Darmok on the Net

Darmok On the Net

Callimas at Bahar.

kah-lee-MAHS . buh-HAHR

Meaning unknown.

Chenza at court. The court of silence.

CHEN-zuh

Uncertain; seems to indicate an unwillingness to listen.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

dahr-MOCK . juh-LAHD . tuh-NAH-gruh

Communication (or friendship) as a result of shared struggle.

Kadir beneath Mo Moteh.

kuh-DEER . moe-moe-TAY

Failure of communication (or simply failure).

Kailash, when it rises.

(no pronunciation given in script)

(possibly) A necessary risk; a necessary loss.

Kiazi's children, their faces wet.

(no pronunciation given in script)

(possibly) Crying for no good reason; "crying wolf."

Kira at Bashi.

(no pronunciation given in script)

Storytelling.

Kiteo, his eyes closed.

key-TAY-oh

A refusal to see someone or something; "break off communications."

Mirab, his sails unfurled.

mee-RAHB

Departure; "let's go."

Rai [of Lowani] and Jiri [of Ubaya] at Lungha.

RIE . low-AH-nee . JEE-ree . LOON-guh

Communication. First Contact.

Shaka, when the walls fell.

SHAH-kah

Failure.

Sokath, his eyes uncovered (or, his eyes open).

soh-KAHTH

Realization; understanding; an epiphany.

Temarc. The river Temarc, in winter.

teh-MARK

(probably) "Be quiet"; "that's enough."

Temba, his arms wide.

TEM-buh

Giving; receiving.

Uzani, his army at Lashmir.

oo-ZAH-nee . lahsh-MEER

A military strategy in which an army lures the enemy in, and then attacks. Perhaps roughly equivalent to 'don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes.'

Zima and Bakor, at Anso.

ZEE-mah . bah-CORE . AHN-zoe

Unknown.

Zinda, his face black, his eyes red.

ZIN-dah

Anger; "you've had it."

Appendix 1: Episode Peculiarities

"Darmok" is one of the best-crafted episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and probably the most impressive premise the show has ever had. Congratulations to the script's author, Joe Menosky, are very much in order. However, as I played the tape over and over while compiling this dictionary, I couldn't help noticing a few oddities. I'm convinced that any episode, subjected to equally close scrutiny, would reveal just as many peculiarities; however, I'll pass these on just for fun.

1.Doesn't it seem a little odd that Data and Counselor Troi would be the ones to work on decoding Tamarian? Wouldn't a ship that's going to encounter unknown aliens include some sort of professional linguist? Evidently not, since Troi is also the one that has to explain linguistics to Picard in the episode "The Ensigns of Command."

2.How exactly does the Universal Translator work, anyway? If it works by assigning meaning to words by ostension and context, how is it able to accurately translate words like "at," "on," and "the," without having first cracked Tamarian well enough to get some meaning out of the sentences? And for that matter, if the information on who Darmok and Jalad are is sitting right there on the computer, why doesn't the Universal translator search for it and make the cross-references, rather than leaving Troi (of all people) to come up with that idea?

The original Star Trek claimed that the Universal Translator worked by identifying certain "frequencies" which are associated with the same basic concepts in the minds of all races. This is an embarrassing idea which TNG has, wisely, not chosen to repeat. But, not to put too fine a point on it, it's a little odd that there should be a universal frequency for the word "the," considering that it has no equivalent in many human languages.

3.The Children of Tama have interesting ideas about fire safety. When Dathon gives Picard the burning stick to start a fire with, he just throws it down on the ground, where it lands on dry grass. In real life this is a great way to start a brush fire, but apparently Eladril has non-flammable grass.

4.The Enterprise's computer records are strangely lacking in this episode. The computer knows that Darmok is a mythohistorical hunter and Tanagra is an island continent, yet it doesn't seem to know any of the stories associated with Darmok. It's as though the Enterprise is carrying around a truly crummy biographical dictionary, about as good as the one in the back of Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (which defines the Marquis de Sade as "Fr. soldier and pervert"). In a way this makes sense, since a mythological dictionary for all known species would be enormous, and hard to schlep around the galaxy. The trouble is that in other episodes, the ship's computer seems to include almost every conceivable piece of information you could want--as in "Loud as a Whisper," where it includes complete dictionaries for every gestural language in the galaxy. Why this strange omission? And even if we accept the omission, why doesn't Riker consider sending an urgent subspace message to Starfleet asking for more information?

A related point: how can both the Tamarians and Starfleet know this legend? Dathon's actions imply that the Tamarians have never before managed to communicate with any species that uses the sort of language we're accustomed to. Starfleet has certainly never cracked a mythoallusive language before. So if they speak a human-like language on Chantil III, the Tamarians would not have been able to learn the story; and if they speak a Tamarian-like language, Starfleet would not have been able to learn it. The solution: people on Chantil III must speak a third, completely different type of language which both Starfleet and the Tamarians are able to understand. It's a peculiar conclusion, but it looks like the only one. Too bad Dathon didn't know this, or he could have brought along a Rosetta stone and saved himself a lot of trouble.

5.Data sure can get a lot out of a little information. When he and Troi are making their presentation to Picard about the Tamarian language, he says: "The Tamarian ego structure does not seem to allow what we think of as self-identity. Their ability to abstract is highly unusual." That's a lot to conclude from thirty seconds of recorded conversation. How did Data get from "they talk in myths" to a conclusion about their ego structure?

