Tamarians

Player Race: No
Relation to UFP: Unknown.  Friendly.

ACTDNoteworthy:
- The language barrier is too significant for a character to be of this race.

Description
A humanoid civilization, first encountered by the Federation in 2268.  The Tamarians were faintly reptilian in appearance, and their spoken language was based on almost entirely on metaphors drawn from their culture's mythology.  Early encounters between the Federation and the Tamarians were without incident, but the two societies were  unable to communicate.  A breakthrough finally came in 2368, when a Tamarian captain, dathon, confined both himself and Enterprise-D Captain Picard on the surface of planet El-Adrel IV (Darmok -TNG).
Star Trek: The Encyclopedia (1999 edition).