Friday 11 December 2009

Navigating Na'vi

The world premiere of James Cameron's $306m, 15-years-in-the-making movie, Avatar, took place last night on the blue carpet at the Odeon, Leicester Square in London. So, no pressure then. Mixed reviews so far, but movies this huge are bound to attract critics salivating with anticipation of a turkey.

The story revolves around an indigenous alien species on the planet Pandora, the Na'vi, sitting on a mining site coveted by human invaders. The language of the Na'vi has been created by University of Southern Californa linguistics professor, Paul R. Frommer, in a direct attempt to mimic the success of Klingon from the Star Trek franchise.

This is a massive hostage to fortune. Star Trek grew a fan base organically from the original 1960s television series after a dodgy start in the ratings. Fluency in Klingon was far from the minds of ambivalent viewers. Three series of beaming William Shatner up from disastrous escapades on strange, new worlds meant the hard slog built a back-catalogue of 79 shows to be stripped into endless repeats, eventually finding its audience of enthusiastic Trekkies. Klingon first appeared as a nascent language in 1979, throwing off the strictures of English in Star Trek: The Motion Picture only getting fully fledged by Star Trek III in 1984.

Avatar, meanwhile, hopes to super-glue Na'vi lingo into the world's nerd consciousness in one giant leap. Either audiences will think 'Huh?', especially if the movie tanks, or it'll be a grower and fans will be flocking to night school. Everything probably depends on the film's ability to wash its face and spawn a sequel franchise. Otherwise, fluency in Na'vi will be at best a party piece at Hollywood dinner parties or at worst a symptom of autistic tendencies.

If the franchise takes off, it would be great to send broadcasts off to the stars in a mad attempt to see if any species out there can work out how to engage in Na'vi conversation. Or not, obviously.

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