“Darmok” (5×02)
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All languages around the world, even languages that developed completely independently of one another, share certain commonalities. In Nicaragua, Deaf students with no previous language acquisition aside from a few home pidgin signs were place together for the first time in schools during the 1980s. A completely new language developed spontaneously among the students independently of their teachers, and Nicaraguan Sign Language too shared those commonalities. In the 1960s, Noam Chomsky suggested that humans have a genetically inherited language acquisition device that provides young children with an innate understanding of grammar and so all of the world’s languages developed from that common, instinctual core.
The idea of a universal translator is built on the foundation of those shared commonalities; by applying the mechanics of those commonalities to a stream of vocabulary, the translator can break the language down and interpret, and then approximate an equivalent in the user’s native tongue.
“Darmok” explores what happens when the Federation encounters a species whose language is not built on those commonalities. Walter Percy once described human language as a triangle: the signifier, the referent, and the person associating one with the other. When Helen Keller associated the word “water” with the sensation of feeling water, the crucial component for the association was Helen herself.
The Children of Tama developed in many ways like the other warp-capable civilizations in the alpha quadrant, with roughly analogous technology. But their language isn’t reducible to signifier and signified. The universal translator can parse vocabulary, but not grammar because the Tamarian language doesn’t have grammar in the sense that the universal translator is designed to recognize. Instead, experiences are interpreted in the context of past experiences through a vast oral tradition, and the vocabulary exists solely to reference those past experiences.
The story of Darmok and Jalad is a parable, but also the foundation for expressing a number of complex ideas with a different kind of specificity than the languages we’re used to. Adjectives and adverbs are unnecessary, because the modifiers are built into the reference. There might be fifty different parables where two strangers bond facing a common adversary, each with subtly different nuances. What might take several sentences to articulate in English can be encapsulated by referencing just the right moment from just the right parable.
To bridge the gap between two species with two very different conceptions of language, the captain of the Tamarian vessel has to take Picard through one of those parables. I really liked that the other captain was the one who had to do the heavy lifting; Picard’s role was basically to associate the word “water” with the liquid water. Just as that connection unlocked English for Keller, the experience on the planet unlocked the Tamarian language for Picard, at least enough to establish a basis for communication.
To develop a translator with any more in-depth utility in deciphering the language, however, would require decades studying the Tamarians’ mythology and history, so that the meaning behind the references could be better understood.
A separate observation about HD-remastered TNG:
I really love the CG-rendered planets that have replaced the standard definition originals; combined with the first rate model photography for the ships, and the final product looks like a million bucks
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