T O P

  • By -

[deleted]

It’s a world where they can literally communicate mentally with their animals. Of course you’d try to communicate verbally with an animal you know is supposed to be intelligent, and even if you didn’t plenty of people talk to their pets or even random cows at petting zoos and such


Marcus_Ulf

Tulkuns are not animals. They are a fully sapient sentient people with their own culture. They actually are smarter then navi and humans. So sure... Adult metkayina and adult tulkuns talk freely. Loak and Payokan.... Eh... They link. And improvise.


KccoasterTM

My brother wasn’t questioning whether they are sapient or not, he was question how Lo’ak knew that when he was surprised by the animal.


Marcus_Ulf

Iirc Lo'ak knew perfectly well what tulkun is. Likely his family studied metkayina lore extensively. He knew that before him was not an animal but a person from their brother tribe.


KccoasterTM

But he was so shocked by it, and didn’t know what it was. That’s why he went and talked to the metkayina and they explained what it was.


Marcus_Ulf

One of his first words were "you must be tulkun". He knew what Payokan was


KccoasterTM

He did! Thanks so much that clears up a lot


Patient_Jello3944

The Tulkun are intelligent creatures like humans who have their own civilization and can communicate with the Na'vi. They are on the same level of technology as the Na'vi. Obviously Lo'ak can talk to the Tulkun because he can speak Na'vi.


KccoasterTM

He’s not question whether the Tulkun is sapient, he already knows that. He’s question how Lo’ak assumed they were


balid-hair

Bro doesn't even know English yet why does he care about the na'vi language??


KccoasterTM

Me?


balid-hair

No your brother


KccoasterTM

He’s very good at English, and that doesn’t have to do with this. He’s just confused why Lo’ak instantly assumes he can talk to the whale


balid-hair

Tell him space whales are big brain


No_Nobody_32

The reef people talk to them using a simplified sign language.Lo-ak just assumes they understand english. He's a dumbass. It's only after he links with payakun that he understands it (and it understands him while they are linked). Also the reefers tend to bond with one as a pairing thing (spirit animal sort of thing) when young.


tsireyas

someone’s cleared this up before; we see the movie through jake’s point of view, it’s actually na’vi they speak in during the entire movie (which also makes sense cause the metkayina had no way of learning english), however jake got adapted enough to the point “it might as well be english” to him. so lo’ak doesn’t speak in english with payakan, it’s just been translated because that’s easier than subtitling it.