I thought this video was absolutely fascinating throughout, even the ad.
The main thrust of it is about how natural Earth languages make use of idiom and metaphor frequently, and how Tamarian is subtly different from this. But we do also make use of a similar direct literary allusion, to different degrees in different languages. Mandarin has a number of examples, but we can also point to “crossing the Rubicon” as an example in English.
More recently, the use of memes has taken on a very Tamarian-like role.
This was always my favorite episode of the series, just due to the novel concept of communication. Upon a rewatch years later, I realized the episode was just ahead of its time. I mean we always had phrases like this, but with the huge rise of memes in the last 20 years the amount of phrases like this has grown exponentially.
The thing that confuses me about this wonderful concept is how did the Tamarians ever get to the point of building wooden ships if they only spoke in meme and metaphor? How could they have created a culture that speaks only in references if their references couldn’t happen without culture existing to make note of the referenced events?
I saw an amazing post on the alien site a while ago—I think it was in Daystrom, but I’m not sure—that suggested the Tamarians may have 2 or 3 different “modes” of speaking. This would explain both how their language’s function words exist and how children might acquire language.
I assume that they didn’t always speak that way, but as their language evolved it became gradually more dense with allusions, until they took over entirely.
Kermit, his head nodding in agreement
