It seems that James Cameron never settles for the easy way out. He could have made Avatar 10 years ago with the existing technology, and had The Phantom Menace level animations. But he developed a new animation technology instead.
He also created a new language. Or rather, he had USC Prof Paul Frommer do it for him.
“The constraint, of course, is that the language I created had to be spoken by humans,” Frommer told LA Times. “I could have let my imagination run wild and come up with all sorts of weird sounds, but I was limited by what a human actor could actually do.”
But even though the language was created with humans in mind, “Avatar” actors still struggled to get the words out correctly. “It was so hard and I was really concerned about it,” said Zoe Saldana. “I didn’t think I could get through it. I’m not good with languages. All the actors, we worked together. It was the only way.”
It is impressive enough to think that an entire language was constructed for the characters to speak instead of just paying attention to detail to make sure their babbling sounded a little more structured.
Not since Klingon earned itself a dictionary has a language been laid out so specifically in film. Even the very convincing sounding “Divine Language” that Milla Jovovich spills in Fifth Element didn’t make sense grammatically, but it was there.
This attention to detail fascinates me and scares me at the same time. Does Cameron really think it would be worth it to create a fictional language just to add a level of credbility to the movie?
Wouldn’t semi structured babbling do just as well?
I can’t think of any movies off the best of my head that fit the bill with “strategic babbling”, however the Geonosian language from Revenge of The Sith might fit the bill I suppose. Every one of the those whistles, clicks and also squeaks may have been anything, it was actually solely the on top of screen interpretation which managed to get sound an activity such as a language.
Do u know? Avatars are about 3 metres tall, their necks are twice as long as an average human, and they have four times as much strength as an average human. Cool huh? Learned it from my pc game, haha!!!!
i love avatar movie neytiri looking nice
…i love Avatar sooo muchh.. we watch it again an again
The LearnNa’vi site is great! Haha
I love the (not realism, more dedication to the canon) that having a fictional, but usable language in a film can be.
Kiyevame :P
The creation of a language for a film is not new, there was a small amount for the original “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. Klaatu speaking both to Gort and to his homeworld in his “native” dialect.
Star Wars has several different language’s, the main one being Huttese.
And of course as mentioned in the main article several language’s have been created for the Star Trek universe, Klingon, Vulcan, etc…
So James Cameron is just following in the footsteps of many who came before and having someone create the Na’vi language.
True enough, however given the examples you mention compared to how many films with an alien race in it with a language that was just strategic babbling?
The ones that took the time to create a language are far fewer than those that just make sounds and babble as a substitute for a language you wont recognize anyways.
I can’t think of any films off the top of my head which fit the bill with “strategic babbling”, however the Geonosian language from Revenge of The Sith might fit the bill I suppose.
All those whistles, clicks and squeaks could have been anything, it was only the on screen translation that made it sound something like a language.
Whoops, my mistake, the Geonosian language was in At of The Clones not RoTS!
Pedro, most alien languages in films are not developed to the point of any real structure.
No one is learning Wookie, Rodian, Sullustian, or even Huttese. Sure there are phrases, but nothing more than that.
The “Divine Language” in Fifth Element was creative babbling by Mila Jovovich. She was not given any specific dialog to speak at all.
There are many examples of languages that are made up for aliens where they simply try not to repeat words or sounds so it doesnt just sound like they are making it up on the spot.
WOW, so much to learn…
AaAaAaAaAaAaaaaAAAAaAAAaAAAaaaaAaaaAaaah
I’m actaly starting to do good with navi now, Plltxe Na’Vi raa Omum Nga. Skxawng nga srak.
Translation: you do not know Na’Vi. Are you a moron?
Anyone who wants to learn Na’Vi and become semi fluent like I am and is not a skxawng (moron) there is a great website that has pronuciation, common frases and a 500 word dictionary. The website is called learnnavi.org ( I think ) also for starters to figure out what that website is talking about there are several YouTube tutorials that teach you the basics so tha you can skip reading 9 pages of Na’Vi pronuciation and grammar after about 30 mins of videos. Then head strait to memorizin the words in the dictionary. I would recomend first going to YouTube then to the website and going through everything just on case. one tip, you don’t pronounce x in the language, it represents a quick stop in wich you close you’re throat and say the sound of the vowel that’s in front of x without using breath( so k sound like a click or a sharp kuh, and p sounds like the noise a headset makes when you plug it in or a low puh), causing a distinct pause in the word. The x will also only appear after the letters k, t, and p. here is the common phrase for goodbye in English: see you and may aywa be with you
I forgot the word for see you (it’s something along the lines of karernvahi) so I will wright that in English
see you ulta aywa naghu
Kx=click or high pitched kih
tx=high pitched tih
px= low pitched puh
The learnnavi site is uber cool :) Thanks
Dude I would so learn every last bit of that language GEEESH I wish I were an Avatar or Na’vi!!!!
