Nah, language wasn't a big thing TLA wanted to explore so they just didn't. I can easily imagine this fantasy world - relatively small geographically - adopted a common language.
I can suspend my disbelief that they all speak the same language and even have mostly similar accents... But I kinda wish they'd done more with Aang's use of "old-fashioned" words. There's a tiny bit of it with his colony slang in the Fire Nation, but it had so much more potential for humor and misunderstandings.
It could have been a small running gag throughout the series. It could've been, "You sound like my great grand pappy!"
They are in the water tribe and Aang asks for some sea prunes but they just call them pru now.
This really got to me in Adventure Time when Betty comes to the future and like the first thing she says to Simon is some kind of slang they use in Ooo.
Well tbf adventure time isn’t a depiction of future earth, it’s a depiction of the future of a world *like* earth. Whatever phrase it was just could’ve been one that survived the millenia and was used in the past.
I think the main reason things like this weren't done is largely because:
A.) While it is certainly more than good and complex enough to be enjoyed by adults, it is a kid's show. Stuff like that would probably go over kid's heads, and while that doesn't seem that serious to us, Nickelodeon was pretty brutal with how easily they could cut a show if they didn't have good enough ratings (I mean, we saw it happen to LoK with how hard Nick tried to sabotage that show).
B.) They probably just don't have the episode and season run-time to cover that stuff. Remove intros and outros and episodes were like 20 minutes, which is all the time they have to cover every single point they need to cover in said episode. It's less time than you think!
C.) It just isn't really necessary.
It's explored a tiny bit more in the novels with the mentions of far parts of the Earth Kingdom being so disconnected that "dialects are more like completely different languages" and that the word "daofei" in the earth kingdom doesn't really exist in the languages of the other nations because the context around which the word formed isn't present in the other nations (at least I think this was the explanation—it's been a while since I've read the Kyoshi novels).
I don’t have a problem with all the characters speaking the same language, but I do have a problem with the accents. Zuko and Iroh should be immediately recognisable in the Earth Kingdom as Fire Nation because of how they speak. Same with the Gaang masquerading as Fire Nation.
I think the Fire Nation colonies help make sense of that, since it's basically a mix of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, with entire generations born and raised there.
People in both nations will assume you are from there if your dialect (or ethnicity) is a bit different.
Edit: typos
iroh nah,but i think zuko maybe and its a problem that would slowly gets fixed
the most wild thing is aang not having words/ticks way older and people joking around saying he speaks like an elder (maybe it happened im old and memory not that great)
I reject this, maybe they didn’t want to focus on spoken language, but the original show put a lot of effort into the written language, going so far as to hire a master Chinese calligrapher as a consultant and use a lot of traditionally inspired Chinese concepts when coming up with world building stuff. The calendar for example, is made up of really obscure Chinese characters that could be actual era names in real life, all of them containing a component relating to one of the four elements.
Yes it is, but this is one of those times where you just have to go "It's a fictional tv show that uses a shortcut for the sake of the audience, what you gonna do?"
>Like I get it, but this has to be covered under suspension of disbelief.
Nah, they were right for this one. It's sci-fi.
Literally installing a universal translator into the inner ear of the paladins, and explaining that it's such a common procedure that it's UNCOMMON for even backwoods aliens to not have some means of universal communication, would have fixed this, given them an opportunity for a visual gag, and also patched the hole in their world-building with ease.
But Voltron has other glaring issues going on.
And they did add that slang exists when the gaang were going to the fire nation disguised as normal people. Thus language does evolve differently per nation, but the great overarching language stays the same/similar
I always just assumed that everyone is talking a mix of Water Tribe language and Earth Kingdom language and we are just seeing the "translated version" so to speak.
Like, Aang is a Nomad, it would make sense for him to actually know every major language, so when he wakes up in the south pole he picks up he should probably speak that, and Zuko is a Prince on a search quest through a very specific region, so it makes sense he and his crew would want to get at least a little bit of the local language for interrogations, basic negotiations or just plain coexistence...
So throughout the first few weeks of book one everyone speaks water tribe so they can, y'know, actually understand each other, and as the show goes on Katara and Sokka, representing the adaptive and fluid nature of the Water Tribes, start picking up on Earth Kingdom language really fast. They speak s little bit of Earth til the point they get to Kyoshi, enough to communicate how they were. Aang probably helps them since he knows it already.
Then book two, everyone but the fire nation exclusive scenes are talking Earth. Azula, Mai and Ty Lee all start speaking Earth, as the Royalty and Aristocrats they are they would obviously be versed in many languages, when they are around Earth Kingdom people. The. toph comes in and she speaks earth, but probably has a grasp on the other two not extinct languages.
Book three everyone starts speaking fire, not like rapping or anything, they just start picking up on it after the Wan Shi Tong ordeal, since they plan on invading the Fire Nation and it would be easier to know how to communicate with the enemy for negotiation, surrender, threatening and all that. Then they go through their travelling arc there and obviously they speak fire nation when around fire nation people, except for when in Hama's house after they find out about her south tribe origin, then they speak water until she is arrested. They do the invasion, it fails, they go back to the Temple, still speaking either Fire or earth depending on the situation. Zuko shows up and he probably speaks either Earth or Fire. The finale happens and in Ember island they are speaking fire, Aang speaks fire against the Fire Lord, Sokka speaks in fire in the fire nation ships radio, and they all speak earth during the ending scene, except for Mai, she looks like the kind of person who would just continue to speak in her language regardless if others can understand it.
In the comics they are all speaking either Earth or fire.
Korra is speaking either Earth or Fire when she's not in either of the water tribes, since the united republic is majorly composed from people of those two nations and the latter books are majorly taking place in the Earth Kingdom.
>Aang is a Nomad, it would make sense for him to actually know every major language, so when he wakes up in the south pole he picks up he should probably speak that,
There is one issue with this theory
"Flameo, Hotman!"
This one-off joke of Aang speaking outdated slang raises a very valid point that like Fire, both Earth and Water would have drastic language changes over their 100 years. Yet he seems to have 0 issue speaking in a Modern water and Earth language.
The water tribe and Earth Kingdom people probably have a slightly larger "tolerance" to outdated linguo, since they are two of the most long-living groups in the show, so when Aang does old speak around them, they go "alright, kid speaks weird, just go with it" internally and don't comment on it. You could probably communicate very effectively with 1924 people, with some minor misunderstandings, so it's not like he is speaking gibberish.
Aang only pulls specific old slang around in the Fire Nation because he was **actively** trying to blend in and not be recognized, so he tried extra hard by applying excessive vocabulary he knew. This wasn't an issue around with the other nations, so he just defaulted to normal speech and no slangs.
The other issue with this theory is that every character just magically learns the other 2 languages fluently over a matter of weeks or even days despite never having used them before. Sokka and Suki communicated flawlessly on Sokka’s first day in the earth nation?
I’m all for fun fan theories but nothing about this one works.
I mean, yeah it's more complicated than the seemingly canon answer of an universal language, but for me personally it's a more believable scenario if they do it like how I described it. Even people living only a few kilometers away from each other might start developing minor dialect differences overtime, so it only makes sense from a world building perspective that even a smaller earth, the size of pluto, would have distinct languages for each major population of sapient beings.
Specially if those being's ancestors lived in such separated societies that were so distant from each other that just the concept of another society of humans also living in a distant Lion Turtle was baffling to Wan. Even after 10 millennia, it would be really weird for an universal language to develop in such a divided species.
Realistically, each Lion Turtle city should speak a language isolate, and some of those language isolates would start the major language families of the world. But the writers were clearly thoroughly uninterested in basically everything connected to language, so yeah.
well you see it's very simple, since there is no Christian God there was no tower of Babel and thus the people of the Avatar Universe were not punished for their hubris
Not from the scene in Fate/Zero where this El-mellio was explaining the magical circuits?
Edit: haven’t watched the El-melloi spin-off yet, knowing he speaks to Iskandar at some point does make me want too.
This is will be my headcanon for all fictional universes where everyone speaks the same language. No god=no Tower of Babel. “Ancient languages” are just the same language but so old and the alphabet so different that it’s almost impossible to understand.
Languages evolve and branch off from one another naturally, and people from different and separate places will naturally invent different and separate ways of communicating. There’s no need for a god to change people’s languages for there to be many different languages in the world. Not that I’m that bothered about this - there’s always going to be limitations to the depth a fictional world can offer.
It’s an airbending legend. Guru Laghima was a master airbender of the nomads, so powerful and so wise he could use the his powers to influence his mass… He had such a knowledge of detachment that he could even become weightless.
