This is probably meaningless, but if you reverse the title of this ep you get komrad or comrade, which is pretty much what the Tamarian captain wanted him and Picard to be. Nice touch.

Not meaningless at all, Cableface! I just love this episode, it is my favourite! The idea that such a culture exists, with a language based solely on imagery, legend and history...magic!
Of course, there a few problems with it. Any one else think it took Data and Troi an unconcionably long time to figure out the language? And what about Starfleet? They had records like those Data and Troi used for ages, and had not managed to crack it. It was so not hard. Who did not have the whole thing figured out in under 15 minutes?
Plus, there are instances of that kind of language in our own English. As Troi pointed out.."Juliet, on her balcony". We know what that refers to, and surely there had been times when sayings were used between the races of the Federation that required translation of the story behind the words!
English-speaking countries, even in this century, have enough diversity of legend permeating language to cause confusion. Eg. "Up there Cazaly" or "The Don's duck" mean nothing to an American, but to another Australian...
So, that is why the Federation linguists should have figured out the Tamarian language much faster.
And why didn't they?
BITE!

As a linguist, I find it virtually impossible that such a language could exist, and given it's near impossibility, I think Data and Troi broke the code much too soon.

The impossible? On Star Trek? Surely you jest!
As Jean-Luc Picard once quoted: "Things are only impossible until they're not."

It's science fiction. That's why I said "virtually." :-)

Take the word "hooligan".

It's been a while since I saw this episode, so I may have the following wardsback, but anyway:

Troi says at one point that, when trying to talk to a race like the Tamarians, "a single word mis-spoken could lead to tragedy". Yet Picard twice uses an incorrect phrase - "Temba, his arms wide," seems to mean either 'Give me' or 'Take it'. But during the fireside conversation with the dying Dathon, and again back on the bridge when he offers the Tamarian Second Officer Dathon's log, he says "Temba, his arms open." For all he knows, the latter could be the most deadly Tamarian insult and could have plunged the entire Federation into war!

He also mispronounced the name of the river (Temarc, Temoc, Tamok) at the end, almost as if he read the script differently. But the Tamarian 1st officer says "Sokath, his eyes open" instead of "uncovered". Concerning "Temba, his arms open", it doesn`t really matter, since they seem to mean the same thing and Temba would have to remain "in character" for all the proverbs, but who knows if T`Makh (Picard`s pronunciation) and Taym`k (dathon`s) aren`t two separate things and Picard didn`t realise that!

The race supposedly call themselves the Children Of Tama. Yet they are later called the Tamarians. Shouldn`t this be Tamians? (How DOES one pronounce Tamians, though?)

There has been a person named Shaka and a place named Tanagra on Earth! Have any of you heard of the Tanagra figurines? Or the Zulu king Shaka? I hadn`t until I ran into them completely by surprise! Tanagra was a place where the Spartans defeated the Athenians and Shaka was a very successful king. Interestingly enough, the episode doesn`t really give much information on who Shaka was supposed to be. This is one of the few names which isn`t given as being male or female, and Shaka may even have been the place. But there`s no way to know without asking Joe Menosky...

It's a shame rachgd rarely comes around anymore. I can't ask her what those Australian phrases mean.

I liked the addition of a jacket to Starfleet uniforms. I had just two problems with it though: One, why don't we ever see more members wear these jackets, especially Away Teams? Two, why does Picard wear that ugly grey shirt underneath? (Who does he think he is Wesley Crusher?)

Captain Dathon mentions "Bry and Jeri". Aren't they alien ice cream manufacturers. (I love their `Darmok Swirl with Saurian Brandy and Oskoid Chips.')

So was Picard just guessing at some of what he was saying to the Tamarian second in command or did Captain Dathon give him a crash course in what metaphors to use when we weren't looking? It seemed like Picard was using metaphors that we hadn't heard before in the show.

"Captain Dathon mentions "Bry and Jeri"."

-- They're not ice cream manufacturers. One is an alien playwright who writes mediocre tales of fantasy. The other is one of his actresses who plays an evil sexgoddess.

It seemed like Picard was using metaphors that we hadn't heard before in the show. - KAM

No, all the phrases have been heard earlier in the episode.

Troi and Data shouldn't have had to "decode" the Tamarian language at all. It wasn't a code, it was a language. Whatever Dathon said should have been translated by Picard's universal translator. When Dathon made whatever sounds were transliterated to Picard as "Temba, his arms wide", the UT should have provided Picard with a true translation, not some meaningless phrase.

If I say "la casa de mi padres", I would hope the UT isn't going to transmit "the house of my fathers" or even the slightly more correct "the house of my parents", but rather "my parents' house".

Presumably the UT could only translate the words & was unable to read their minds* to translate the correct meaning.