What do they call them It’d be nice if someone could tell me?
The aliens are the Na’Vi, the aliens with human DNA are avatars, the humans are sky people.
In all reality why would you learn klingon or elfish or na’vi? who would you talk to?
your nerdly friends who also learned it… or impress people by cosplaying na’vi/avatars for halloween or at sci fi cons. that’s who!!! XD *runs*
they should publish a na’ vi translation book
id buy that XD
There is one, just look at my post farther down the thread
a few things:
1st:james cameron rules
2nd: he should make a 2nd movie(perhaps something with like a war between the clans?)
3rd:damm paul frommer,get that dictionary online biatch…
4th:avatar the movie is the awesomest movie ever,ive seen both versions,3D and normal!
5th:the game version for wii sucks…(why didnt i get a xbox 360 for christmas 2 years ago…)
I agree with every last bit of that!!!!
Rock on man!!!!
Wooooooo!!!!
Just so you know, they are actualy planning on TWO sequels. I know. The best news you have heard in your entire life. Same for me, same for me.
hey everybody! i was wondering if there was a site where you could learn to speak the Na’vi language. A book perhaps? He had to have written these things down. If someone could reply to this i would greatly appreciate it. Thanks! :)
good movie but that seems a tad overkill. more money on ridiculous things doesn’t make it any better.
why not spend 250K or so to hire a team of anaylists to check and make sure all plants and animals appear in alphabetical order as well. your assuming all of the people who enjoy your movies can spot a tiny white hair on a nipple from 30 ft away. keep in mind that those types represent a VERY tiny part of your audience and it doesn’t make sense to spend so much to appease say 100 people. even if they go 12 times each and buy 4 dvd’s a year your still wasting money.
all that aside it was a solid enough plot (not original but still a great one) and downright beautiful on imax. your computer nerds earned their keep.
disney managed to put porn and all sorts of little oddities in their mega million dollar movies and no one noticed for years. even now it is still sort of an urban legend. use that as an idea for what people notice (not much- split second recognition is a rare trait!)
Still not excited about this movie.
I’m sure Cameron had a lot of fun imagining the world, but it’ll be a shame if he doesn’t back it up with an equally imaginative story.
Sci-fi geeks have a tendency to overlook story and character in favour of setting.
You should be excited. I’ve seen it now and have you probably. Rich, deep, vivid, fresh and worth every single penny they put into it. I’m 50 and the last movie that had this sort of impact on me was the original Star Wars. It’s a long movie but you will find yourself totally lost in Pandora and in love with the Na’vi and will never notice almost 3 hours have passed.
I completely agree with Semblance’s statement. I’ve seen it twice in IMAX 3D and both times I was in complete awe of the story, the characters, the culture of the Na’vi and how they can tap into Pandora itself, it’s creatures, plant life, and it’s topography. It’s so fascinating! On a scale of 1-10 it’s been an 11 for me. Brilliant work by Mr. Cameron. Can’t wait to see if he takes it further T___T Why can’t places like that really exist, I wanna be tall, sexy and catlike, one with nature, and BLUE too! lol
I think the movie was really really good and i would see it everyday for the rest of my life if i could.
that movie was on my list for “THE BEST MOVIE EVER MADE SO FAR” BUT, I havent seen the new alice in wonderland yet
All the hype I’ve heard about this movie is for either silly things like this or the technology. Nobody’s talking about the characters or story. Is that a bad sign? I mean every once in a while you’ll here Cameron say something like “Story is still king” and then talk about the technology or the details.
THAT’S COOL sometimes I dont know what I’m talkin about either..