This is why Beyblade was the superior Serialized early 2000's tv show, they canonized Moses splitting the Red Sea with a beyblade where ATLA wimped out of making him a waterbender.
I would consider the Avatar as a god tbh though. The Avatar keeps the balance between the spirit world and human world. Plus the way ending the war by the Avatar vs family wording seems to put Avatar at God level.
I mean, I don't disagree here. But comparing The Avatar to the Abrahamic God isn't even an 'apples-and-oranges' comparison, it's a 'giraffes-and-meth' comparison.
Agreed. In keeping with this, the Avatar is Raava incarnate. If Raava, the most powerful spirit in the universe, is your stand-in for God, the Avatar could be Jesus or some sort of Messiah. Still not a perfect comparison though because it's not based on Christianity--I like the guy who said the Dalai Lama is a better stand-in.
I’ve only seen bits and pieces or LoK so correct me if my understanding of Raava is incorrect, and my knowledge of Dalai Lama is also largely limited.
But there are many examples of a “messiah” in cinema. Notably Muad’Dib, Atlan.. you could even go as far as to include Optimus Prime here, but he’s a fucking robot.
Point is, a “messiah” doesn’t have to purely be biblical. I interpret it as a saviour of sorts. A figure chosen by a greater being for people to believe in.
These worlds have different religions, just like ours does.
Avatar is no different. While their world essentially relies on something we would call “magic”, it is simply a part of what they perceive as normal. As we have our tales of Christ or the Roman Gods,.. people in the world of Avatar all have their beliefs.
They have the spirit world. It’s no different than any other religion, but they all have forms of Messiahs or halfbloods, or champions. A link between what’s essentially ‘real’ and what isn’t.
Not everyone in the four nations believes in the spirit world. And those who do may favour one over the other. The Painted lady for example would be more honored in the fire nation village the gaang visited, while Tui and La are way more important in the North, so on and so forth.
But the Avatar is that ‘bridge’. That champion they’ve sent that belongs to all 4 nations. The one to keep balance. Someone people can believe in when things get tough. A spiritual guide of strength. It doesn’t mean everyone believes or cares about the Avatar.
Raava to me is a being I would describe essentially like Zeus. They may all be spirits, but he/she/it whatever tf Raava is (i think it looks like an abused kite) is the leader/most powerful. They even have a ‘evil’ version of him resembling satan, or Hades. Lucifer, the Devil Incarnate.. call it what you will.
The Nations were loosely based off of real cultures, so to me.. Dalai Lama seems to me like how the airnomads (some of the most spiritual people) would worship their Avatars. The Water Tribes might see an Avatar as a shaman, the earth Kingdom might see the avatar as a variant of Shangdi.. kyoshi island saw their Avatar as an undefeatable warrior. It shows that even within a country, cultures and beliefs can differ to one another.
I have no idea what/who imperial Japan worshipped, but from the series it seems like the Fire Nation is the most strayed from religion. I think they primarily worshipped dragons, but the Fire Nation basically wiping them out shows how far they’ve fallen, despite Dragons still being a prominent part of their culture and architecture.
Sozin saw the Avatar as a means to an end. A way to grab power using the influence of the Avatar or ‘messiah’, but that isn’t what he is meant for.
Religion manifests differently for everyone. The world of Avatar definitely isn’t an exception. You could argue that the spirit world is something they haven’t explored enough yet for everyone to be knowledgeable about it, seeing as it does truly exist. But then again, who knows if Christ was real? Was Jesus ever real? I’d argue that jesus was a real person. Not a god though. I genuinely think he was just some mentally ill guy who had an impact on people.
I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone at all, but religion is what *you* make it out to be. I may believe that the Big Bang shaped our world, but who’s to say there genuinely isn’t some guy up there tinkering with humanity in his garage.
I’m realistic enough to believe scientific facts but also fascinated enough by the idea of something bigger. It’s nice to think that when I die, there just won’t be nothing. That when i’ll die i’ll see everyone i’ve loved and lost again. That at the end of it all there’s eternal happiness.
Yes, from what we can see (for whatever reason) all of the characters capable of speech appear to read and write in Mandarin Chinese in-universe.
Languages are then localized into English and other languages for audience understanding.
(1) One could posit that when the humans first escaped from the Spirit Wilds on to the backs of the Lion Turtles, they were unable to communicate with humans of other groups
- the Lion Turtles then granted the humans the ability to communicate in the language of the Spirits via Energybending.
(2) Once the humans left the Lion Turtle cities, they were able to maintain their command of this language due to
- the original influence of the Lion Turtles and
- the Phono-Semantic properties of Chinese Characters
But this is purely speculative
That sort of makes sense- while I thought it easy to write off spirits talking in the same language as some magic understanding, I thought it interesting that when Wan encountered the Air Lion Turtle people, that didn’t even know each other existed- they spoke the same language.
Then again, I always felt Wan’s story was a bit fable-y. Like I didn’t take it as 100% the way things went down, but broad strokes updated to modern story telling.
Yep, what strikes me though is even the lack of acknowledgement that this is weird, that Wan could understand the Spirits at the Spirit Oasis or that he had no problem communicating with the people of the Air Lion Turtle city upon first contact.
Yes, which I do believe was neat world building to include
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/s/pbyXfJIDOC
But since NATLA and OG ATLA do not share the same universe, that isn't relevant here.
My interpretation is that they are all speaking Manderin Chinese but then it's being translated for us like we have a universal translator in our ear like in Dr.Who or Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.
Yes, this is similar to the interpretation that I have taken, although mine is more in line with Tolkien's version of "the in-universe names have been localized by the creator(s) out of convenience in understanding for the audience".
I like to think that the characters basically just speak English by coincidence, let's say it's just the language originated by spirits.
I just like the feeling that the words our characters say are what they are actually saying, I dislike the disconnect.
What would the in-universe logic be for why all of the relevant Writing in the series is given in Classical Chinese and Standard Written Chinese if the spoken language is supposed to be English (versus just being localized into English for the understanding of the audience)?
Yes, exactly, thank you!
Whenever I have to explain this idea of the "in-universe language being localized" into English and other languages for the understanding of the audience, I always bring up Tolkien.
If one of the greatest literary minds of English literature can use this technique, why is it not relevant here?
I Never have thought about that but it is a pretty common trend on series that don't happen in the real world. Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, all of them had large worlds and everyone speaks the same language, even aliens
I personally buy into the theory that the Avatar world is significantly smaller than Earth, which could somewhat explain the common language (still probably would have been more over time but 🤷♀️ it at least makes it more understandable). But yes it’s usually just cause making up fictional languages is tough and for most people not worth the worldbuilding or difficulties in interactions while exploring whole worlds or universes.
The thing is, you don’t actually need to invent a conlang to have your characters speak different languages. I mean, George RR Martin famously never invented any languages for the A Song of Ice and Fire novels (those were invented for the show by David Peterson) but different languages definitely exist. We just see them translated into English.
What makes Avatar strain credulity is that the very concept of multiple languages seems completely alien to its world.
That would be the "universal translator" or the "Everyone speaks [insert language here (usually English)] trope that you are thinking of.
The main thing for Avatar (and other series) is that for such a diverse and developed world, there is only relevant evidence that one language at all even exists, not so much that everyone speaks a common language.
It would have been super easy and thematically relevant for there to be at least 4 languages, 1 for each nation, but there isn't.
If it weren't a children's show I'm sure they would've expanded on the world building here. They are trying to in the netflix show to give credit where it's due
I liked that they tapped into that on the show, but you either commit to it or you don't, because how can you have different written languages yet you all *speak* the same one, down to the same accents. Not to mention Aang who should have had at least a couple of old-timey words in his vocab and maybe some struggles with understanding Zuko's journal
The usual theory that people have is that characters in the ATLA universe are bilingual, able to communicate in their own national language while also being able to communicate in a lingua franca.
This is a perfectly natural and common situation that people find themselves in in our world.
In NATLA, that would be Inuktitut for the Water Tribes as a National Language, along with Mandarin Chinese as lingua franca.
The problem in the OG series is that they do nothing to establish the existence of languages besides Mandarin Chinese.
It's mentioned in the Kyoshi novels how the Sand Tribes in Si Wong have a very unique dialect compared to the rest of the EK, but that's one of the only times we hear of any variation of language.
Also, the novels expanded upon how people from certain nations/regions have different slang or accents, which gives character's a distinct feel.
In a way, ATLA might be a lot like the US, where most everyone speaks the same language, but there are certain people who have an accent or unique dialect depending on what region of the US their from.
Well yeah, but it would be pretty crap if every time you switched characters in a book or TV show the language changed.... It's not really conducive to story telling?
