Paul R. Frommer ( ; born September 17, 1944) is an American communications professor at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

(USC) and a linguistics consultant. He is the former Vice President, Special Projects Coordinator, Strategic Planner, and Writer-Researcher at Bentley Industries in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, California. From 2005 to 2008, he served as Director of the Center for Management Communication at the USC Marshall School of Business.

Youth and education

Frommer was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Interested in astronomy from an early age, he changed his college major from

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the ...

to math, graduating from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

with a bachelor of arts in mathematics in 1965. He soon taught English and math in

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

in the

Malay language Malay ( , ; , Jawi alphabet, Jawi: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language spoken primarily by Malays (ethnic group), Malays in several islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula on the mainland Asia. The lang ...

with the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an Independent agency of the U.S. government, independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to communities in partner countries around the world. It was established in Marc ...

. He had studied languages earlier, but this experience switched his focus to linguistics. He began a doctoral program in linguistics at the

(USC). During the program, he taught English in Iran for a year in the mid-1970s and studied Persian. He earned his master's degree and

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in linguistics at USC in 1981 under

Bernard Comrie Bernard Sterling Comrie, (; born 23 May 1947) is a British linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology, linguistic universals and on Caucasian languages. Personal life Early life and education Comrie was born in Sunderland, Eng ...

; his doctorate was on aspects of Persian syntax and entitled "Post-verbal Phenomena in Colloquial Persian Syntax".

Work

Frommer taught for several years and then moved into business, becoming a Vice President, Special Projects Coordinator, Strategic Planner, and Writer-Researcher at Bentley Industries in

. Frommer was also a writer for the 1989 film ''Step Into the Third Dimension''. In 1996, he returned to USC as a full professor of clinical management communication at the Marshall School of Business. In 1999, he co-authored a linguistics workbook called ''Looking at Languages: A Workbook in Elementary Linguistics''. From 2005 to 2008, he served as Director of the Center for Management Communication at Marshall School of Business. After a search by

James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, who resides in New Zealand. He is a major figure in the post-New Hollywood era and often uses novel technologies with a Classical Hollywood cinema, classical filmmaking styl ...

, writer and director of the 2009 film ''

Avatar Avatar (, ; ) is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means . It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes u ...

'', Frommer was chosen to create a language for the Na'vi, the film's fictional alien race of sentient blue

humanoid A humanoid (; from English ''human'' and '' -oid'' "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of ...

inhabitants of the moon Pandora. Frommer says that his process for creating the language began with

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

and

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

: "The sound system has to be all nailed down first, so that there is consistency in the language". The

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

and

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

followed. Cameron had already created several dozen words that he wanted to incorporate into the new language. That gave Frommer "a sense of what kinds of sounds he had in mind". Cameron also told Frommer that he "wanted the language to be pleasant sounding and appealing to the audience." "When you create a language, you experience the joy of rolling sounds around in your mouth, hearing unusual sounds, playing with the sounds and structural properties of language – it's a process that took about six months for the basics". Frommer also created the Barsoomian language for the

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

film ''John Carter''.

References

External links

Paul Frommer's profile
at USC
Frommer's blog about the Na'vi language

LearnNavi.org
- Provides a Na'vi dictionary (multilingual), grammar guide, and more {{DEFAULTSORT:Frommer, Paul 1944 births Living people Constructed language creators University of Southern California faculty Linguists from the United States Na'vi language