this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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Can someone explain this?
There was an episode of TNG where the Enterprise encountered an alien race called the Tamarians, who's entire language is based around communicating through references to events and shared stories. In the show, the universal translator was correctly translating the words, but not the meaning of the language.
To use something from the show as an example, the phrase "Shaka, when the walls fell" is a phrase saying something is a failure. Or "Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel" describing successful first contact and 2 people working together.
Think of the person you know who is super well versed in movies/TV shows/pop culture and can relate any situation they find themselves in to a scene from said pop culture thing. The Tamaranian language is basically and exclusively that.
So abed in community made a language
Yes...? I suppose so, granted Community did come after TNG
But yeah Abed is a great descriptor for the Tamarian language
I was just having a little fun. I think I get it now though!
Pop pop!
Interesting that you thought the Star Trek reference is what needed explanation.
I... hmm... yeah no I thought this was the one posted to the star wars memes community.
Sokath, his eyes uncovered.
Can you explain how this relates to star wars?
The... pictures... in the meme... and the use of star wars events... in the style of the Tamaranian language...
The top qoute is a reference to the Jedi "master/student" relationship of obi wan and luke. It reads to me like she is asking to be trained by Luke, offering to be his student.
The bottom qoute may be a reference to a attack on the empire by the rebellion in which the death 2nd deathstar's shield was secretly up, which resulted in admiral akbars famous "its a trap!" qoute. This implies that Luke is saying she has caught him by suprise in an unwanted situation. Although this might be read in a different way, as it's "after the sheilds fell," which is when they destroyed the death star? Maybe it's acceptance or jubilee? The "Chewbacca, arms wide" implies a positive outcome as well. So
Maybe this is after Luke accepted Rey, instead of one they first met like the images in the meme are showing.
Chewbacca died in the Yuuzhan Vong invasion in the EU novels after saving Anakin Skywalker but not being able to make it on the ship off planet to escape a falling moon.
The last image of him was stylized as arms open towards the moon, accepting his death and the end of his life debt to Han by giving his life for his son.
Anyways, that was way better than his role in the sequels even if I didn't quite like the story arc as a whole.
So I read it more like:
"Teach me!"
"This is a trap." (Personal interpretation of what the trap is probably varies)
"Death and release from obligation."
Thank for translating the Tamarian!
It's a star trek reference to a certain race that spoke only in phrases, can't think of the word.
Edit: I can't articulate early in the morning.
"Crazyslinkz without coffee"
Everyone speaks in phrases, even you. The tamarians are noted for speaking in allegories.
Yeah, meant references of past events.
More of a "only speak in cultural memes" thing. We all speak in phrases mostly.
"I am feeling alarm at the moment of realization that every warrior I am commanding may be killed by the enemy who has prepared for our assault with deadly guile." This complex and specific meaning might be encoded as "Ackbar above Endor when the Death Star struggled."
The whole thing is a bit queationable with the whole "how can they say things without some sort of language independant of their cultural memes to encode those memes within." That part never made sense to me.
I think this is why LLMs work, and some research backs this up. Humans actually don't create new phrases for unique situations very frequently. Much or even most of what we say is existing word chunks stuck together.
For example, look at this sentence. It communicated what I intended, but it is just a small idea conveyed with a standard text requiring no thought to generate. It could have easily been "Peregrine, with self reflection," or something. Memes are a more obvious example of this.
At some point in that imaginary culture maybe they just abandoned the original language since they could adequately communicate using only shared story references. Whether that part is realistic for an advanced technology culture maybe requires suspension of disbelief.
For a more sophisticated take on this, there is a similar story inside of the Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe that asks some interesting questions. In that case, the language is specifically limited to ideologically-approved tracts in order to limit what the populace can think about, so as to be easier to control. However, the story told might be subversive.
I’m now even more confused lol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok
Wow that’s an incredible story/episode
It really is a very good episode. One of my favorites for sure.
They were the Tameri.. Temari.. something with T
Tamarians. (Or the Children of Tama.)
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Children_of_Tama
Was just about to link this.
This is nothing. If you really want a Star Trek/Star Wars deep dive meme...
In addition to the Star Trek reference, I think the first frame is her asking for a teacher like Luke and obi on tatooine (works for anakin on tatooine also), second frame “it’s a trap.”
Could be wrong
It’s incomprehensible