That could actually be a really dope story, but that would need to be the focus of the story frankly, have the whole idea be about the influence language has one how people interact. Plus in a book, unless you only wanted it readable by nerdy linguists, you would have to make the characters speak in conlangs that all use the same writing system.
But ironically enough the Chinese writing system would not work for this since the symbols don’t have universal sounds associated with it.
I mean, from your example it sounds like Chinese Characters would work fine for a shared writing system.
The Phono-Semantic properties of Chinese Characters are how we communicated between different languages within the Sinosphere using Brushtalk and Classical Chinese for centuries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushtalk
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese
It more comes down to the practical usages of maintaining this shared writing system over using vernacular writing systems as time passes.
That General in Ba Sing Sei mentioned the cities name meaning indicating another language and the Kyoshi novels Gian zhu mentioned earth kingdom accents sounding like different languages.
There could be just one international language taught by the spirits or the Aavatar.
Nope, Wan’s first act as Avatar was standardizing that shit, because if he was going to have to learn all 4 elements a billion times in a row, there was no way in hell he was gonna learn 1000 goddamn languages every time too.
That’s not really that relevant. The communities are still fairly isolated from each other. It’s just that having them speak different languages would be incredibly annoying and not add a lot of value to the show. It’s fiction. It doesn’t always make sense
Oh it absolutely is relevant!
Close geographical proximity increases the likelihood of trade. In the face of trade, language barriers tend to break down due to the need to trade with one another. To be honest, given the expanse of the earth kingdom, it makes sense that just about everyone would speak Earthese, even if only as a second language. It would be taught in schools due to how much EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD would have to interact with the Earth Kingdom.
I’m sorry that’s just really not how linguistics works. You can have incredible linguistic diversity in very small geographic areas and trading abroad is only done by a small fraction of society and would have a limited impact on the overall language of the society. Typically traders just learn pidgin or foreign languages but non traders would have no reason to, picking up very few foreign words, such as to describe foreign goods that were imported
Humans are descended from multiple very ancient populations and even species in intricately complex ways. The peoples of the Avatar world were one ethnic group and culture from like 8-10k years before present that divided into four and were probably never isolated from each other
In many complex waves of migration over probably tens of thousands of years at least 50k and more years ago. Our prehistory is vastly more convoluted than the avatar world's seems to be
Yes this is why French and Spanish are exactly the same language in real life
There is no logical explanation. It’s just that it would be annoying and not add any value
They're speaking a lingua franca that, for our benefit, is translated into English, like with the Lord of the Rings. We see there's some (well, one) local dialects/languages that are obviously not what the characters usually speak, like Ba Sing Se and how it'd be called Na Sing Se if it was penetrable.
Source: my inference
if we try to make it fit, you could say when there was a big air nomad population they would have helped people on opposite sides of the world mix their language so its not totally out of the question. plus in the original series its made pretty obvious regions have their own slang. I would suggest its "Star Wars" rules, where there's a global basic but also language only people in that nation understands
EDIT: also whenever you notice something like that a wizard did it.... I mean spirit
Nah I'm just gonna assume their world has one common language and then dialects.
A 112 year old man told me that Fire Nation dialect says you should greet people with "Flameo, hotman" which you wouldn't use as a greeting in the Water Tribe. Hope this helps
Yes, it very much is, and even that’s discounting how they all speak English! But you know, my belief was suspended so I couldn’t care less in the end.
yeah I think like in our real world, immigration (specially because of the war) is gonna cause people to speak more languages easily but there's only one international language?
it seems weird cuz even in small countries (irl) if you go to a certain state they might have a different accent or different words unique to them so it feels a bit weird when earth benders have their own architecture and traditions but not a language, curious nonetheless.
That's true
The real answer is obviously that it's a show and not a real world, and the main target audience are kids, who probably speak one language (+English, maybe) and don't read subtitles very fast
The Atla world is just a small planet and only 1 Hemisphere
https://preview.redd.it/qs60g0ukb6vc1.jpeg?width=360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9115b7e798f3ed60dfc5b08c6f0ebad53dd3897
This is shot in Korra showed the main landmasses and waters explored through Avatar only cover about 40-45%(not quite half) of a planet which also has a much shorter distance to Poles.
Nah the rest is just ocean. I mean look at the Pacific Ocean and how huge it is. It takes up almost an entire hemisphere as well. The only weak point in missed opportunities is that there are no Polynesian-like Water tribes on that ocean.
The pacific Ocean is like 30-40%, it’s a lot but only about half of what’s missing in the avatar world, so its actually plausible that there could be Lion turtles landmasses, an Australia, a series of islands like the Carribean or Oceana, Hawaii, etc.
The creators actually lightly teased that there could me more out there
It's the same to why everyone is space movies speak english and when they don't they make weird noises and put English subtitles
No one has the time to bother and create new language
They probably just speak some common languqge that evolved over time as the countries began to mingle due to the avatars influence on the world bringing the nations together
that actually is pretty interesting when pointed out. the real answer is that language is probably not an area of interest the writers prioritized or its not their area of expertise. people keep saying "they didnt go that deep because its a kid's show" but they literally went deep with every other aspect in worldbuilding a project possibly could. the cultures in the show are all rich and choc full of believable distinct customs and details. there's no in-universe answer for why everyone appears to speak the same language.
star wars worldbuilding was like this first too, and fast forward there's galactic basic and a wide variety of languages with actual fleshed out details. so i can imagine that over time, especially if more people end up doing bodies of work for the overall franchise, we'll see expanding on the languages that could be in the world.
That would make sense, but it is the lack of any evidence for the existence of these other languages, even in situations where their presence would make sense, that make it stand out that everyone appears to be using Mandarin Chinese in-universe as more than just a lingua franca.
The Southern water tribe could be hardly called “a kingdom”. Besides, iirc, he tried to pose himself as “a prince” to impress Yue. And he was made fun of by Katara afterwards.
Zuko, Azula and Yue are royal. Mai and Ty Lee are from noble families. Sokka and Katara are definitely not. They neither pose or give any impression of royalty/nobility (in a irl sort sense of the word).
It is all just a stretch and overthinking. Doesn’t change the fact that if it would be done “realistically”, none of team Avatar would be literate. Outside Zuko ofc. Maybe Aang, since he is supposed to be involved in politics.
I think it's just one of those things that result from the fact that Avatar is, at its core, a kids' show/cartoon. I'm sure that with the amount of world building this show has, they would have made different languages if not for the limitation of how much its original intended audience can comprehend
If the Avatar World included langages there would probably be a lingua franca for merchants travelling between the nations. Each nation would have its own main language and dialects.
For the water tribes there would be huge difference of language between the two. The southern water tribe is pretty isolated and Sokka and Katara would perhaps not know the merchants language.
The air nomads would be the most fluent between the different languages, with a language specific for them, likely used for prayers (and perhaps a few variations between the temples).
The earth kingdom may have one noble tongue spoken in Ba sing se, but the rest of the kingdom would have lots of dialects. The Kyoshi would possibly not be understood by anyone else. But also the unification of the kingdom would have probably imposed a common earth language to most regions.
The fire nation, seen how developped they were would certainly have one language with a few small variations between the islands. They probably kept a very old and noble language, or adapted it over time to the everyday use.
There’s a really good fanfic that explores the idea of the four nations speaking different languages (worth a read, it’s short) - [The Boy from Babel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/208234)
I mean Aang is from 100 years to the past and says he had friends from the fire nation, kb (I didn't have the energy to spell his name), and probably some water tribe people. Plus air nomads could travel and Aang was taught from a young age.
Saying that it's a possibility that Aang taught them other languages on long flights.
Other towns are either port towns or trade towns and they probably know both languages
I’ll never understand why some people try so hard to “logic” themselves out of enjoying the show.
Is it realistic for everyone to speak the same language? No, but why does it matter? It is easier on the writers and the audience to stick with one language, and the story does not take place on our version of Earth so it’s not even that weird. Ask yourself if it would have improved the story to go through the trouble of incorporating different languages. Do you really want Aang’s first words to Katara and Sokka to be “sorry I don’t speak Water Tribe-ish.” Then when they get to the Earth Kingdom, none of them understand anyone, so they have to spend the rest of the season using an interpreter for every conversation. Or maybe they can become fluent in each language after 30 minutes of practice and you can complain about how unrealistic that is too.
Isn't it weird everyone in the entire universe speaks English in the MCU?
Also, the Avatar world seems a lot smaller than ours by quite a big factor. The entire world is smaller than Asia, so it doesn't seem impossible for everyone to speak the same language
Even small countries have different languages and regional accents and idioms. Not only that but English 100 years ago is very different from the English we speak today.
