Mastodawn

Dec 27, 2022

But seriously, as an anthropologist it drives me fucking crazy that people are so excited about learning Na’vi from Avatar and speaking fucking Klingon and trying to create new languages for their fantasy novel.

Actual human languages are dying because of colonialism and globalization and somehow nobody says “maybe I’ll use an actual dying language and get people excited about speaking that.” Nope, ima make some shit up and let that die. It’s ego over good and it makes me so sad.

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Kevin Karhan

Dec 27, 2022

@terrafiedkestrel I can understand the issue and personally, I wished people were to use the same energy to conserve and document old & dying languages, but sadly one cannot be forced into committing to intellectual labour...

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K M Lawrence

@kkarhan @terrafiedkestrel but isn't Kestrel's point here that it could be done at the point of creation? (ie the Navi language could have been an indigenous American language, then people might have wanted to put in the labour without being asked, in the same way people aren't being forced to learn Klingon). Think about the language Blue in Saga - that's just Esperanto, which makes it easier for the authors but gives a nice alien feel to speakers of natural languages.