The Na'vi Language

Who knew that an alien language sensation could be created by a movie? Well, that is exactly what the blockbuster Avatar has done. The Na'vi language was created by Professor Paul Frommer from the University of Southern California linguistics department explicitly for the movie. About five years ago he signed on to the Avatar team and built the language from the ground up, drawing influence from an innumerable number of languages. He combined these many influences to create what is now known as Na'vi, the native language of the planet Pandora.

Within 24 hours of the release of the movie fans were starting to learn the Na'vi language and already asking for more. It is estimated that 12,000 people are currently trying to learn the language and more and more fans are beginning each day. Fan sites where they discuss grammar and syntax. There is even a Na'vi-English dictionary that contains about 500 words, but fans are pleading for more. Frommer is willing to help, but is waiting for the go ahead from Fox who has thus far remained quiet on the subject. Fans have been able to take the language farther using grammatical structures and more, but they want to make sure that they are speaking the true Na'vi language, not something they've simply made up. This is why they're begging for anything they can get their hands on.

I think it's ridiculous that movie fans have become so obsessive that they've started learning this language. There is no real world application of Na'vi, and this time and energy spent learning it could be used to study Spanish, or another language that has a practical application. In particular I think that this is wasted energy because there are any number of languages that are currently dying out. Perhaps we should try to preserve these languages instead. Perhaps the draw of the Pandoran language is that it is exclusive. But, going along with this logic, the languages that are dying out should also be desirable because they, too are exclusive.

I think this obsession is a manifestation of our society's preoccupation with Hollywood and pop culture. It goes right along with the glamor and status of movie stars that Americans are so concerned with, so it does not surprise me that the majority of Na'vi language learners are Americans. I think the passion these people display is great, but these men and women should move on and learn a language that has an authentic meaning- one that wasn't simply created for a movie.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/avatars-blue-language-on-the-rise-20100514-v45z.html?autostart=1

http://www.learnnavi.org/

http://www.slate.com/id/2248683