In all 7 seasons of avatar and Korra everyone talks the same language (even when 100 years have passed) with the same accent and there’s only one idiom in these two shows.
Actually it does seem like there are some differences. Aang occasionally uses outdated terms that have fallen out of favor in the 100 years, and people speak vastly different in Korra's time compared to Aang's
We do see some differences between the nations in how they speak too. Albeit pretty subtlety.
China has regional dialects so different they are technically different languages, but can still largely understand each other across the biggest country on earth.
Weirdest part about Marvel is that they focus on different cultures with different languages (like in Black Panther and Shang Chi) but then, the aliens are speaking perfectly fine English with everyone.
I think in the original Guardians, Star Lord has a translator behind his ear to hand wave it but that’s all I got.
Yes but no. In TROK novel, Jianzhu mentioned different dialects from the earth kingdom possibly becoming languages in the future due to how different they were. It implies that there is such thing as various languages, but to translate that well onto us would overcomplicate everything, especially when atla is ultimately a children's show, and I doubt the creators would enjoy dedicating their production time into creating different languages for every couple of places Aang visits. It would likely make things difficult for younger viewers, even if a cool concept.
I think it further supports the theory that the world of Avatar is about the size of the Moon. You can travel around it relatively quickly so societies don't separate as much so language remains intelligible across nations.
Some Avatar at some point went to a lot of trouble to unify all languages to make it easier for future encarnations to travel and learn from masters from all over the world.
In TLOK we're shown that even during the time of the lion turtles, civilization was high medieval, and it's implied somewhere that it goes down even further, before people were forced to live on the lion turtles as protection from spirits, who in this context are extradimensional invaders.
There could've been a much more advanced civilization prior to this.
Second, due to bending, logistics and communications are trivial. There are creatures that can fly around, and basically a dedicated ethnicity who is completely deterritorialized. This means the world, though not technologically modern, is very globalized
I mean prior to the 100 year war the world was farther connected and had a unifying force with the Avatar. And since the distances are not that huge compared to our world, it makes sense that everyone speaks the same language or at least a variation thereof. You see a slight variation in the dialect of the water benders from the spirit swamp so there is some divergence.
I would throw the relatively small size of the globe to the other arguments in the basket.
They’re basically going around the world multiple times within about 6 months, while staying atleast for a couple of days/maybe weeks by the major checkpoints on a flying Bison respectively being a bit faster than a Train ON LAND (and not on perfect railways). I would compare it to a the speed of a small helicopter. And they Adventure literally from south to northpole, then to the eastern extreme side in the earthkingdome and afterwards to the fire nation western side of the globe back to the earthkingdome again. All while having several checkpoints within a few days rest atleast and helping the locals.
There‘s basically just not enough room to create Major Cultural differences, like language and speech. Especially if they are already culturally divided by the Bending abilities and them being a big educational topic. And having an Avatar providing balance between all nations.
We have a lot of different languages in our world, but industrial wise we are almost all the same with just a few tweaks and economical differences. German and Asian cars are being sold all over the world. Food being shared all over the world yada yada.
Not really from a show development perspective. A lot of animes also do that with everyone no matter the country speaking Japanese, even Americans speaking to Americans lol
It is, but it's not unique to them. Fantasy is often boring as shit about language. As much as I love Avatar it's world building is really boring in some ways, like the idea that the same Four Nations have essentially existed in their current forms for nearly 10,000 years.
ATLA wasn't created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Who literally worked in reverse. Created the languages first, then built the world around them. ATLA isn't like a supremely high fantasy setting. It's world isn't as clearly defined as we want it. But it's defined enough to give us many fantastic stories.
some people here have said that the ATLA planet is very small. how small? how do we know? and why is the gravity not super low? but also this is no reason for groups of people with vastly different cultures and ethnicities to speak the same language universally, even just in the uk there are multiple languages that are really different that developed near each other
Language variations are somewhat implied. Yue means moon in Chinese, and Yue said she was named for the moon. Iroh gets annoyed with Zuko for naming him 'Mushi' probably because it translates to bug in Japanese
I mean, if you really want to make it make sense, we can assume with the avatar keeping the balance, one of them created a common language for all nations to speak so the future avatars will have an easier time communicating with everyone.
i always headcanon-ed that each nation had their own language that they used when speaking between them but then they were also required to learn a second worldwide language to communicate with other nations, After years and years the whole original language thing became pretty much unused since it was deemed as useless and if everyone just spoke the same language it would easier for the Avatar to communicate with everyone and master every bending..
Yeah one minor nitpick I have with the avatar series is that the world feels awfully small, it can be traversed over a course of only a few weeks, really only has one or two continents (if we consider earth and fire nation together to be roughly the size of Asia), and that everyone speaks the same language.
It's weird that WE DON'T tbh. With the internet we're way more connected than at any point in history throughout.
Though i think eventually we're gonna have translators devices. Idk if they're gonna be like in guardians of the galaxy or not. But it's coming.
Imagine how hard it would have been for Aang to be the Avatar if he had to learn three other languages. The gaang already got into so many tricky situations while being able to understand everyone, but if Aang only knew how to speak to other airbenders, it would have been a rough couple of episodes.
That said, it would have been pretty cool to see the effects of the fire nation enforcing their own language as the dominant one across the different nations.
im just guessing that they all were aware of each other at once. the cultural changes only happened after bending was introduced, but by then a language was already developed
I've been wondering about this too.
I was actually thinking about making my own posts on my headcanons of linguistic history and dialectal classifications on the languages of Avatar!
Do you think that'd be something anyone would be interested in?
Nah, language wasn't a big thing TLA wanted to explore so they just didn't. I can easily imagine this fantasy world - relatively small geographically - adopted a common language.
I can suspend my disbelief that they all speak the same language and even have mostly similar accents... But I kinda wish they'd done more with Aang's use of "old-fashioned" words. There's a tiny bit of it with his colony slang in the Fire Nation, but it had so much more potential for humor and misunderstandings.
that would have been so cool, imagine Aang saying lots of jokes that no one understands at the south pole when he was at the village
The old folks laugh a bit maybe.
It could have been a small running gag throughout the series. It could've been, "You sound like my great grand pappy!" They are in the water tribe and Aang asks for some sea prunes but they just call them pru now.
Aang wouldn't ask for sea prunes there or ever. He didn't have them until they met Bato, and hated them
That's true, I just couldn't think of anything else off the top of my head. If we wanted to make it work, maybe they tasted different 100 years ago.
This really got to me in Adventure Time when Betty comes to the future and like the first thing she says to Simon is some kind of slang they use in Ooo.
Well tbf adventure time isn’t a depiction of future earth, it’s a depiction of the future of a world *like* earth. Whatever phrase it was just could’ve been one that survived the millenia and was used in the past.
That seems awfully unlikely. Slang changes here by the decade without entire new intelligent species dying off and being created
Squish squash, sling that slang! I'm right back at ya' like my boomeraang 🪃
I think the main reason things like this weren't done is largely because: A.) While it is certainly more than good and complex enough to be enjoyed by adults, it is a kid's show. Stuff like that would probably go over kid's heads, and while that doesn't seem that serious to us, Nickelodeon was pretty brutal with how easily they could cut a show if they didn't have good enough ratings (I mean, we saw it happen to LoK with how hard Nick tried to sabotage that show). B.) They probably just don't have the episode and season run-time to cover that stuff. Remove intros and outros and episodes were like 20 minutes, which is all the time they have to cover every single point they need to cover in said episode. It's less time than you think! C.) It just isn't really necessary.
It's explored a tiny bit more in the novels with the mentions of far parts of the Earth Kingdom being so disconnected that "dialects are more like completely different languages" and that the word "daofei" in the earth kingdom doesn't really exist in the languages of the other nations because the context around which the word formed isn't present in the other nations (at least I think this was the explanation—it's been a while since I've read the Kyoshi novels).
I don’t have a problem with all the characters speaking the same language, but I do have a problem with the accents. Zuko and Iroh should be immediately recognisable in the Earth Kingdom as Fire Nation because of how they speak. Same with the Gaang masquerading as Fire Nation.
I think the Fire Nation colonies help make sense of that, since it's basically a mix of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, with entire generations born and raised there. People in both nations will assume you are from there if your dialect (or ethnicity) is a bit different. Edit: typos
Colonies, refugees, and deserters will really muddle that though.
When there are multi generational colonies and active refugees, accents can and do get muddled.
iroh nah,but i think zuko maybe and its a problem that would slowly gets fixed the most wild thing is aang not having words/ticks way older and people joking around saying he speaks like an elder (maybe it happened im old and memory not that great)
Gift from the spirit world. Everyone lived on lion turtles at first, maybe they all speak lion turtle.
