whole Enterprise D's crew seems overly reliant on their technology and they've let things like fluency atrophy a bit, like our written culture no longer memorizes long books like an oral culture would be able to handle. It seems a really low tech way to break through the communication, "me and you fight this beast with knives" too bad they didn't have any bear skins.
And they really should have at least mentioned if not shown the "linguistics department" assuming they have one, but with over a thousand people, you would think at least 20 would be in there, right? There's supposed to be labs all around that ship, taking and interpreting data, and this certainly qualifies.
I want to say again, I like this episode and it's one of my favorites of TNG, so anything further is not nitpicking but just discussion.
One thing, weren't there supposed to be dolphin crewmembers on the Enterprise? I know, not cannon so why mention it. Because the dolphin's language must be translated some way, right? Or dolphins don't speak in metaphor so it's translates right the first time, maybe.
I'm also thinking that Picard's and the whole Enterprise D's crew seems overly reliant on their technology and they've let things like fluency atrophy a bit, like our written culture no longer memorizes long books like an oral culture would be able to handle. It seems a really low tech way to break through the communication, "me and you fight this beast with knives" too bad they didn't have any bear skins.
And they really should have at least mentioned if not shown the "linguistics department" assuming they have one, but with over a thousand people, you would think at least 20 would be in there, right? There's supposed to be labs all around that ship, taking and interpreting data, and this certainly qualifies.
I'm guessing linguistics departments don't exist or otherwise very minimal considering the Universal Translator is able to translate any language it encounters the instant it encounters it, even if it's for the first time. We all know it's extreme and ridiculous but it's a conceit we have to accept in order for the premise of the franchise to work without having to make characters constantly learning new languages or have communication trouble all of the time.
This was just a rare case where the UT's translations just weren't helpful. Sure, it was putting the Tamarian tongue into "English" (or whatever language the listener speaks) but those translations, being literal, just didn't make any sense. Depending on how far we want to stretch the UT's power we could probably surmise that now that we know how it works it can probably be "programmed" to reconfigure the Tamairan translations into something more comprehensible and vice-versa.
I suppose there could be linguistics personnel who may have to maintain the UT, or make these types of adjustments or even ones who work on ancient languages no one speaks anymore or work on written forms of language but given the "magic" behind the UT it's unlikely they're there to provide translations between two people who speak different languages.
And, again, it's "possible" there are people on the Enterprise working on the linguistics, and even people in the Federation doing so, it's just no one has gotten anywhere with it and, of course, the "the main characters do everything" conceit.
Though, if finding out how the Tamarians use language was as simple as focusing on two proper names in a phrase and cross-referencing their origins to find a commonality you'd think the metaphorical way of speaking would have revealed itself after previous encounters with the Tamarians. Unless, I guess, they were using proper names that weren't in the databanks and "Darmok" and "Jillad" just happened to be there in this instance.
There's a lot of problems in this story and there's a lot of questions we can ask on how the Tamarian language works, the thought-process that went behind Starfleet's and our character's ability to communicate or parse the language and just the general acceptance of the Universal Translator not working perfectly in this one instance.
Fortunately, I think this episode is so good it manages to make all of that forgotten or easily ignored because the performances of Picard and Dathon and their interactions on the planet or just so good. I don't care about all of the language nonsense because that fire-side interaction between the two captains is one of the better scenes in the series.
This contrasts to, say, "Conundrum" where I don't think the story is strong enough to grant a hand-wave to accepting that a technologically inferior race could manipulate the minds of over 1000 people, spanning several different species and a one-of-a-kind artificial lifeform, and the computer systems of an advanced starship.
This was just a rare case where the UT's translations just weren't helpful. Sure, it was putting the Tamarian tongue into "English" (or whatever language the listener speaks) but those translations, being literal, just didn't make any sense. Depending on how far we want to stretch the UT's power we could probably surmise that now that we know how it works it can probably be "programmed" to reconfigure the Tamairan translations into something more comprehensible and vice-versa.
I suppose there could be linguistics personnel who may have to maintain the UT, or make these types of adjustments or even ones who work on ancient languages no one speaks anymore or work on written forms of language but given the "magic" behind the UT it's unlikely they're there to provide translations between two people who speak different languages.
And, again, it's "possible" there are people on the Enterprise working on the linguistics, and even people in the Federation doing so, it's just no one has gotten anywhere with it and, of course, the "the main characters do everything" conceit.
Though, if finding out how the Tamarians use language was as simple as focusing on two proper names in a phrase and cross-referencing their origins to find a commonality you'd think the metaphorical way of speaking would have revealed itself after previous encounters with the Tamarians. Unless, I guess, they were using proper names that weren't in the databanks and "Darmok" and "Jillad" just happened to be there in this instance.
There's a lot of problems in this story and there's a lot of questions we can ask on how the Tamarian language works, the thought-process that went behind Starfleet's and our character's ability to communicate or parse the language and just the general acceptance of the Universal Translator not working perfectly in this one instance.
Fortunately, I think this episode is so good it manages to make all of that forgotten or easily ignored because the performances of Picard and Dathon and their interactions on the planet or just so good. I don't care about all of the language nonsense because that fire-side interaction between the two captains is one of the better scenes in the series.
This contrasts to, say, "Conundrum" where I don't think the story is strong enough to grant a hand-wave to accepting that a technologically inferior race could manipulate the minds of over 1000 people, spanning several different species and a one-of-a-kind artificial lifeform, and the computer systems of an advanced starship.
I think that the difficulty of the Tamarian language is underscored by the multiple theories here about what "Children of Tama" means, when it's probably just a UT translation of the Tamarians' metaphorical way of saying that they're Tamarians...literally descendants of somebody named Tama...or people who see their world, Tama, as their "parent" (e.g., "Mother Earth").
Picard conversing in the Tamarian language with the Tamarian First Officer, who says, "Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel," is one of my favorite scenes in TNG.
I really don't care what conceits are necessary, that scene, as the climax of the episode, manages to convey the experience of understanding one another, despite the presence of a language barrier. It works in part because we can understand the Tamarian language, such as it is.
I really don't care what conceits are necessary, that scene, as the climax of the episode, manages to convey the experience of understanding one another, despite the presence of a language barrier. It works in part because we can understand the Tamarian language, such as it is.
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