Avatar - Overview Part 1

26 Nov 2009 13:24:47 CDT

What went into this mega movie by James Cameron?

Avatar Gets a Talented Tongue

BILL STOUFFER — 23 Nov 2009 13:45:12 CDT

James Cameron is prepared to boldly go where only Klingons have gone before.

As part of the effort to make Avatar a completely realized world, down to to the blades of grass, he has commissioned a whole new language for his blue-skinned aliens. The LA Times has posted a interview with Professor Paul Frommer, who has spent the past four years gleefully working out the sound, syntax, and vocabulary of this Na'vi native tongue, constrained only by the limits the human voice, itself.

Perhaps not quite constrained enough, though, suggests Zoe Saldana who plays the alien Neytiri in Avatar. Despite her role as the linguistics expert Uhura in Star Trek — and what Kirk (Chris Pine) salaciously describes as "a talented tongue" — Saldana confesses that she found the experience a real challenge:

Oh, it was so hard and I was really concerned about it. 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.

Nonetheless, the language is far more gentle and more melodious than Klingon, the professor insists, and he has high hopes that it will catch on and develop a life of its own. It's lonely, he says, being the only person really speaking the language. No word yet on any plans to teach it to a baby as a first language, as it was recently reported someone did with Klingon.

ReelzChannel | Zoe Saldana

Avatar - Overview Part 1

Avatar Gets a Talented Tongue