Press: Na'vi goes viral as creator visits Perth

[Taronyu]

One of the blogs I followed blogged about this article:

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/fullysic/2010/10/20/navis-australian-connection/

I've been alerted that Na'vi creator Paul Frommer is visiting Australia, and presenting some talks on his creation.

Na'vi, for those who do not remember, is the language created specially for James Cameron's visually spectacular movie Avatar. The constructed language has become a bit of a runaway in constructed languages. It is, judging from its internet presence, the most successful constructed languages made for fiction since Marc Okrand's Klingon.

Frommer blogs about Na'vi at http://naviteri.org/, and http://www.learnnavi.org/ is surprisingly comprehensive. I've even heard rumours of fan-made world development – countries, policies and politics forming in the wake of the movie's conclusion. The SMH article talks of the world's first Na'vi conference (invitation only).

But there are, of course, roadblocks to its development. As a quote from the SMH says: "There are a lot of people who are suggesting some very good developments and they really want to use it as a genuine means of communication but you need more than 1300 – 1400 words for that." A fully-developed language is an eye-bogglingly complex system of communication. You might think you have enough words with 1300-1400 of them – one can communicate perfectly well without a word for "cork", or "mutton", but there will be times as you're trying to communicate when you'll have to make it up on the go. No word for linguistics? Well, I'll just say "tongue-stuff-learning" and they'll know what I mean. Correct. When someone else wants to say linguistics, they'll come up with their own version, say "speak-communicate-knowledge", and the communication still occurs.

Eventually, when people keep using forms they've made up on the fly, other people will pick them up and they'll spread throughout the speech community. If two forms become popular for the same word, they'll fight for popularity. One will win, and the other will fall into obscurity, or they'll come to a compromise – regional dialects might form!

What about canon? In Tolkienian linguistics (and probably Klingon linguistics as well), there is dispute over whether such neologisms are truly a part of the language. Can we only count words and/or syntactic structures that the language creator themselves use? A wise language constructor leaves careful instructions for any who follow – are fan-words legit, or does the creator retain control?

'"It's a labour of love, it's remarkable. I'm still the decider and nothing is officially recognised until I put my stamp on it," Professor Frommer said.'

[Ftiafpi]

Wow, great article...wow, horrible video.

The video and the article seemed to have almost nothing to do with each other. While the article was full of praise the video tried to make us out to be a collection of "star wars kids". Ugh, so stupid.

Anyway, ignoring the video, great article, really good mentions and this is definitely some good press for us.

[Maria TunVrrtep]

Yet another "journalist" fails to research his story properly.
*sigh*

ta Markì

LOL When do they ever?  I studied Journalism my first time through college and believe me, they didn't exactly teach us to research well.

Partly the reason I got out of the program.  I just couldn't deal with the lack of ethics.

ta TunVrrtep