An Alien Language

The blockbuster film Avatar has been a smash hit at the box office in the UK and around the world, becoming the fastest film ever to earn $1bn (7bn yuan) in ticket sales.

But as well as being an entertaining feast for the eyes, the sci-fi epic also introduces movie-goers to a brand new language invented especially for the film.

The movie is set on an alien planet called Pandora which is inhabited by many strange species. The most humanoid of the planet's inhabitants are the Na'vi, and it is the struggle between the Na'vi and human interlopers that forms the core narrative of the film.

The film has been released in 2D and 3D versions

In order to add authenticity to his vision of an alien race the film’s director James Cameron asked a professor of linguistics from the University of Southern California to invent a language for the Na'vi.

Professor Paul Frommer worked with James Cameron for four years to build upon the original 30 words or so that the director had already come up with for the language.

According to Professor Frommer, the most important aspect of the Na'vi language was that it could be articulated.

"This is an alien language but obviously it has to be spoken by human actors," Professor Frommer told the BBC, "it has to be sounds that human beings are comfortable producing."

The language currently has a lexicon of around 1000

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