[Nate the Great]

SF Debris revamped his "Darmok" review and the accompanying Tamarian language video today.


He makes a valiant effort to explain how the language works, but it completely falls apart under scrutiny. The Universal Translator can translate the Companion, a being who lacks common references with any humanoid language or mindset. Are you going to tell me that the UT became LESS sophisticated in a hundred years?



It's sad how the Babel Fish is actually more plausible than the Universal Translator. At least the Babel Fish knows how to establish a telepathic connection with the language centers of the brain. We're never given the implication that the Universal Translator can do this. If it could, the Tamarian metaphors would be convertible with no problems.



We know that the UT can't make a direct telepathic link because if it could we wouldn't need a mind-meld to understand Horta. Then again, perhaps the Horta don't "speak" via sounds, perhaps they can create vibrations in the rock around them to transmit ideas (or control their own heat signature to create patterns, for that matter). In the novels one of the Horta children joins Starfleet and has a custom UT, but that's another story and it probably took Spock's experience to build it to interpret vibrations or heat signatures or whatever.