[tuvix]

Kind of a tangent I guess, but the coolest thing about Star Trek’s universal translator to me was that it could translate new languages mid-conversation with an extremely small amount of data. Makes me wonder how close we might be able to get to that eventually

[pixl97]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok

TL;DR, probably never.

[goodmythical]

I don't know. I think the translator functioned perfectly. It accurately provided a translation of all of the information that the alien intended to communicate. The translator can't translate things that are not intended to be communicated via spoken language.

Like...it doesn't work on cats. It doesn't translate smiles.

If "nafnfowmfowl grtakkan ssshelpik" means "Temba, his arms wide" then the translation was correct. The fact that the crew mostly faileld to understand the communication is on them, not the translator.

This can also be seen in Data. Just because he can speak all sorts of languages and understand a majority of communications, he doesn't really know Riker's love of Troi because his translation matrix isn't designed for that in the same way that the ship's isn't designed to interpret intent.

You don't even need to go to Darmok to see this limitation, really. The fact that the translator provides human translations of klingon speech is not enough to understand their cultural intricacies. The same could be said of "pon farr" being a "time of mating". That knowledge alone could not have prepared Kirk for the trial or even hinted at there being a trial.

The translator is neither mind reader nor cultural liason. If it were we wouldn't have needed Troi.