*see the ClassicTrek episode Metamorphosis.

Those grey shirts are probably what many officers wear under uniforms. Probably standard starfleet undershirts.

You'd think that Picard would bone up on the language of the aliens BEFORE he makes contact with them...the Enterprise is HOURS from the rendezvous. I mean, one misspoken word can lead to war. You'd think he'd learn something after "The Big Goodbye"

OK, how many other people also clicked into this page after seeing on the "Last Day" list John's message ending at "bone ..."?!

John, IIRC, didn't the Tamarian language elude Federation linguists?

Perhaps. Even so, there must have been A FEW WORDS exchanged during the first contact mission. Even if they said, "Temba--his arms wide" SOMEBODY should've studied who or what Temba is /was and why he has his arms wide.
It's not impossible.....Picard picked up the language in a matter of 45 minutes!

LOL, Callie!

The linguists. Not Picard. If it was incomprehensible to them, and Picard read that in the reports, it's unreasonable for him not to have tried with it.

HMMM. So...instead of cheesy "Wesley save the day" episode it was pepperoni "Picard saves the day" episode. (with extra mushrooms)

(I say this because I like pepperoni pizza and this episode was very good & I liked it very much)

John, IIRC, didn't the Tamarian language elude Federation linguists?

Didn't they say something in the ep that they have no problem translating the words, but the meaning of the words strung together in metaphore illuded them?

Tech note Brian- "eluded"

Even if the metaphores eluded them they should've spent some time studying the meanings before rushing to the scene and almost causing an intergalatic war.. But as I concluded above, Picard is "smarter than the average bear" He made no "boo boo"

John is absolutely right. Not only did Picard pick up the language in a short amount of time, but so did Data and Troi. I could buy that inspiration may have struck one or the other group, but both is a stretch.

BEST SCENE: The ending...Picard looking out the window, touching the dagger then touching his forehead in Darmok fashion. I must add this episode RULES with all the mythology / metaphor stuff. Plus, the aliens are TOTALLY alien! No English standard language, no common ground, NOTHING! It's wonderful!

It's a shame rachgd rarely comes around anymore. I can't ask her what those Australian phrases mean.- KAM

Well, it's been 18 months KAM and I am sure it has kept you up at night so let me enlighten you....

"Up There Cazaly" is a sort of unofficial anthem for our Australian Football League (AFL). It's like a call of "go get 'em". I think Cazaly was a footballer from ages ago, but someone else might like to correct me.

"The Don's Duck" is a reference to the legendary Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest cricketer to ever play. Before his last test innings he had to score 4 more runs to bring his test batting average to 100 (that's how many runs, on average, he made every time he strode out to bat- the next highest, i think, is in the 60's). He strode out to bat and made a duck (zero) and retired with a test batting average of 99.94.

I realise you may need to further understand the rules of cricket a little more to appreciate the stats, and I would suggest you visit www.cricket.org to get a better grasp of it.

Boring episode BTW- so completely implausible that a race can solely communicate with metaphors. Defies logic- or as the Children of Tama would say "Dark Angel- cancelled after only 2 Seasons"

Thanks, Rodney.

I think a more appropriate Children of Tama saying would be, "Star Trek - cancelled after only three seasons." ;-)

Not really- Jessica Alba can act and the scripts aren't bad- I don't see an episode called "Logan's Brain" anywhere....
sorry Trekkers- I am a confirmed TNG addict with a dash of Voyager and DS9)

Rodney: Defies logic- or as the Children of Tama would say "Dark Angel- cancelled after only 2 Seasons"

I think a more appropriate Tamarian saying might be "Kenya in the Semi-Finals."

I think a more appropriate Tamarian saying might be "Kenya in the Semi-Finals.- Sven

Indeed! Very funny LOL!

or "Adelaide Crows win Wizard Cup"

or "Australian makes joke that Americans don't understand"

Or better yet "Chicago Cubs in the World Series"

NOBODY could figure that one out!

\offtopic {Speaking of which, Rodney - I've opened up a cricket topic on the general Kitchen Sink several boards down. Are you going to be watching the ICC World Cup Final tonight? (and see Sachin Tendulkar wipe that grin off Brett Lee's face in the process? )}

I wasn't comparing the shows, Rodney. Personally I prefer Classic Trek to Dark Angel, which just didn't grab me as a viewer. I just thought it would be funnier for Star Trek aliens to make reference to Star Trek as a show.

or "Australian makes joke that Americans don't understand"

And vice versa, it seems.

on the 'defies logic'/unbelievable metaphor, how about
"Kirk, his shields down" (STII, WoK)

\offtopic {OK, so it didn't quite work out like that...}

I'd sure like to know HOW Darmok was planning to kill a non-corporeal lifeform with a knife. (Something simular happens like this in TOS...namely, "Obsession" & "The Lights of Zetar")

John, the alien captain's name was Dathon, not Darmok.