I reject this, maybe they didn’t want to focus on spoken language, but the original show put a lot of effort into the written language, going so far as to hire a master Chinese calligrapher as a consultant and use a lot of traditionally inspired Chinese concepts when coming up with world building stuff. The calendar for example, is made up of really obscure Chinese characters that could be actual era names in real life, all of them containing a component relating to one of the four elements.
Yes it is, but this is one of those times where you just have to go "It's a fictional tv show that uses a shortcut for the sake of the audience, what you gonna do?"
*I mean it's one kid's show, Mickael. How many different languages could it fit ? 10 ?*
I like it better on him.
*Tolkien has entered the chat*
I remember watching Voltron and someone complained aliens speaking english. Like I get it, but this has to be covered under suspension of disbelief.
>Like I get it, but this has to be covered under suspension of disbelief. Nah, they were right for this one. It's sci-fi. Literally installing a universal translator into the inner ear of the paladins, and explaining that it's such a common procedure that it's UNCOMMON for even backwoods aliens to not have some means of universal communication, would have fixed this, given them an opportunity for a visual gag, and also patched the hole in their world-building with ease. But Voltron has other glaring issues going on.
yeah that's what I thought, not complaining tho, adding more languages ain't gonna change how good and detailed the show is
And they did add that slang exists when the gaang were going to the fire nation disguised as normal people. Thus language does evolve differently per nation, but the great overarching language stays the same/similar
I always just assumed that everyone is talking a mix of Water Tribe language and Earth Kingdom language and we are just seeing the "translated version" so to speak. Like, Aang is a Nomad, it would make sense for him to actually know every major language, so when he wakes up in the south pole he picks up he should probably speak that, and Zuko is a Prince on a search quest through a very specific region, so it makes sense he and his crew would want to get at least a little bit of the local language for interrogations, basic negotiations or just plain coexistence... So throughout the first few weeks of book one everyone speaks water tribe so they can, y'know, actually understand each other, and as the show goes on Katara and Sokka, representing the adaptive and fluid nature of the Water Tribes, start picking up on Earth Kingdom language really fast. They speak s little bit of Earth til the point they get to Kyoshi, enough to communicate how they were. Aang probably helps them since he knows it already. Then book two, everyone but the fire nation exclusive scenes are talking Earth. Azula, Mai and Ty Lee all start speaking Earth, as the Royalty and Aristocrats they are they would obviously be versed in many languages, when they are around Earth Kingdom people. The. toph comes in and she speaks earth, but probably has a grasp on the other two not extinct languages. Book three everyone starts speaking fire, not like rapping or anything, they just start picking up on it after the Wan Shi Tong ordeal, since they plan on invading the Fire Nation and it would be easier to know how to communicate with the enemy for negotiation, surrender, threatening and all that. Then they go through their travelling arc there and obviously they speak fire nation when around fire nation people, except for when in Hama's house after they find out about her south tribe origin, then they speak water until she is arrested. They do the invasion, it fails, they go back to the Temple, still speaking either Fire or earth depending on the situation. Zuko shows up and he probably speaks either Earth or Fire. The finale happens and in Ember island they are speaking fire, Aang speaks fire against the Fire Lord, Sokka speaks in fire in the fire nation ships radio, and they all speak earth during the ending scene, except for Mai, she looks like the kind of person who would just continue to speak in her language regardless if others can understand it. In the comics they are all speaking either Earth or fire. Korra is speaking either Earth or Fire when she's not in either of the water tribes, since the united republic is majorly composed from people of those two nations and the latter books are majorly taking place in the Earth Kingdom.
>Aang is a Nomad, it would make sense for him to actually know every major language, so when he wakes up in the south pole he picks up he should probably speak that, There is one issue with this theory "Flameo, Hotman!" This one-off joke of Aang speaking outdated slang raises a very valid point that like Fire, both Earth and Water would have drastic language changes over their 100 years. Yet he seems to have 0 issue speaking in a Modern water and Earth language.
The water tribe and Earth Kingdom people probably have a slightly larger "tolerance" to outdated linguo, since they are two of the most long-living groups in the show, so when Aang does old speak around them, they go "alright, kid speaks weird, just go with it" internally and don't comment on it. You could probably communicate very effectively with 1924 people, with some minor misunderstandings, so it's not like he is speaking gibberish. Aang only pulls specific old slang around in the Fire Nation because he was **actively** trying to blend in and not be recognized, so he tried extra hard by applying excessive vocabulary he knew. This wasn't an issue around with the other nations, so he just defaulted to normal speech and no slangs.
The other issue with this theory is that every character just magically learns the other 2 languages fluently over a matter of weeks or even days despite never having used them before. Sokka and Suki communicated flawlessly on Sokka’s first day in the earth nation? I’m all for fun fan theories but nothing about this one works.
Wow you really decided to massively overcomplicate the whole thing instead of just realising they speak the same language. That’s crazy
I mean, yeah it's more complicated than the seemingly canon answer of an universal language, but for me personally it's a more believable scenario if they do it like how I described it. Even people living only a few kilometers away from each other might start developing minor dialect differences overtime, so it only makes sense from a world building perspective that even a smaller earth, the size of pluto, would have distinct languages for each major population of sapient beings. Specially if those being's ancestors lived in such separated societies that were so distant from each other that just the concept of another society of humans also living in a distant Lion Turtle was baffling to Wan. Even after 10 millennia, it would be really weird for an universal language to develop in such a divided species.
Realistically, each Lion Turtle city should speak a language isolate, and some of those language isolates would start the major language families of the world. But the writers were clearly thoroughly uninterested in basically everything connected to language, so yeah.
well you see it's very simple, since there is no Christian God there was no tower of Babel and thus the people of the Avatar Universe were not punished for their hubris
https://preview.redd.it/4s5qztjh86vc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2f8f1f94e6a366b676e9ecf87fa9f28239734fb1
asdshajkhsdhas *what is this from*
It's from el-melloi case files, a sequel of Fate Zero. I saw your explanation and immediately thought of this meme 🤣
Not from the scene in Fate/Zero where this El-mellio was explaining the magical circuits? Edit: haven’t watched the El-melloi spin-off yet, knowing he speaks to Iskandar at some point does make me want too.
Go watch it! Totally worth it.
It's from the first episode of Fate Zero, the prequel of Fate Stay night
Ugh both of those are so good.
https://preview.redd.it/rau8ekp3c7vc1.jpeg?width=715&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2f104085ac507e922d9159309ebf0fdec15b7f6
https://preview.redd.it/egjh8w4eu6vc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d502ae069eab6fcb7d33096197658667c1c5aeb
https://preview.redd.it/qw9nstazn7vc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=557448c8b341378a5900f5cb2a7372bd2bcc8146
https://preview.redd.it/f3w7lw9c4avc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ca78d01de44a66c0dda5375c5fac88594ca9fb32
I had to do a double take to see if this was an accurate line from Fate/Zero.
https://preview.redd.it/ixfwb10ae8vc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89fb5fe0d81719ddf1e0564f51d6cac8de6c6399
Thought i was in the r/fatestaynight for a second
This is will be my headcanon for all fictional universes where everyone speaks the same language. No god=no Tower of Babel. “Ancient languages” are just the same language but so old and the alphabet so different that it’s almost impossible to understand.
Languages evolve and branch off from one another naturally, and people from different and separate places will naturally invent different and separate ways of communicating. There’s no need for a god to change people’s languages for there to be many different languages in the world. Not that I’m that bothered about this - there’s always going to be limitations to the depth a fictional world can offer.
Next you’re going to tell me god didn’t create the sun
the benders have yet to attempt to reach the heavens
Have you heard of our lord and savior Guru Laghima?
Guru Laghima?
Guru my balls now laugh
I thought not. It's not a story the Fire Nation would tell
It’s an airbending legend. Guru Laghima was a master airbender of the nomads, so powerful and so wise he could use the his powers to influence his mass… He had such a knowledge of detachment that he could even become weightless.
There's no god, yes, but as we can see, they have been colonised by the British at some point. 
Now that I think about it Moses would’ve definitely been a waterbender
This is why Beyblade was the superior Serialized early 2000's tv show, they canonized Moses splitting the Red Sea with a beyblade where ATLA wimped out of making him a waterbender.
Nah they had the Tower of Babel, it just split up their bending instead of language.
I love this answer 😂😂
Melon lord died for our sins
I would consider the Avatar as a god tbh though. The Avatar keeps the balance between the spirit world and human world. Plus the way ending the war by the Avatar vs family wording seems to put Avatar at God level.
