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This episode is outrageous. I usually enjoy the completely unrealistic species in TNG, even the one that punishes any infraction to any law by instant execution, but only at one random location at a time, thus ensuring no one ever commits crimes because no one wants to risk it...
Tamarians are a warp capable species, yet their language is entirely composed of metaphors. How is it then possible to be this technologically advanced yet have a language that does not allow for the accurate description of things. Their technology is shown to be at least as advanced as Starfleet, if not more advanced. How would they come up with metaphors or names to fit phenomena that are completely new to them while always referencing a know person or location and a past situation?
What metaphor referencing a proper noun and a previous situation could fit their beam technology?
I also do not understand how they can even function as a crew. At one point during the episode they fire a phaser beam carefully adjusted to damage one of the nacelles of a shuttle, but not endanger it or it's passengers, in order to prevent it from interfering with their captain on the planet. What kind of metaphor was used to give that order? Even assuming they have an extensive library of metaphors and can express a lot of ideas by combining them and by using context, communicating complex information in a timely manner seems impossible. How they have survived so far in space is beyond me.
This is the 3rd or 4th encounter with the Tamarians, and both sides are aware of the language barrier. The Tamarians' solution is to force Picard to face a beast with Dathon, as per the metaphor, which ultimately costs him his life. Picard only learns the meaning of a very limited number of their metaphors. They could have simply stated these metaphors while showing appropriate visual representations or even drawings, instead of Dathon sacrificing himself in order to barely begin to break the language barrier.
Finally, as some semblance of first contact has been established, they create the metaphor ''Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel'' to mean : successful first contact. But how would any Tamarian not present for this encounter know it's meaning?
Truly an infuriating, but very enjoyable episode.
As a linguist, I hate this episode. Here's a nice exposition of the linguistic issues I found a while ago.
https://tenser.typepad.com/tenser_said_the_tensor/2006/12/darmok.html
