#the correct answer is sisko but rom is also acceptable
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trekkie-polls · 6 months ago
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motsimages · 2 years ago
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Being a linguist in DS9 must be the dream job for linguists in Starfleet, in other domains of the Federation and outside of the Federation.
Universities all around probably are looking to establish a Linguistic and Cultural Exchange and Study Center in DS9 with long-term missions there to work on databases and improving interplanetary cultural backgrounds.
There are linguists from many planets working in AI so that the computer can deduce how languages that we've never encountered work. There are linguists working in a more traditional way on specialized glossaries, asking people around, recording sounds, writing things down, asking for books, newspapers, children's letters... There are translators asking people to turn off their translator so that they can practice the language with natives, turning it on again to see how the computer translated the same sentence, making notes on it, improving it later. One of them is really passionate about Ferengi culture and put some extra attention in translating Ferengi children's books which is why we got "Acquire, Brak! Acquire!" to sound like that in English, keeping the alliteration.
There are cultural mediators writing manuals for Starfleet command, for ambassadors, travelers and captain frighters so that they know what to take into account when dealing with people from x planet or y planet or how to deduce what people from an unknown planet want, how to manage a first contact situation. They are all very frustrated because half the time nobody reads them or listens to them.
All of them spend their days trying to get Sisko to agree to take them on a mission to a far away planet so that they can gather data in the planet, in the natural context, but it's always too dangerous so they're stuck with the random traveler who stops at Quark's. They ask the other team members to please carry a recorder and record conversations so that they can analyse them later without the translator's influence. Many of them end up carrying their missions with freighters, runabouts and other non-Starfleet ships.
Some of them tried to offer services as forensic linguists when the threat of the Dominion started to spread so that they could analyse someone's speech and look for alterations, things they wouldn't say or other differences and spot impersonators but Starfleet thought it was slow and risky because what if they were mistaken?
They really love going to the Klingon restaurant because the owner is always happy to help, telling them Klingon idioms, jokes, insults, traditions and correcting their Klingon. Unexpectedly, Morn is also a good contact, he may drink a bit too much and sometimes he speaks and speaks in his monotone voice but he gladly lets them record his speech, writes things for them and brings them reading material.
Quark doesn't want to participate because where is the profit but Rom does, also because he needs translations of engineering and mechanic terminology into Ferengi, the database for Bajoran-Ferengi in this domain is not good enough and half the time they have to use some Starfleet official language as relay.
Garak is also readily available but trying to make sense of Cardassian culture from him is an impossible task. They do have a large database of fabric-related vocabulary in Cardassian. He refuses to acknowledge that he knows about weapons, army or other non-tailor related jobs. He sometimes accepts to tell them about plants, as he was a gardener once. They also have a great glossary of idioms and turns of phrases thanks to Garak.
They keep trying to figure out what is the changelings language when they are not in solid form, but they only have Odo for tests and he has had his share of tests so he only answers a couple of questions at a time before he is very busy. He never accepts to take tests to figure out language in liquid form.
Obviously, the database that is growing the fastest and with the best examples is Bajoran, to and from so many languages. They have samples of all ages and parts of society, they have access to books, music and videos of all sorts. More than one linguist from more than one planet has become the expert of Bajoran cutlure, translation from and to Bajoran, Bajoran religious expressions, etc.
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