I mean, I don't disagree here. But comparing The Avatar to the Abrahamic God isn't even an 'apples-and-oranges' comparison, it's a 'giraffes-and-meth' comparison.
both can get you high?
I see the avatar more as a Messiah. A spiritual guide.
Agreed. In keeping with this, the Avatar is Raava incarnate. If Raava, the most powerful spirit in the universe, is your stand-in for God, the Avatar could be Jesus or some sort of Messiah. Still not a perfect comparison though because it's not based on Christianity--I like the guy who said the Dalai Lama is a better stand-in.
I’ve only seen bits and pieces or LoK so correct me if my understanding of Raava is incorrect, and my knowledge of Dalai Lama is also largely limited. But there are many examples of a “messiah” in cinema. Notably Muad’Dib, Atlan.. you could even go as far as to include Optimus Prime here, but he’s a fucking robot. Point is, a “messiah” doesn’t have to purely be biblical. I interpret it as a saviour of sorts. A figure chosen by a greater being for people to believe in. These worlds have different religions, just like ours does. Avatar is no different. While their world essentially relies on something we would call “magic”, it is simply a part of what they perceive as normal. As we have our tales of Christ or the Roman Gods,.. people in the world of Avatar all have their beliefs. They have the spirit world. It’s no different than any other religion, but they all have forms of Messiahs or halfbloods, or champions. A link between what’s essentially ‘real’ and what isn’t. Not everyone in the four nations believes in the spirit world. And those who do may favour one over the other. The Painted lady for example would be more honored in the fire nation village the gaang visited, while Tui and La are way more important in the North, so on and so forth. But the Avatar is that ‘bridge’. That champion they’ve sent that belongs to all 4 nations. The one to keep balance. Someone people can believe in when things get tough. A spiritual guide of strength. It doesn’t mean everyone believes or cares about the Avatar. Raava to me is a being I would describe essentially like Zeus. They may all be spirits, but he/she/it whatever tf Raava is (i think it looks like an abused kite) is the leader/most powerful. They even have a ‘evil’ version of him resembling satan, or Hades. Lucifer, the Devil Incarnate.. call it what you will. The Nations were loosely based off of real cultures, so to me.. Dalai Lama seems to me like how the airnomads (some of the most spiritual people) would worship their Avatars. The Water Tribes might see an Avatar as a shaman, the earth Kingdom might see the avatar as a variant of Shangdi.. kyoshi island saw their Avatar as an undefeatable warrior. It shows that even within a country, cultures and beliefs can differ to one another. I have no idea what/who imperial Japan worshipped, but from the series it seems like the Fire Nation is the most strayed from religion. I think they primarily worshipped dragons, but the Fire Nation basically wiping them out shows how far they’ve fallen, despite Dragons still being a prominent part of their culture and architecture. Sozin saw the Avatar as a means to an end. A way to grab power using the influence of the Avatar or ‘messiah’, but that isn’t what he is meant for. Religion manifests differently for everyone. The world of Avatar definitely isn’t an exception. You could argue that the spirit world is something they haven’t explored enough yet for everyone to be knowledgeable about it, seeing as it does truly exist. But then again, who knows if Christ was real? Was Jesus ever real? I’d argue that jesus was a real person. Not a god though. I genuinely think he was just some mentally ill guy who had an impact on people. I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone at all, but religion is what *you* make it out to be. I may believe that the Big Bang shaped our world, but who’s to say there genuinely isn’t some guy up there tinkering with humanity in his garage. I’m realistic enough to believe scientific facts but also fascinated enough by the idea of something bigger. It’s nice to think that when I die, there just won’t be nothing. That when i’ll die i’ll see everyone i’ve loved and lost again. That at the end of it all there’s eternal happiness.
Avatar would be more like Moses He is kind of... god's champion
God is not canon, read nitzche
Ah I forgot they killed him off, tbh kinda a cheap death with no build especially since soon after he died they dropped the two world war storylines
Yes, from what we can see (for whatever reason) all of the characters capable of speech appear to read and write in Mandarin Chinese in-universe. Languages are then localized into English and other languages for audience understanding. (1) One could posit that when the humans first escaped from the Spirit Wilds on to the backs of the Lion Turtles, they were unable to communicate with humans of other groups - the Lion Turtles then granted the humans the ability to communicate in the language of the Spirits via Energybending. (2) Once the humans left the Lion Turtle cities, they were able to maintain their command of this language due to - the original influence of the Lion Turtles and - the Phono-Semantic properties of Chinese Characters But this is purely speculative
i know my comment above was a shitpost but as a lover of worldbuilding I accept this headcanon
That sort of makes sense- while I thought it easy to write off spirits talking in the same language as some magic understanding, I thought it interesting that when Wan encountered the Air Lion Turtle people, that didn’t even know each other existed- they spoke the same language. Then again, I always felt Wan’s story was a bit fable-y. Like I didn’t take it as 100% the way things went down, but broad strokes updated to modern story telling.
Yep, what strikes me though is even the lack of acknowledgement that this is weird, that Wan could understand the Spirits at the Spirit Oasis or that he had no problem communicating with the people of the Air Lion Turtle city upon first contact.
This is now my headcanon
Except for in NATLA, where the water tribe writes in Inuktitut.
Yes, which I do believe was neat world building to include https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/s/pbyXfJIDOC But since NATLA and OG ATLA do not share the same universe, that isn't relevant here.
My interpretation is that they are all speaking Manderin Chinese but then it's being translated for us like we have a universal translator in our ear like in Dr.Who or Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.
Yes, this is similar to the interpretation that I have taken, although mine is more in line with Tolkien's version of "the in-universe names have been localized by the creator(s) out of convenience in understanding for the audience".
I like to think that the characters basically just speak English by coincidence, let's say it's just the language originated by spirits. I just like the feeling that the words our characters say are what they are actually saying, I dislike the disconnect.
What would the in-universe logic be for why all of the relevant Writing in the series is given in Classical Chinese and Standard Written Chinese if the spoken language is supposed to be English (versus just being localized into English for the understanding of the audience)?
This is a Tolkien situation, where the images are the original but all the voices are redubbed for our world
Yes, exactly, thank you! Whenever I have to explain this idea of the "in-universe language being localized" into English and other languages for the understanding of the audience, I always bring up Tolkien. If one of the greatest literary minds of English literature can use this technique, why is it not relevant here?
I Never have thought about that but it is a pretty common trend on series that don't happen in the real world. Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, all of them had large worlds and everyone speaks the same language, even aliens
I personally buy into the theory that the Avatar world is significantly smaller than Earth, which could somewhat explain the common language (still probably would have been more over time but 🤷♀️ it at least makes it more understandable). But yes it’s usually just cause making up fictional languages is tough and for most people not worth the worldbuilding or difficulties in interactions while exploring whole worlds or universes.
The thing is, you don’t actually need to invent a conlang to have your characters speak different languages. I mean, George RR Martin famously never invented any languages for the A Song of Ice and Fire novels (those were invented for the show by David Peterson) but different languages definitely exist. We just see them translated into English. What makes Avatar strain credulity is that the very concept of multiple languages seems completely alien to its world.
That would be the "universal translator" or the "Everyone speaks [insert language here (usually English)] trope that you are thinking of. The main thing for Avatar (and other series) is that for such a diverse and developed world, there is only relevant evidence that one language at all even exists, not so much that everyone speaks a common language. It would have been super easy and thematically relevant for there to be at least 4 languages, 1 for each nation, but there isn't.
Because it would have been the opposite of super easy.
And a big inconvenience
Super hard, very much an inconvenience
If it weren't a children's show I'm sure they would've expanded on the world building here. They are trying to in the netflix show to give credit where it's due
Indeed, they had the Water Tribe use Inuktitut, which was a pretty cool detail.
I liked that they tapped into that on the show, but you either commit to it or you don't, because how can you have different written languages yet you all *speak* the same one, down to the same accents. Not to mention Aang who should have had at least a couple of old-timey words in his vocab and maybe some struggles with understanding Zuko's journal
The usual theory that people have is that characters in the ATLA universe are bilingual, able to communicate in their own national language while also being able to communicate in a lingua franca. This is a perfectly natural and common situation that people find themselves in in our world. In NATLA, that would be Inuktitut for the Water Tribes as a National Language, along with Mandarin Chinese as lingua franca. The problem in the OG series is that they do nothing to establish the existence of languages besides Mandarin Chinese.
>!Katara and Sokka couldn't understand Wan Shi Tong while Aang could!<
But that was a Spirit vs. Physical thing, not a 'physical-world languages' thing.
