James Cameron’s soon-to-be-released movie, Avatar – his first
since Titanic – has been grabbing headlines mainly due to the
incredible CG used throughout the movie to create the alien
world of Pandora. However, I was even more interested to learn
that he commissioned a language to be created to flesh out his
movie even further, turning to linguistic expert Paul Frommer, a
professor at the University of Southern California. However,
unlike the scratchy, clicky tongue of the “prawn” aliens in the
recent movie District 9 (there is a very interesting essay
written on this topic), there is rhyme and reason behind the
language of the blue alien race known as the Na’vi. Frommer says
of Cameron’s request: “He wanted a complete language, with a
totally consistent sound system, morphology, syntax,” Frommer
says. And “he wanted it to sound good — he wanted it to be
pleasant, he wanted it to be appealing to the audience.” Frommer
spent years working on the Na’vi language, eventually teaching
it to all of the principal ac