Paul Frommer ’65

The fictional language created by Paul Frommer ’65 is returning to movie theaters.

Frommer devised the language spoken by inhabitants of the extraterrestrial world depicted in the record-setting 2009 film Avatar.

This fall, director James Cameron rereleased the original movie in the run-up to the release of its sequel, Avatar 2: The Way of Water, due out in December. Subsequent installments of the story are expected to follow.

After earning a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Southern California, Frommer had become a business executive who was teaching at USC’s business school when Cameron’s production company reached out to the linguistics department for help in inventing a new language for the movie.

Frommer developed Na’vi, the language of the humanoid inhabitants of the planet Pandora, the setting of Avatar.

In 2009, he told Rochester Review that the film and its success had changed his life considerably.

“People go to the movie, and they’re just swept away,” he said. “It touches people on a very deep level, and they come away wanting to connect with Pandora. One way to do that is through the language.”