All new Starfleet xenolinguists have a capstone training event whereby they must help a Tamarian ensign rebuild an old earth machine. The goal is twofold: help integrate the Tamarians into the Federation and also give xenolinguists a taste of the challenges they will face when they are off exploring strange new worlds.
I remember it well. First, we were both shown a reenactment of Picard's trial with Dathon. That was a primer for both me and my Tamarian partner on our respective languages. It struck me that Dathon broke the first rule of linguistic fieldwork in that he did not perform simple actions or point at objects and then ask what they were called. In fairness, the Tamarian language is so strange that perhaps they never had much of a chance to establish their own study of linguistics. I suspect that their planet never had more than one language. That is unusual, but certainly within the realm of possibility.
In the early days of xenolinguistics, the standard procedure when hailing unknown alien vessels was to message them with prime numbers. However, although math is a universal language, it is also a specialized field, so most intelligent creatures cannot recognize prime numbers easily. It was found that music works way better, because unlike prime numbers, it conveys emotional intent. Indeed, there were several unfortunate incidents where Federation ships were fired upon because the prime number message was interpreted to mean that weapons were being aimed and powered up. If you don't believe me, find an old recording of numbers being broadcasted quickly in Morse Code. At the academy, I wrote a paper strongly urging the use of fireworks when making first contact. Fireworks send a powerful message: don't panic, we are intelligent beings who care about beauty.
It reminded me of an incident centuries ago during the last great war on earth. The spokesman for Japan (a country now defunct like all the others) was asked for his response to America's threat to use atomic weapons for the first time. He said "mokusatsu" which usually means "no comment", however the literally meaning is "kill [it with] silence" or "that question is so stupid I am ignoring it in contempt". The American leader got the latter translation, became enraged, and ordered an immediate attack. I listened to the American leader's message and was reminded of the Borg's standard ultimatum: Resistance is Futile. The more I learn about the war, the more surprised and relieved I am that humanity has survived another 400 years to my time.
Since I knew what was coming, I did my best to study the Tamarian written language as the vocabulary and grammar of the spoken language was very easy to learn. Since their language has no words for numbers at least as far as I could tell, I suspected they only wrote numbers and related words, sort of like the way humans have a separate written language just for math. Right away, I noticed that their written language looked like a circuit diagram. Surely they must have a concept of numbers and math or else how could they have built starships? The best analogy I can think of is that spoken Tamarian is sort of like an old writing style called cursive, and their written language is like print. Cursive is fast but print is easier to read and produce.
The fateful day came, and as was tradition, we were both beamed down to El-Adrel, the very planet where Picard and Dathon had their encounter. Fortunately, unlike them, we did not have to worry about the beast of Tanagra. Before us lay a fully disassembled motorcycle, a repair manual, and a box of tools. Maybe my partner had been a mechanic before, because he went straight for the manual. A linguist from centuries past named Knozorov deciphered the Mayan written language. He had a hard life and was bitter that his genius work was uncelebrated because of the totalitarian regime which employed him.
Consider Euler's Identity. It is one of the greatest and most profound truths in mathematics, just like E = m*c^2. Now imagine how hard it is to write either statement in plain English. The Tamarians must have realized long ago that regular spoken language is insufficient for such tasks, hence their writing system.
I could tell my partner was getting frustrated, so I said "Darmok and Jalad. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra." In Tamarian folklore, Darmok and Jalad started as enemies but then worked together to defeat the beast of Tanagra. The story, as best I can tell, is the basis of Tamarian morality. I pointed at myself and said my name. Then I pointed at him. "Sokath" he replied. "Sokath, his eyes open", I joked. In Tamarian, that phrase also means "I understand", among many other things. It got a chuckle out of him, so I figured we were off to a good start. I had just made a pun in an alien language.
He paused, sighed with frustration, and said "the beast of Tanagra" then pointed at the motorcycle. There were a few diagrams in the manual, but it was meant for repair, not assembly from scratch. I decided we first needed to determine which set of tools to use. It was easy enough to identify the metric tools. I picked up a motorcycle bolt and examined it for any writing. It was a bit hard to see, but I saw 3/8 written on the bolt. OK, so it's not metric. I went to the box of tools and started looking for anything marked 3/8.
Sokath sighed with weary resignation before saying "Kidir beneath Momotei."
I showed him the bolt then pointed at the box of tools. For emphasis, I wrote "3/8" in the ground with a stick. Sokath was intrigued. Evidently human math was just as much a mystery to him as his language was to the Federation. To explain, I gathered eight pebbles, made a group of three, and group of five, and then drew a slash between them. Sokath looked like he had been struck by lightning. Below my drawing, he made his own, which took to be the Tamarian equivalent.
Before he was killed by the beast of Tanagra, Dathon gave Picard a pocket-sized book of some sort. The writing had yet to be deciphered, yet copies of it were available, and I had been studying one for a few months prior while making very little progress. Just as hieroglyphics were only deciphered with the help of the Rosetta Stone, there was no way to decipher Tamarian script without knowledge of certain key words. My initial impression was that Tamarian did not use an alphabet and was sort of like Chinese.
I took the Tamarian handbook out of my pocket, pointed at Sokath's drawing, then pointed at the handbook. He opened it to a page near the front and began gathering pebbles, which he then arranged in groups corresponding to the numbers one to ten. Then he wrote Tamarian next to them. Eureka!, I thought. Here's our Rosetta Stone. At that point I decided that translating the Tamarian handbook was a better use of our time than assembling a motorcycle, whatever the hell that is. Some kind of very expensive toy from what I could tell. After figuring out arithmetic in the dirt, we switched to pen and paper, which I always got made fun of for using. If it ain't broke, don't fix it was my response to being called a luddite and a dinosaur.
Somewhere around differential equations, our mutual knowledge of math was exhausted, but we had succeeded in creating a way for Tamarian scientists and mathematicians
to communicate with their counterparts.
Then came the truly interesting part: exploring the connection between spoken and written Tamarian. I took the motorcycle manual and read aloud a block of text as I traced under the words with my finger. Sokath immediately understood my idea, and did likewise with the Tamarian handbook. Once in a while, he would pause on a symbol and then point at drawing on the ground or one of the pages we'd written on. So that explains it. They have numbers, measurement, and math, just not in spoken form. I was reminded of written Chinese, which was used as a medium of communication for centuries across Asia even though people in different countries pronounced the symbols differently. Yet because the symbols had the same meaning in every country, communication was possible at least in writing.
We were duty bound to construct the motorcycle, so we turned our attention to that. It actually wasn't that hard once we'd identified the right tool set and rediscovered an ancient bit of knowledge called "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey". It was just after sunset when we finished. There were no parts leftover, so I presume our assembly was more or less correct. I contacted the ship in orbit, and an inspector beamed down to check our work.
"You guys really came together well on this", she said. "Most who attempt this challenge get frustrated and just end up fighting each other. Or one guy sort of figures it out and does all the work by himself. Let's see if it actually runs."
Sokath got on and hit the kickstart. The engine came to life with a satisfying roar, and Sokath did a slow circle around me and the inspector before parking it and turning off the motor.
"Excellent work, gentlemen. Now take it apart so it's ready for the next pair."
I started to do as she said and motioned Sokath to come help.
"Ugh, Koltar when he drowned in the swamp", said Sokath.
We went our separate ways not long after but tried to stay in touch. In the meantime, I had a new project of creating an English-Tamarian dictionary, the first of its kind. Hopefully that would mean the end of the silly motorcycle ritual. It would be the first bilingual dictionary written after the invention of the universal translator more than 300 years ago.
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