DS9 s4e11 "Homefront"
this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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The universal translator is powered entirely by plot and absurdity. Hence why everything Quark says comes out in English, but anything said in Klingon is left untranslated. As for slang, again a definite "maybe" based on what's established in Darmok.
Basically, don't think about it too hard, none of it makes sense.
I’ve long held that the untranslated words are either the result of those words having entered into common universal vernacular that they don’t need to be translated OR they don’t have an equivalent English translation that’s not cumbersome. Like “targ” doesn’t need to be translated because a targ is a targ. Either everyone knows what that is or it would be super awkward for everyone to hear “dog-like possum creature thing with huge outward teeth,” every time a Klingon says the word “targ”
It is definitely a nonsense machine.
However, I'd argue that the meme-language in Darmok is not the same as slang. Slang is functionally the same as regular language, with words having particular meanings. The whole point of Darmok is that their language doesn't work like that.
It could probably translate some slang, but this type is context-basef, like Tamarian. We could assume a Federation translator would know that context, but who knows what knowledge was lost in the 21st century?
I might be misremembering, but I think the universal translator operates on a basis of reading "brain wave" ✨vibes✨ so it is more about intended meaning than disambiguation of denoted meaning by context, which is why I think it would pick the right word to translate even if the listener isn't familiar with the contextual nuances... The listener is never familiar with those linguistic nuances.
For Darmok to work you kinda just have to accept that there's something fundamental about word-denotative meaning based language and allegorical meaning. Of course it falls apart if you think to hard about the specifics 😂