Transcript of "Research on conlang communities" thread in the Kelutral.org Discord server
This is a transcript of a thread in the Kelutral.org Discord server, beginning 9th April 2025. Users have had their usernames changed to LN- followed by a number. "Eve" is me.
Transcript
Eve |
Hello, nice to meet you all! My name's Eve, I'm a linguist and huge conlang nerd, and ten years ago I wrote my dissertation on the factors that contribute to the success of a constructed language. As well as looking at conlangs created to overcome language barriers (like Esperanto and Volapük), I researched conlangs made for movies, books and games: Quenya, Dovahzul, Klingon and, obviously, Na'vi. Back in 2015 I made a thread on the LN forums asking people for their insight into learning Na'vi (you can see that original thread here https://forum.learnnavi.org/beginners/dissertation-on-conlangs) and now a whole decade later I'm revamping my dissertation for public release on my blog and I thought it would be interesting to check up on the communities I spoke to in the past. If any of you would be happy to answer a few questions, I'd really appreciate it. Your responses will be completely anonymous, but I do intend to display answers publicly (without your name attached) for people to access the information without having to join the Discord so by replying in this thread I will assume you are giving me permission to share or use any of your words. If there is something you explicitly do not want me to use in this research, please say so somewhere in your message. You don't have to answer all the questions if you don't want to.
If there's anything else you'd like to mention about your experiences with Na'vi or conlangs in general please don't hesitate to do so! If you would be more comfortable sharing your answers privately, please feel free to email me at evegwood@yahoo.co.uk (please don't DM me! I'd like to keep answers in a place that's easy to find again to refer back to). And of course, when the piece is finished, I'll pop back in here to share it with you! Really appreciate anyone taking the time to answer, I know that's a lot of questions 🙏 |
LN-24 |
|
LN-18 |
Answered already over on LN, happy to see it over here! :hype: |
LN-20 |
Same :derp: |
LN-9 |
Same :omegaderp: |
LN-18 |
:hrh_lol: |
LN-25 |
|
LN-26 |
|
LN-23 |
Eve: Do you know/speak any other conlangs apart from Na'vi? How fluent in Na'vi are you? (know.. I feel like I’m misunderstanding question 5 based on previous replies. Is this about using non canon words / grammatical structures or is it about words/structured that have been canonized by Pawl after emerging from the community? |
Eve |
LN-23: I feel like I’m misunderstanding question 5 based on previous replies. Is this about using no... I think Na'vi is a special case where the creator does pay attention to and work with the community to develop the language, so I understand the confusion, but I meant using non-canon words/grammar that the community has come up with but that aren't actually "correct" Na'vi because Pawl hasn't canonised them. |
LN-23 |
Tam, irayo. That’s how I understood it, but I started second guessing myself :omegaderp: |
Eve |
And thank you everyone for all the answers so far! |
LN-23 |
|
LN-27 |
|
LN-28 |
|
LN-28 |
Sorry message was too long hrh |
LN-29 |
|
LN-29 |
|
LN-21 |
(I answered in LN but I'll message here so I can see the thread on my Discord easily) |
LN-20 |
@LN-21 Probably you saw a ping over on LN but I thought I better put it here because the sessions happen here, so I deleted it again: I saw you said you did some Na'vi roleplaying, we do that here too from time to time :D As in, complete session (DM, character speech, character actions) in Na'vi, no English allwoed at all :grin1: If you are interested in such sessions too, I can ping you when they happen next :D |
Eve |
Thank you everyone for taking the time to answer! |
Eve |
LN-29: I’m aware of a large number of conlangs, and know handfuls of words in... Following up on what you said about Reef dialect, though these are questions anyone is free to answer, is that the dialect spoken by the new tribe in Way of Water? Has Pawl expanded Na'vi to include new vocab/pronunciations for these new Na'vi to speak? I haven't actually seen the new film yet! 🙇 And RE: support vs disdain for community slang terms, is this something he's expressed on his blog (so I can go hunting for it haha) or elsewhere? |
Eve |
Oh, and an additional question: was there a big influx of new interest after the announcement/release of the new film, or has the community always been fairly large over the last decade? 9,000 members in a single conlang server is a lot! |
LN-20 |
Reef dialect: The differences are mainly in phonology. We have two words that are mainly used in reef and less in forest, two very small grammar differences, and otherwise it's just phonology so far. And yes, it is the dialect spoken by the reef people from the second movie! Disdain/support for community slang terms: Pawl actually is known to "legalize" things that are not canon but come up in the community naturally, if he is aware of them. He can't make anything canon of course, after all, he creates the language for the franchise and other people have a say in it, so it needs to stay overall coherent with the lore. But afaik, if he hears that a certain construction/term/... is used in the community a lot, and it makes sense to him, he will make it official. Big influx: Definitely. Unfortunately, only very few actually stick with the language. We have a very, very high passthrough rate :hrhn: Having looked into a few different conlang spaces, I have the feeling that while many other conlang servers are mostly full of language nerds, poliglots and (hobby) linguists, we have a far higher percentage of people who just got excited watching the movie, only know English and have zero prior knowledge about languages and language learning. Many just look into it for a day or two and then mostly stay to talk about Avatar, without actually learning the language any further. So while we had a very big influx, the number of actual speakers of the language didn't grow that much I feel (although there certainly was a growth) |
LN-30 |
|
LN-20 |
Wait, the animal presentation was your only active Na'vi speaking so far? I gotta force you to do more speaking hrh |
LN-30 |
I’ve been to some of the speaking lessons but they seem mostly formulaic |
LN-30 |
Not like that the conversation formulas are bad but I feel like I need to start making my own sentences :elmo: |