Of course, it could be that he was able to dig up some other information about the Tamarians, or look at the logs of the other Federation ships who've encountered them. But there's nothing to indicate that he does this, and it seems that if he had, he would have mentioned it.

6.In the same scene, Data and Troi act as though they're giving Riker this information for the first time. Yet this seems to be some time after they first realized what the structure of Tamarian was. In an ongoing crisis, wouldn't you immediately notify the commanding officer of any progress whatsoever? In fact, we know for sure that Starfleet officers are supposed to do that, because the Benzite exchange officer in "A Matter of Honor" was scolded for not doing it. (I feel like such a nerd for knowing that.)

7.This is rather petty, but when Data and Troi are going over the recording of the Tamarians' argument, and Data says "stop," the computer stops the recording before he even opens his mouth. I wish my computer could read my mind like that. What's more, the "recording" seems to be a different take of the same scene; there are some noticeable differences in pacing and intonation.

8.Finally, something that is not a problem. Several people on the Fidonet Trek echo -- and, I suspect, throughout the Net -- have commented that they couldn't see how the Tamarians could get into space with a language like theirs, which, after all, makes it kind of hard to say "tighten that bolt there--the third one from the left." This does not seem to be a race of engineers.

My response is fourfold:

1.We don't actually know that the Tamarians built their own ships. They might have traded for them, been given them by a patron race (David Brin, q.v.), or stolen it like the Paklids (those "we look for things to make us go" guys).

2.Picard's two days of intensive research surely did not reveal every detail of the Tamarian grammar; there may be whole classes of utterance which we know nothing about. After all, if you're trying to talk to someone who doesn't know your language well, you try to keep it simple. These are probably what the Tamarians think of as 'baby sentences.'

3.There are many tasks that human languages are not well suited to, which we have nevertheless managed to master. It's nearly impossible to accurately describe a melody, or a complex mathematical equation, in ordinary English. That's why we create separate systems of notation--like sub- languages--for musical notes and mathematical symbols. Perhaps the Tamarians have something like this. Dathon's log in fact looks quite a bit like a circuit diagram, so we know they have some means of communication which would be well suited to describing specific relationships between parts of an object.

4.Just as humans do occasionally make an allusion, Tamarians may occasionally make specific reference to an object ("the third bolt from the left.") All we know is that this is not their dominant form of discourse. If Data is right in saying that the Tamarians' language is a result of their unusual ego structure, that would not seem to be any bar to talking about the objects around them; it would only influence how they see themselves.

Appendix 2: Possible Precedents for the Tamarian Language

The concept behind the Tamarian language is a strikingly original one, and surely there has never been anything quite like it in science fiction. There is, however, one language in SF that seem to come from the same linguistic family: the Ascian language in Gene Wolfe's The Citadel of the Autarch.

Ascians live under an Orwellian state which permits them to speak only "Correct Thought." Correct Thoughts are homilies taken from a finite set of Approved Texts. For example, we learn that Ascian beggars ask for coins by repeating the maxim, "It is better to be just than to be kind, but only good judges can be just; let those who cannot be just be kind." If Dathon had been Ascian, I suppose he would have said this in place of "Temba, his arms wide."

In Chapter XI of The Citadel of the Autarch, the Ascian character tells a story, while a woman who is familiar with Ascian sayings interprets for him:

"One is strong, another beautiful, a third a cunning artificer. Which is best? He who serves the populace."

"On this farm lived a good man."

"Let the work be divided by a wise divider of work. Let the food be divided by a just divider of food. Let the pigs grow fat. Let rats starve."

"The others cheated him of his share."

"The people meeting in counsel may judge, but no one is to receive more than a hundred blows."

"He complained, and they beat him."

Picard's interpretation of the Darmok story is reminiscent of this scene. Given Gene Wolfe's popularity, I think it likely (though by no means certain) that the author of the Darmok script had Ascian in mind.

There is another possible echo of Tamarian just a few chapters earlier in the same book, incidentally. The protagonist, Severian, calls attention to another character's habit of attributing everything he says to some comic situation: "I lost it somewhere along the way. That's what the jaguar said, who had promised to guide the goat." Abbreviate this to "the jaguar, guiding the goat," and you've got Tamarian.

Kathleen Van Horn

suggested, in netmail to me, that there is a similarity between Tamarian and the highly allusive speech of the characters in Lady Murasaki's _Tale of Genji_, a Japanese fiction of ca. 1005 AD, considered by some to be the world's first novel. Indeed, since for centuries the Chinese civil service exam has consisted of reciting poetry, it is easy to imagine court proceedings that would sound almost Tamarian.

Peter Joachim

wrote, also in netmail:

When I saw the episode I was instantly reminded of the

Chinese concept of stratagemas (I'd read an interesting book on

this subject a couple of months before). "Stratagemas" are

figures of speech that describe some action or general strategy

by referring to myths or history. Like the Tamarian metaphors

their meaning can be quite obvious or very cryptical (if one

doesn't know the underlying myth).

Here are two examples:

"Make noise in the east. Attack in the west."

Pretty obvious. Misdirect the opponents attention, then

attack where or when he doesn't expect an attack.

"Visibly repair the wooden bridges. Secretly march to

Chencang."

This isn't too obvious. This stratagem refers to a war in

ancient China. The meaning is roughly this: "Pursue unconven-

tional ends; but hide this by acting conventionally".

An example of this stratagem would be the allied landing

in Normandy. Before the invasion the allies faked preparations

for a landing in the Calais area which would have been the

conventional thing to to.

The similarity is especially close, of course, in the case of "Uzani, his army with fists open."