I speed type at work… THEN CLICK TOO FAST
milla >>> >>>usc prof paul frommer.
by this I mean people who already took a smelly Mc Donalds “combo meal” crap all over it in previous posts/reviews and have not seen it yet
You worded that beautifully, yet I’m still not sure what you’re talking about.
That being said, I’m looking forward to Avatar though, I’m not really expecting anything great or terrible, I expect it will be somewhere in between. I guess that’s kind of an “open mind”.
I just wanna see what this 3D stuff looks like, finally. See if there’s anything to it.
Is Antonio still looking for a man named Bucho?
Anyone?………………………Anyone?
Let’s take a poll on who’s ready to see this with an open mind?
Elvish is a full language (and I think there may even be several full dialects of it… my roomate’s the LOTR geek). That said, it wasn’t created for the movie, it simply existed because LOTR’s author was probably every bit as crazy into his details as James Cameron is.
Ah, I see, thanks Ryan.
I’m pretty sure they, however, made the first ‘official’ bid at pronouncing the elfish language, which exited a lot of fans. (I’m not sure what the verdict on it was but I’m sure there’s some fans who aren’t agreeing with it)
That’s interesting, especially considerring that the Na’vi speak English (or at least, we hear them in English) in the trailers.
I wonder if we hear them in their own language at first and then when Jake becomes an Avatar he learns their language and we hear them speaking in English after so we can understand them? Like “The Thirteenth Warrior” did, when Antonio “listened”
Also, I thought I heard that they created a full Elvish language for Lord of the Rings. Can anyone else confirm or deny that?
Actually Tolkien himself created the languages used in the Lord of the Rings universe. He was a Language and Literature Professor at Oxford. He could speak something like 25 languages and had a passion for Linguistics. The prouncations of the various languages were established in the 1930’s and 40’s some 60 years before the movies were made.
Just watched the movie, and I must speculate on your first two paragraphs. The Nav’i learned to speak English because humans have been on their plant for years- as stated by the scientists and marines there. Very few of the Nav’i know English, but the Marines that are part of the Avatar program learn the Nav’i language.
You see them speaking English at later points because Sully has not spoken the Nav’i language for long enough to know it perfectly, and reverts to speaking English at many points.
only some of the Navi in the movie speak English, these few learned it from Grace’s school.
Actually quite a few of the Na’vi were taught English by the humans in an effort to befriend them.
in the film the good humans set up schools that the navi learn earths language
Most made-up movie languages just sound like random sounds and twists on words strung together into something that seems like a sentence.
Does anyone else think that it is odd that the person that played the most talanted xenolinguist in the universe in Star Trek isn’t good with languages?
That’s awesome.
Its not Klingon! Its Navii!
Sounds like this is his “STAR WARS” type of franchise.
I personally think if this film is what it looks to be= to qoute Chip Douglas in Cable Guy “It’ll make George Lucas cream his pants”
The attention to detail does not stop there. from Wired Dec 2009 issue:
‘With the language establishedd, Cameronn set about naming everything on his alien planet. Every animal and plant recived a Na’vi, Latin and common names. As if that weren’t enough, Cameron hired Jodie Holt, chair of UC Riverside’s botany and plant sciences department, to write detailed scientific descriptions of the dozens of plants he had created. – He brought in more people, hiring an expert in astrophysics, a musical professor and an archeologist. They calculated Pandora’s atomospheric density and established a triparitle scale structre for the alien music. Eventually, a team of writers and editors compiled all this information into a 350-page manual dubbed Pandorapedia.’
This man don’t sleep much…still looking forward to Avatar.
The amazing attention to detail that Cameron has put into this project leads me to believe he is planning more for Pandora than just one movie.
Maybe a franchise? TV spinoff? Books? Only time and the box office results will tell.
Cameron has said that he will do a Avatar 2 since this was so popular! And now since the movie has leaped to the #1 of all time (over Titanic – also Cameron) it will be an easy sell to anyone who may have doubted the concept the first time! The interesting issue that he did NOT pull of was the video game! Although he was intimately involved in the development of the video game it has fallen prey to the curse of nearly all action movie games and it sucks! A shame really since he could have addes many more millions to his profits if he had done a bit more homework on what makes a successful video game. As a fervent video game fan/player I am beyond disappointed. Please J Cameron PLEASE do better next time!
correction: pull off not pull of
Sorry!!