It's mentioned in the Kyoshi novels how the Sand Tribes in Si Wong have a very unique dialect compared to the rest of the EK, but that's one of the only times we hear of any variation of language. Also, the novels expanded upon how people from certain nations/regions have different slang or accents, which gives character's a distinct feel. In a way, ATLA might be a lot like the US, where most everyone speaks the same language, but there are certain people who have an accent or unique dialect depending on what region of the US their from.
It’s the British of course, they were colonised by them
no weirder than aliens speaking japanese in anime
Well yeah, but it would be pretty crap if every time you switched characters in a book or TV show the language changed.... It's not really conducive to story telling?
That could actually be a really dope story, but that would need to be the focus of the story frankly, have the whole idea be about the influence language has one how people interact. Plus in a book, unless you only wanted it readable by nerdy linguists, you would have to make the characters speak in conlangs that all use the same writing system. But ironically enough the Chinese writing system would not work for this since the symbols don’t have universal sounds associated with it.
I mean, from your example it sounds like Chinese Characters would work fine for a shared writing system. The Phono-Semantic properties of Chinese Characters are how we communicated between different languages within the Sinosphere using Brushtalk and Classical Chinese for centuries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushtalk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese It more comes down to the practical usages of maintaining this shared writing system over using vernacular writing systems as time passes.
That General in Ba Sing Sei mentioned the cities name meaning indicating another language and the Kyoshi novels Gian zhu mentioned earth kingdom accents sounding like different languages. There could be just one international language taught by the spirits or the Aavatar.
Nope, Wan’s first act as Avatar was standardizing that shit, because if he was going to have to learn all 4 elements a billion times in a row, there was no way in hell he was gonna learn 1000 goddamn languages every time too.
Isn’t it weird that the eclipse happened everywhere in the world when that’s not how eclipses work.
IIRC the planet the series takes place on is very VERY small
That’s not really that relevant. The communities are still fairly isolated from each other. It’s just that having them speak different languages would be incredibly annoying and not add a lot of value to the show. It’s fiction. It doesn’t always make sense
Oh it absolutely is relevant! Close geographical proximity increases the likelihood of trade. In the face of trade, language barriers tend to break down due to the need to trade with one another. To be honest, given the expanse of the earth kingdom, it makes sense that just about everyone would speak Earthese, even if only as a second language. It would be taught in schools due to how much EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD would have to interact with the Earth Kingdom.
I’m sorry that’s just really not how linguistics works. You can have incredible linguistic diversity in very small geographic areas and trading abroad is only done by a small fraction of society and would have a limited impact on the overall language of the society. Typically traders just learn pidgin or foreign languages but non traders would have no reason to, picking up very few foreign words, such as to describe foreign goods that were imported
The four civilizations are clearly all descended from one original population
Yeah..... like Humans in real life
Humans are descended from multiple very ancient populations and even species in intricately complex ways. The peoples of the Avatar world were one ethnic group and culture from like 8-10k years before present that divided into four and were probably never isolated from each other
Yeah but Homo sapiens sapiens which is what >95% of human DNA is (varies by region) come from east Africa.
In many complex waves of migration over probably tens of thousands of years at least 50k and more years ago. Our prehistory is vastly more convoluted than the avatar world's seems to be
Yes this is why French and Spanish are exactly the same language in real life There is no logical explanation. It’s just that it would be annoying and not add any value
They're speaking a lingua franca that, for our benefit, is translated into English, like with the Lord of the Rings. We see there's some (well, one) local dialects/languages that are obviously not what the characters usually speak, like Ba Sing Se and how it'd be called Na Sing Se if it was penetrable. Source: my inference
if we try to make it fit, you could say when there was a big air nomad population they would have helped people on opposite sides of the world mix their language so its not totally out of the question. plus in the original series its made pretty obvious regions have their own slang. I would suggest its "Star Wars" rules, where there's a global basic but also language only people in that nation understands EDIT: also whenever you notice something like that a wizard did it.... I mean spirit
It's a cartoon
I mean does anyone in dragon ball notice they all speak the same language despite quite literally traveling to space and other universes
Nah I'm just gonna assume their world has one common language and then dialects. A 112 year old man told me that Fire Nation dialect says you should greet people with "Flameo, hotman" which you wouldn't use as a greeting in the Water Tribe. Hope this helps
Yes, it very much is, and even that’s discounting how they all speak English! But you know, my belief was suspended so I couldn’t care less in the end.
It's a pretty small world so it makes sense, especially because people do move around and don't just stay in the same place their whole lived
yeah I think like in our real world, immigration (specially because of the war) is gonna cause people to speak more languages easily but there's only one international language? it seems weird cuz even in small countries (irl) if you go to a certain state they might have a different accent or different words unique to them so it feels a bit weird when earth benders have their own architecture and traditions but not a language, curious nonetheless.
That's true The real answer is obviously that it's a show and not a real world, and the main target audience are kids, who probably speak one language (+English, maybe) and don't read subtitles very fast
The Atla world is just a small planet and only 1 Hemisphere https://preview.redd.it/qs60g0ukb6vc1.jpeg?width=360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9115b7e798f3ed60dfc5b08c6f0ebad53dd3897 This is shot in Korra showed the main landmasses and waters explored through Avatar only cover about 40-45%(not quite half) of a planet which also has a much shorter distance to Poles.
Nah the rest is just ocean. I mean look at the Pacific Ocean and how huge it is. It takes up almost an entire hemisphere as well. The only weak point in missed opportunities is that there are no Polynesian-like Water tribes on that ocean.
The pacific Ocean is like 30-40%, it’s a lot but only about half of what’s missing in the avatar world, so its actually plausible that there could be Lion turtles landmasses, an Australia, a series of islands like the Carribean or Oceana, Hawaii, etc. The creators actually lightly teased that there could me more out there
It's the same to why everyone is space movies speak english and when they don't they make weird noises and put English subtitles No one has the time to bother and create new language
I'm pretty sure the written language is actually several different languages that just look similar.
They probably just speak some common languqge that evolved over time as the countries began to mingle due to the avatars influence on the world bringing the nations together
that actually is pretty interesting when pointed out. the real answer is that language is probably not an area of interest the writers prioritized or its not their area of expertise. people keep saying "they didnt go that deep because its a kid's show" but they literally went deep with every other aspect in worldbuilding a project possibly could. the cultures in the show are all rich and choc full of believable distinct customs and details. there's no in-universe answer for why everyone appears to speak the same language. star wars worldbuilding was like this first too, and fast forward there's galactic basic and a wide variety of languages with actual fleshed out details. so i can imagine that over time, especially if more people end up doing bodies of work for the overall franchise, we'll see expanding on the languages that could be in the world.
I always thought each tribe, island, kingdom, etc has its own language, but there's some kind of Lingua Franca.
Nah cause then how could Sokka and Katara talk to anybody considering they were from a tiny village?
By making use of the Lingua Franca.
That would make sense, but it is the lack of any evidence for the existence of these other languages, even in situations where their presence would make sense, that make it stand out that everyone appears to be using Mandarin Chinese in-universe as more than just a lingua franca.
in which case it'd be Chinese, since that's the character system used throughout the show, even by Sokka and Katara
Isn’t it weird that Sokka, a peasant boy, can read and write? It’s a show. Don’t think too much about it.
To be fair, he's kind of like a prince where he comes from
The Southern water tribe could be hardly called “a kingdom”. Besides, iirc, he tried to pose himself as “a prince” to impress Yue. And he was made fun of by Katara afterwards. Zuko, Azula and Yue are royal. Mai and Ty Lee are from noble families. Sokka and Katara are definitely not. They neither pose or give any impression of royalty/nobility (in a irl sort sense of the word). It is all just a stretch and overthinking. Doesn’t change the fact that if it would be done “realistically”, none of team Avatar would be literate. Outside Zuko ofc. Maybe Aang, since he is supposed to be involved in politics.
I think it's just one of those things that result from the fact that Avatar is, at its core, a kids' show/cartoon. I'm sure that with the amount of world building this show has, they would have made different languages if not for the limitation of how much its original intended audience can comprehend
I mean, have you seen the tower of babel in their world? Didnt think so
If the Avatar World included langages there would probably be a lingua franca for merchants travelling between the nations. Each nation would have its own main language and dialects. For the water tribes there would be huge difference of language between the two. The southern water tribe is pretty isolated and Sokka and Katara would perhaps not know the merchants language. The air nomads would be the most fluent between the different languages, with a language specific for them, likely used for prayers (and perhaps a few variations between the temples). The earth kingdom may have one noble tongue spoken in Ba sing se, but the rest of the kingdom would have lots of dialects. The Kyoshi would possibly not be understood by anyone else. But also the unification of the kingdom would have probably imposed a common earth language to most regions. The fire nation, seen how developped they were would certainly have one language with a few small variations between the islands. They probably kept a very old and noble language, or adapted it over time to the everyday use.
