Darmok

Darmok is the name of a Star Trek episode —the plot involving attempts by Captain Picard to communicate with an alien captain, together on a hostile planet. The story provides an contemporary example of the problems with communication with someone speaking a metaphorical language.

It featured Captain Picard, played by Patrick Stewart and an alien, played by Paul Winfield, as stranded together on a planet. The language of the alien, although translated by Picard's universal translator device, was still unintelligible, because the alien's language was too rooted in local metaphor to communicate ideas. Eventually Picard was able to grasp the similarities between the alien's references, and make connections to story references in literature he was familiar with.