(Slaps forehead)....You're right.

I'd sure like to know HOW Darmok was planning to kill a non-corporeal lifeform with a knife. - John A. Lang

Well, the non-corporeal lifeform certainly didn't have any problem injuring Dathon. And was it ever stated the creature was non-corporeal? Certainly it was invisible/cloaked at times, but I don't recall it ever being intangible.

Picard: I'm Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise-
Dathon: Ahh! Enterprise...when the continuity fell!
Picard: No, no, we're on a peaceful voyage-
Dathon: Ahh! Voyager...when the ratings fell!

cableface: This is probably meaningless, but if you reverse the title of this ep you get komrad or comrade, which is pretty much what the Tamarian captain wanted him and Picard to be. Nice touch.
Luigi Novi:, Yeah, I hear that in the original script, the Tamarians were actually called the “Ekoj-ni”.

Picard's praise of Dathon at this episode's end has taken some new meaning for me since the great Paul Winfield is no longer with us.

This is the first of Ashley Judd's three appearances as Ensign Lefler. Of the (mainly) non-singing side of the Judd family, Ashley is more or less a movie actress, although her film career is somewhat nebulous (Double Jeopardy, Twisted). She recently did De-Lovely, though, which I heard is quite good.

I loved the episode myself - it encompasses all that Star Trek is for me.

The only thing that made me wonder is why such language can't exist.

Again, it might have been mentioned somewhere, but it's my musings: To have the metaphores, they had to create literature first. Now, how could they have created literature with only metaphores? - it's a vicious circle.

And I agree - it should have been understood much earlier by the Federation but then, we would never see a beautiful story...

Here's a new one - what if the Talarians originally had a normal language, built up an impressive classical civilisation which then collapsed and the survivors harkened back to legends of that civlisation, using them in common conversation? Something similar, though not as extreme, happened in the eighteenth and nineteenth century on Earth when the British, French, Americans and some others used lots of Greek and Roman classicism to justify/compare to their own modern nations. Eventually the metaphors consumed the normal speech, possibly because using the metaphors rather than a normal explanation showed that one knew about the ancients and was thus to be admired.

Just an idea.

Sorry, that should be Tamarians.

A nice try, Thande :-)

I've read something similar before but IMHO, it just doesn't hold the water :-(

The Tamarians have children, right? How do they teach them the meaning of the metaphors?

OK, I also have heard speculations about them having some sort of collective memory that's being passed from generation to generation. That would mean they're sort of "born" with understanding the metaphors. Frankly, it doesn't strike me as particularly convincing. It should have at least been implied in the episode, and yet we know nothing about it.

Nevertheless, nothing can spoil this story for me: it's just one of the most Trek stories I've seen so far.

Yes. It may require suspension of disbelief, but it's one of my favourites too.

And "Darmok...and Jalad...AT TENAGRA!" reminded me a lot of tourists Speaking Loudly and Slowly in their own language as though that'll suddenly make them understandable to people who don't speak a word of it.

YES... SIR!
I... KNOW... WHAT... YOU... MEEN.

LOL!

"ME NO SPEAKEE YOUR LINGO. I will now... speak... loudly... and... slowly... in... the... Queen's... English... and... you... will... understand."

And then the walls fell...

Why do the Enterprise's Phasers come out of the Photon Torpedo Tube in this episode? They're supposed to come out of the "ring" on the Saucer Section!

The SFX guys mesed up.

That's reality, Brian. "We're nitpickers, we don't deal in reality."

Whoops! Forgot the smiley.

If I remember correctly, it's been a while since I've seen this one, but the phasers come out of the photon torpedo tube because they are a more-robust type with more power going into them. How it was able to come out a different spot, and why they weren't used more often, I don't know.

no in the ST TNG companion they say in the making of for this ep that it was a "rare SFX mistake."

Just watched it again yesterday. All they did was change something with the phase coils, which doesn't account for why it came out where it did. Thanks for the Companion insight Brian. The reason they wanted this beefed-up phaser however was to fire at the protected component emitting the scattering field, yet when they do shoot it's all over the ship. Speaking of the scattering field, how does it surround the entire planet from a single location so quickly? Granted this species seem to be more technologically advanced than SF but wouldn't the opposite side of the planet have less a concentration?

This episode marks the first time we see Picard's "black shoulderpad" shirt. (He must have pulled onto his old uniform shirt once too often)

Kudos to everyone who worked on this episode. This is probably one of my all-time favorite hours of Star Trek. Forcing Picard to exapand his understanding of language in order to communicate with Darmok is exactly what Star Trek is about. If this were a Voyager ep, I could see the crew spending the entire episode fiddling with the Universal Translator until, at the last possible moment before war ensues, Seven of Nine injects nanoprobes into the computer or comes up with some technobabble-ridden solution which makes the alien language understandable.

By Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Friday, July 27, 2001 - 4:18 am:

I liked the addition of a jacket to Starfleet uniforms. I had just two problems with it though: One, why don't we ever see more members wear these jackets, especially Away Teams? Two, why does Picard wear that ugly grey shirt underneath? (Who does he think he is Wesley Crusher?)

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but this episode is the only one where Picard's jackets' shoulders are made of some shiny, leather/vinyl-like material, and looked just great. In all following episodes, the material was replaced by a flat, felt-looking material. My guess is that it was replaced because someone felt it was to shiny, and perhaps made lighting more difficult. Too bad, whatever reason, as I liked the original much, much better. The dulled-down version just didn't look as snazzy.

The jacket is neat looking, however, due to Roddenberry's statement that there are no zippers in the 24th century, Picard couldn't close it when he was cold on the planet. Speaking of being cold, he just gives up making the fire. If he was cold and really that concerned, he would have moved to a spot where the wind wouldn't blow out the fire as he's trying to make it.

---

NANJAO
Many "unique" knives are repeatedly used in the Star Trek universe. The Xindi knife being one of the most famous I think. However, I don't remember the knives in this episode being used elsewhere. Granted, I haven't seen every epiosode nor do I remember every episode... Does anyone else remember seeing Tamarian knife before or elsewhere?

---

Regarding the language, don't people know that the real population doesn't speak like that, it's just slang used by their space corp. Sort of a city speak if it were.

A glossary of Tamarian terms and speculations:
http://rec.horus.at/trek/lists/darmok.html

The only corrections... Saul's scales is in the New Testament.

Also, my interpretation of 'Kiaza's children, their faces wet' is completely different- from the context of the episode, this phrase always suggested to me a scenario similar to the end of Disney's animated 'The Jungle Book,' as everyone stands around mourning and eulogizing Baloo with his fatal wound- which then turns out to have been a very minor strike. Their faces were wet, the tears for the dying were shed- but they turned out to be un-needed since no one was dying. IMHO, this is a much more interesting, and accurate, speculation.

"Plus, the aliens are TOTALLY alien! No English standard language, no common ground, NOTHING! It's wonderful!" - John Lang

Well, at least they were a humanoid species, with heads, two arms and two legs, and presumably breathed oxygen and required food and water to survive. But I do still see what you are saying, regarding their language.

Anyway, just like the Zalkonians from "Transfigurations", the Children Of Tama are yet another non-aligned race with advanced technology and powerful starships.

I once had a discussion on another board about the Tamarian vessel. It was at least as powerful the Enterprise, firepower-wise. They were provoked by Riker as he was attempting to retrieve Picard from the planet, and their weapons managed to cause the Enterprise's shields to completely fail. As Data said, if they the Tamarian First Officer had fired that last shot, they would have not survived.

Personally, my favorite Tamarian phrase has to be "Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered". Plus, remember on DS9 when they were suffering from Aphasia? Their gibberish sounded a lot like the language used in this episode!

In reply to Marka, I agree...it is a vicious circle, but I always assumed (made up?) that the Tamarians "evolved" to a metaphor-only language, having started more literal, so that the stories were originally told by people who thought more like we do. Only after a bank of stories had been built up could the modern Tamarian "language" come into existence.
A truly beautiful and remarkable episode, truly science fiction at its finest and doing what it is supposed to do - making us think in new ways about old things.
But I do have this one problem which I did not see mentioned specifically above: how could such a language permit the technical communication necessary to run a starship? What if someone needs to order an engineer to "boost the confinement beam 57% by rerouting power from the structural integrity field?" What mythological character ever had to do that? I can just see the captain yelling "Doogruff, his spear sharpened!" again and again as the engineer tries one thing after another!

The TNG short story compilation during the 40th anniversary anthology releases addressed this, suggesting that they also had a secondary, mathematically-based language for matters of engineering, starship operation, etc.; but due to the way they saw themselves- as extensions of mythical figures, almost avatars or embodiments of story concepts and archetypes, and their general perception of self, psychologically couldn't use it to communicate with people.

Or something to that effect.

On the jacket topic - Torque, Son of Keplar (Polls_voice) says
"The jacket is neat looking, however, due to Roddenberry's statement that there are no zippers in the 24th century, Picard couldn't close it when he was cold on the planet."

Interestingly, in Unification 1, Picard does have the jacket closed partway when he talks with Sarek. But it doesn't show how he does this - there isn't a zipper pull-thingy visible.

Its a well known fact that by the 24th century the federation has mastered the science behind magic.