LN-30 |
I feel like there’s a jump btwn beginner conversation lessons and advanced conversation that I’ve been eyeing nervously hrh |
LN-20 |
(I'll continue this in 📝|general-slow, I'm already spamming this channel to much with unrelated stuff hrh) |
Eve |
@LN-20 Thank you for the additional info! @LN-30 Following on from something you said (again, anyone can answer this question): do the games feature inaccurate Na'vi dialogue? |
LN-30 |
Eve: Thank you for the additional info! @LN-30 Following on from something you said... Yes, one major thing that’s noticeable about them is the text that includes tìftangs (glottal stops: ') in inaccurate positions, most notably after the vocative particle “ma”: “ma'yawntu” instead of “ma yawntu” (o loved one) |
LN-30 |
It’s also pretty noticeable in the names, eg a character named Eetu whose name should be Itu |
LN-30 |
I think there’s also an animal named something starting with p'a. That’s an illegal position for a tìftang |
LN-30 |
I don’t play the games myself, but I know these from watching LN-20’s let’s play videos, she might have more to say |
Eve |
That's so strange! Does the community know why the language is so inaccurate? Was Pawl not involved in writing it? |
LN-20 |
I think, except for one grammar mistake (inclusive instead of exclusive first person plural pronoun used) it's typos. I have written Pawl about this, and he apparently didn't even know there was written stuff in the game (he has never played a video game). So I honestly think it's just devs copying something wrong or thinking "hey, a ' would look cool here" without understanding that the ' actually is a letter) |
LN-20 |
Weirdly enough, specifically the German version has some very bad extra typos in species names in the in game encyclopedia :hrhn: |
Eve |
That's both very frustrating and very funny. |
LN-25 |
Eve: Following up on what you said about Reef dialect, though these are questions anyone is free to an... on the topic of the Reef dialect, for what it’s worth I think the assessment on the Reef/Forest split is a tad extreme. It is true that opinions on the Reef dialect are varied, some people love it and are thrilled to get new dialects, other people are less excited and prefer to stick to Forest. But as someone who prefers Forest myself, I don’t think I’ve seen any of us actively “denying” Reef’s existence or trying to “erase” it :huh: People who aren’t interested in personally using or teaching it, yeah sure, and occasional light-hearted headbutting between folks who prefer one dialect or the other, but no one going as far as to legitimately try to remove Reef from the language or stop other people from using it afaik. Granted, I only spend time on Kelutral, so for all I know it’s certainly possible that the schism is more extreme on LN or other Na'vi communities. |
Eve |
Thank you for the addition! |
LN-23 |
Mllte hu LN-25. While there are some people who say they hate the reef dialect, that's always in a lighthearted/joking manner (at least from what I've seen). Sure, there are plenty of people who like it less, but those reef-against-forest arguments are in my experience all just play fighting hrh |
LN-21 |
LN-20: @LN-21 Probably you saw a ping over on LN but I thought I b... Cool! Good to know |
LN-30 |
I’m excited for new dialects with the next movie!! |
LN-21 |
Speaking of reef dialect: |
Eve |
Since new dialects are a possibility, how would any of you feel about fan-made dialects, either for fun or for hypothesising on how other Na'vi communities might speak? Is that something any if you are interested in exploring, or are you purely interested in authentic Na'vi? |
LN-29 |
It’s something we’ve done for fun on OmatiCon, or as fan projects, but there’s a consensus that canon and fanon should remain separate, and any fanon dialects should be kept to special channels or threads. |
LN-29 |
That said, there isn’t any negative attitude towards fan dialects as long as they’re clearly labelled as such. |
LN-21 |
Yeah. It's fine to do your own thing with Na'vi as long as you let people know you're doing your own thing |
LN-25 |
Fan dialects are not something that I personally am interested in exploring, but then again my feelings on even the official new dialect(s) are very mixed (the tl;dr version is that from a worldbuilding perspective it totally makes sense to have them, and learning about how they develop is interesting…BUT from a learner’s perspective having multiple dialects to juggle is overwhelming, and from a teacher’s perspective I think it’s most practical to treat Forest as the default/baseline when it comes to teaching even if it’s not technically the “default” in-universe since that’s not how dialects work). …but that said, I think I’m in the minority there :sweat1: most people I’ve seen seem very excited to get new dialects, and I know several people in the community have had a lot of fun making their own dialects/speculating what could be possible in new ones. While this is not something that I’m interested in participating in myself, I’m not one to rain on other’s parades and agree with Yätu'aw’s and Txonpay’s sentiments that people are welcome to have fun making their own dialects as long as they make it clear that it’s unofficial. |
Eve |
Thank you! You folks have been super generous with your time answering all my questions, I appreciate it. |
LN-20 |
We love random conlang related studies here hrh When I wrote my bachelor thesis I needed people to let me record them speaking for half an hour and I had too many people offering :derp: |
Eve |
Just in case anyone else has answers they'd like to give on any of the questions I've asked above, please do feel free to reply! I'll keep an eye on this thread over the next week or so for any new responses :) |
LN-31 |
|
Eve |
Thank you! :) |
Eve |
Morning everyone! I have another question for you all: currently words are suggested to and canonised by Pawl through the LEP. Have any of you - or maybe even Pawl himself - given thought to how this process will go once Pawl retires from Na'vi or is no longer here to oversee its development? Is that a conversation the community has had yet? |
LN-20 |
From what I know not really. Pawl once said to me that he hasn't really thought about that stuff yet, but that might have changed of course. |
LN-18 |
I’ve thought about it here and there as a passing curiosity but haven’t gone deeper than that |
LN-21 |
This was posted on LN, but here it is for Kelutral ppl: Pawl even mentioned that here |