In this classic ST:TNG episode, there is a scene that takes place while Dathon and Picard are still on their ships and trying to communicate. Dathon’s first officer seems to find the human communication funny, and starts laughing uproariously. Dathon silences him by holding up his hand and telling him, “In winter!”
Was “In winter” the Tamarian way of saying, “Cool it” or perhaps, “Chill out”?
Pretty clever and subtle, if you ask me 
Sokath, his eyes uncovered!
It was “The river Temarc in winter” by the way.
Ah, I heard it as “The river, Temarc, in winter”, with “Temarc” being the first officer’s name. Then, if I remember correctly, the first officer tries to get another word in, and Dathon cuts him off with just, “in winter!”
I interpreted “The river” to mean something along of the lines of “a course of action” And so:
“We will proceed as planned, Temarc, so cool it!”
“But…”
“Cool it!”
I’ll bet this has been discussed to death elsewhere…
http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/Darmok_(episode) lists the first officer only as “Tamarian First Officer” so it’s doubtful Temarc was his name but that of the river instead.
Yeah, I don’t think that language used people’s names you were speaking to. Darmok wouldn’t say, “The firebrand bush, Picard, after the locust plague.” The name would be whatever the name of the guy was who was present at the firebrand bush after the locust plague, who brought the story back to the village.
Which brings up the question, did that guy just walk in and say, “the firebrand bush, Meegluk, after the locust plague” and everyone knew what he was talking about? How?
What a horribly absurd language concept.
Sinda, his face black, his eyes red!
–Cliffy
Clear as mud, huh?
Indiana Jones would puzzle it out.
Language, like a meandering river, may take many courses in it’s journey to the great waters of understanding.
Still, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.
I have looked at the enemy, and it is us.
Oh, and as far as the OP goes, I interpreted “The river Termarc in winter” to mean, “Freeze! Shut your mouth! Zip it! Stop what you’re doing! Be still and quiet like a frozen river.”
I guess the question then becomes do we use the metaphors “cool it” and “chill out” to mean the same thing? Roughly speaking, I’d say yes, so your translation would not be inappropriate - but it also wouldn’t be literal.
Clinton, his arms wide, his fly open!
I oft wondered how a species with such a language manages to develop a high level of technology (comparable if not superior to the Federation). Building machines and computers requires a high degree of precision and it’s hard to ask for the 3/8" crescent wrench when you can only say things like “the turning worm of Fintall.”
It may be a sillier joke than the one you mentioned (or a double joke).
Anyone else notice that Temarc (“The river, Temarc, in winter”) is Cramet (“Cram it”) backwards?
Ahh... but except for your reference to Indiana Jones, for the most part clues to meaning are contained in the sayings themselves.
The problem with the whole Darmok concept of language is that they spoke ENTIRELY in references to stories. They could make references, but lacked the ability, in their own language, to tell the stories.
I could mention "Finn chewed his thumb", and maybe a few dopers would know what I mean. I can also tell you stories of Finn, or eplain why chewing his thumb is significant. Darmok's children can only speak in references, but cannot tell the stories except by a string of references. They supposedly make reference to a body of cultureal literature, but how the heck do they communicate it?
You can picture a griot or bard standing by the firelight telling stories of Gassire, or Cuchlain. If you have never heard the story before, you still get the picture painted to you by the storyteller's words. You can even ask the story teller "what does it mean when you say he girded his loins?"
Now picture a Darmok storyteller at the same fire in front of a group of young people of his culture who have never head the stories before:
"Darmok, his pants fly open. Moogash running in circles. Calka, when the cable guy came"
One poor lad in the back has to go, but dosen't know any stories where the hero took a leak, and can't simply ask, so he explodes. The rest are just confused.I’m with Munch and Sweetums on this one. Although the episode had some good drama, the entire concept behind the Darmok language was just so dumb I couldn’t get past it. I’ve always been amazed that it gets so consistently listed as one of the greatest TNG episodes by fans, when it’s on my shortlist* of Reasons I Don’t Like Star Trek.