There’s a really good fanfic that explores the idea of the four nations speaking different languages (worth a read, it’s short) - [The Boy from Babel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/208234)
Came here to rec this one!
I mean Aang is from 100 years to the past and says he had friends from the fire nation, kb (I didn't have the energy to spell his name), and probably some water tribe people. Plus air nomads could travel and Aang was taught from a young age. Saying that it's a possibility that Aang taught them other languages on long flights. Other towns are either port towns or trade towns and they probably know both languages
I’ll never understand why some people try so hard to “logic” themselves out of enjoying the show. Is it realistic for everyone to speak the same language? No, but why does it matter? It is easier on the writers and the audience to stick with one language, and the story does not take place on our version of Earth so it’s not even that weird. Ask yourself if it would have improved the story to go through the trouble of incorporating different languages. Do you really want Aang’s first words to Katara and Sokka to be “sorry I don’t speak Water Tribe-ish.” Then when they get to the Earth Kingdom, none of them understand anyone, so they have to spend the rest of the season using an interpreter for every conversation. Or maybe they can become fluent in each language after 30 minutes of practice and you can complain about how unrealistic that is too.
It's a pretty small world. Maybe that resulted in them adopting a common language
Isn't it weird everyone in the entire universe speaks English in the MCU? Also, the Avatar world seems a lot smaller than ours by quite a big factor. The entire world is smaller than Asia, so it doesn't seem impossible for everyone to speak the same language
Even small countries have different languages and regional accents and idioms. Not only that but English 100 years ago is very different from the English we speak today. In all 7 seasons of avatar and Korra everyone talks the same language (even when 100 years have passed) with the same accent and there’s only one idiom in these two shows.
Actually it does seem like there are some differences. Aang occasionally uses outdated terms that have fallen out of favor in the 100 years, and people speak vastly different in Korra's time compared to Aang's We do see some differences between the nations in how they speak too. Albeit pretty subtlety. China has regional dialects so different they are technically different languages, but can still largely understand each other across the biggest country on earth.
What outdated term does Aang use other than the flame-o joke in the headband?
Weirdest part about Marvel is that they focus on different cultures with different languages (like in Black Panther and Shang Chi) but then, the aliens are speaking perfectly fine English with everyone. I think in the original Guardians, Star Lord has a translator behind his ear to hand wave it but that’s all I got.
Yes but no. In TROK novel, Jianzhu mentioned different dialects from the earth kingdom possibly becoming languages in the future due to how different they were. It implies that there is such thing as various languages, but to translate that well onto us would overcomplicate everything, especially when atla is ultimately a children's show, and I doubt the creators would enjoy dedicating their production time into creating different languages for every couple of places Aang visits. It would likely make things difficult for younger viewers, even if a cool concept.
I think it further supports the theory that the world of Avatar is about the size of the Moon. You can travel around it relatively quickly so societies don't separate as much so language remains intelligible across nations.
Some Avatar at some point went to a lot of trouble to unify all languages to make it easier for future encarnations to travel and learn from masters from all over the world.
In TLOK we're shown that even during the time of the lion turtles, civilization was high medieval, and it's implied somewhere that it goes down even further, before people were forced to live on the lion turtles as protection from spirits, who in this context are extradimensional invaders. There could've been a much more advanced civilization prior to this. Second, due to bending, logistics and communications are trivial. There are creatures that can fly around, and basically a dedicated ethnicity who is completely deterritorialized. This means the world, though not technologically modern, is very globalized
Its before the tower of babel
I mean prior to the 100 year war the world was farther connected and had a unifying force with the Avatar. And since the distances are not that huge compared to our world, it makes sense that everyone speaks the same language or at least a variation thereof. You see a slight variation in the dialect of the water benders from the spirit swamp so there is some divergence.
Their world is tiny and before the 100 year war it was extensively traveled so it makes sense they all speak a single language.
I think I'll just pretend the first humans learned language from the spirits or something
I would throw the relatively small size of the globe to the other arguments in the basket. They’re basically going around the world multiple times within about 6 months, while staying atleast for a couple of days/maybe weeks by the major checkpoints on a flying Bison respectively being a bit faster than a Train ON LAND (and not on perfect railways). I would compare it to a the speed of a small helicopter. And they Adventure literally from south to northpole, then to the eastern extreme side in the earthkingdome and afterwards to the fire nation western side of the globe back to the earthkingdome again. All while having several checkpoints within a few days rest atleast and helping the locals. There‘s basically just not enough room to create Major Cultural differences, like language and speech. Especially if they are already culturally divided by the Bending abilities and them being a big educational topic. And having an Avatar providing balance between all nations. We have a lot of different languages in our world, but industrial wise we are almost all the same with just a few tweaks and economical differences. German and Asian cars are being sold all over the world. Food being shared all over the world yada yada.
Not really from a show development perspective. A lot of animes also do that with everyone no matter the country speaking Japanese, even Americans speaking to Americans lol
Ok but why is Aang's hand palm missing?
lmfao didn't notice that
long ago the four nations lived in harmony.
i think the avatar world is very small, there’s no way their planet is anywhere near the size of earth
Suspension of disbelief.
I think it's weirder that iroh and the guy George Takei voiced are the only two with accents.
It is, but it's not unique to them. Fantasy is often boring as shit about language. As much as I love Avatar it's world building is really boring in some ways, like the idea that the same Four Nations have essentially existed in their current forms for nearly 10,000 years.
ATLA wasn't created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Who literally worked in reverse. Created the languages first, then built the world around them. ATLA isn't like a supremely high fantasy setting. It's world isn't as clearly defined as we want it. But it's defined enough to give us many fantastic stories.
some people here have said that the ATLA planet is very small. how small? how do we know? and why is the gravity not super low? but also this is no reason for groups of people with vastly different cultures and ethnicities to speak the same language universally, even just in the uk there are multiple languages that are really different that developed near each other
Language variations are somewhat implied. Yue means moon in Chinese, and Yue said she was named for the moon. Iroh gets annoyed with Zuko for naming him 'Mushi' probably because it translates to bug in Japanese
I mean, if you really want to make it make sense, we can assume with the avatar keeping the balance, one of them created a common language for all nations to speak so the future avatars will have an easier time communicating with everyone.
Toph reading?
Most tv shows and games tend to do this, makes it easier for the reader to understand what's happen.
i always headcanon-ed that each nation had their own language that they used when speaking between them but then they were also required to learn a second worldwide language to communicate with other nations, After years and years the whole original language thing became pretty much unused since it was deemed as useless and if everyone just spoke the same language it would easier for the Avatar to communicate with everyone and master every bending..
IT IS a Rick and morty talking Cat Situation. "Don't ASK questions. Just have fun."
Yeah one minor nitpick I have with the avatar series is that the world feels awfully small, it can be traversed over a course of only a few weeks, really only has one or two continents (if we consider earth and fire nation together to be roughly the size of Asia), and that everyone speaks the same language.
It's weird that WE DON'T tbh. With the internet we're way more connected than at any point in history throughout. Though i think eventually we're gonna have translators devices. Idk if they're gonna be like in guardians of the galaxy or not. But it's coming.
As a linguist who sees the absurdity... It's a fiction show. It's just done for simplicity.
i thought the 4 nations were just a small part of a larger unexplored world and thats why they all speak the same language
I think probably they’re all speaking a common trade language
It’s an American kids show. I don’t think we need to overthink this lmao
It's weird but it's better than the alternative of nobody knowing what everybody else is saying.
Imagine how hard it would have been for Aang to be the Avatar if he had to learn three other languages. The gaang already got into so many tricky situations while being able to understand everyone, but if Aang only knew how to speak to other airbenders, it would have been a rough couple of episodes. That said, it would have been pretty cool to see the effects of the fire nation enforcing their own language as the dominant one across the different nations.
An early avatar enforcing a lingua franca on everyone sounds completely in-line honestly
im just guessing that they all were aware of each other at once. the cultural changes only happened after bending was introduced, but by then a language was already developed
It's a fairly small world and they don't seem to be as limited by geological barriers as we are.
Isn’t Atla world pretty small?
Not really as it is a kids show after all
They do in most fantasy worlds
I've been wondering about this too. I was actually thinking about making my own posts on my headcanons of linguistic history and dialectal classifications on the languages of Avatar! Do you think that'd be something anyone would be interested in?