[sub]*Which, come to think of it, is not so short.[/sub]
Yes, but they spoke, as was pointed out, entirely in metaphor. As, sometimes, do we. That their metaphor came from sources other than Native American stories, Shakespeare and Pogo makes no difference. Some languages rely more on metaphor than others. My understanding is that many of the Chinese languages are heavily based on metaphor, and that’s why translation is tricky sometimes.
And they did tell the stories, didn’t they? I mean, he told Picard the story, so why not tell the kids the story? And if it made the basis of their language, everyone would know the same basic story, so everyone would know precisely what “Finn bit his thumb” meant.
If everytime my baby was hungry, I said, “Laktuk throughbit the esploss.” and then fed her, she’d understand that “Laktuk throughbit the esploss” means food is immanent. Whether or not I taught her the story of Laktuk when she was 6 months old, she’d understand what I meant. Context is what teaches early communication, not the phenomes or the construction. Gestures while storytelling or showing a kid how to pee are at least as important as the actual words. And Dathon used a lot of gestures when trying to communicate with Picard, so obviously gesture is not an unfamiliar part of their language.
Asking for a wrench though, I have no idea. I does seem like you’d have to find some way to communicate such things in an advanced society. It also seems like you’d have to have representational speech at some point in order to even make the stories, and that such speech would be lost over time.
For that matter…how do they learn language, in the first place? How would you learn what the word “river” means if you can only refer to things in metaphor?
Maybe they learn a “baby talk” language first, and either won’t (because of a social taboo?) or can’t (brainwashing?) go back to it.
God only knows how their particle physicists and engineers get any work done…maybe they’re an opressed sub-caste, and the starship officers are of a caste privilaged enough to use the “special” metaphor language.
Which just makes it dumber, because the whole point of he episode is that the Federation and the Darmok are incapable of communicating because of the Darmok’s total reliance on metaphor. But if he can tell the story behind the metaphor, why can’t he just tell the story instead of the metaphor? The entire concept makes no sense.
Yes, but at what point does the child learn who Laktuk was, and what esploss was? Within just a few generations, those words would lose their metaphorical meaning and take on a literal meaning reflecting their usage. At which point, a conversation with a Darmok would be as easily translated by the UT as klingon or Romulan.
Exactly the point, except you’ve got it backwards. Over time, the metaphorical meanings are what would be lost. Look at English for a second. Or rather, the English. Back in the age of sail, the English nacy used lime juice to fight of scurvy. As a result, someone coined the term “limey” as a semi-derogatory to describe the English. Nowadays, “limey” is still understood to mean “English person,” even though the practice itself has long since been discontinued, and most people using the term are probably unfamiliar with its origins.
Now I know how engineers must feel everytime something is routed through the deflector dish.
Drama = good. Enjoyed it at the time.
Language concept = bad. Two major issues:
How does one tell the original story so that the base meaning of a given metaphor is established? Can a new metaphor be defined by telling its origin story using old metaphors?
How can the society move past metaphorical descriptions of concepts and emotions? How can precision mathematics be described, let along manipulated? How could a people that communicate that way handle the science required to build a starship?
Again, I liked the basic intent behind the story, but the MacGuffin in this case was distracting…
One simple answer, appropriate to the Star Trek mythos: Racial memory.
They’re born knowing all the stories. So, when somebody tries to do something and somebody else says, “Picard, his head shiny and bright” they don’t have to explain it. They just know.
Kind of like the jokes about visiting the old folks’ home where they’re sitting around shouting numbers at each other.
I don’t think the idea of the metaphorical vocabulary is really all that problematic. It’s like saying “How can a child possibly learn his language when he doesn’t understand the meanings of the words to begin with?” What I find hard to swallow is that the geniuses of the Federation would find the concept so utterly incomprehensible to begin with.
^^^What jokes are those?
Good ep, it may be (IS) bad language concepts, but when you have an actor of the caliber of the late Mr. Winfield, I buy it.
Sir Rhosis