Na’viteri.org

Kaltxì, ma frapo.

A very belated Mipa Zìsìt Lefpom. Nìrangal oe tsirvun pivlltxe san fìzìsit sngolä’i nìltsan sìk, slä ke tsängun. At least there’s room for things to get better as the year progresses.

Kezemplltxe, I have a lot of comments and submissions to respond to, but the situation in Los Angeles right now is difficult, and my mind is on other things. I’ll get to the needed responses as soon as I can.

In the meantime, let me share a recent email discussion with you that I think you’ll find interesting.

A member of the lì’fyaolo’ wrote:

A question came up about pum:

Could pum ever be used without a narrowing descriptor attached? (We seem to have no examples of this.)

e.g., Is the following translation valid?

‘You have too many arrows? Give me one!’
Lu ngaru swizaw nìhawng srak?  (?)Tìng oer pumit!

Or, is the sentence Tìng oer pumit ungrammatical because pum has no narrowing descriptor like an adjective or clause or genitive along with it?

My response:

Your analysis of pum, in that it requires a narrowing descriptor (I like that terminology!), is correct. That’s the only thing we’ve seen so far, and I’d like to keep it that way.

 So I would not consider Tìng oer pumit grammatical. But there’s a simple way out of this:

 When you’re saying “Give me one,” it really is one, not two or three or twenty. If it were, “Give me five,” for example, what would that be?

Lu ngaru swizaw nìhawng srak? Tìng oer pumit amrr!

 That’s fine, since pumit has the descriptor amrr.

 So ‘Give me one’ would be:

Tìng oer pumit a’aw!

That being said, some related things came to mind.

First, when you say “Give me one,” what are you really saying? It’s “Give me one OF THEM,” i.e., give me one of the things you have or that we’ve been talking about.

Some languages make “of them” in this context obligatory. Take French and Italian, for example. (I’ll switch from “arrow” to “book” for familiarity.) For “You have too many books. Give me five.”:

FRENCH: Tu as trop de livres. Donne-m’en cinq.

ITALIAN: Hai troppi libri. Dammene cinque.

Here, en in French and ne in Italian are obligatory particles, often classified as pronouns, that mean “of them.”

But other languages don’t require this.

SPANISH: Tienes demasiados libros. Dame cinco.

GERMAN: Du hast zu viele Bücher. Gib mir fünf.

You could specify “of them” in these languages by adding “de ellos” (Sp.) and “davon” (Ger.), but it’s not obligatory.

I’d like Na’vi to have the non-obligatory “of them” option. That would be sawta (from aysa’u + ta) for non-animates, fota (ayfo + ta) for people. So, for example:

 Lu ngaru ’eveng apukap, slä smon oer fota pum amrr nì’aw.
‘You have six children, but I only know five of them.’

Note that without fota, the sentence could conceivably be ambiguous. Perhaps you’re saying you’ve only known five kids in your entire experience, not necessarily the kids of the person you’re speaking to! Adding fota rules out that admittedly unlikely interpretation.

Another thing: “Give me one!” made me consider a different use of “one,” as in “You have a house and I have one too.”

Should we use pum here? *Lu ngaru kelku ulte lu oer pum kop?

That violates the “narrowing descriptor” rule, and this time you can’t save it with a’aw, because you’re not talking about one as opposed to more than one. So I would rule that ungrammatical. How to translate the sentence, then? Probably just:

Lu ngaru kelku, ulte oeru nìteng.

Another hapxìtu lì’fyaolo’ä responded:

The only complication is that the genitive is sometimes used in this partitive sense, adding questions for me for the {sawta} and {fota} uses.

Na’viyä luyu hapxì.
‘You are part of the Na’vi.’

Tsu’teyìl tolìng oer mawlit smarä.
Tsu’tey gave me a half of the prey.

So, you’ve used both genitives and {ta} for a partitive. How would you say, “send five of the warriors” (out of a larger group) vs. just “send five warriors?”

My response:

Good point about the genitive option. I actually considered it myself. The reason I went with the ta forms is because of the ambiguity of genitives like feyä:

Lu ayngaru pxaya tsamsiyu. Fpe’ ayoer __?__ pumit amrr.
‘You have many warriors. Send us five of them.’

The genitive form here would be feyä. But that looks like a possessive adjective, i.e. ‘their,’ with a resulting meaning something like, ‘Send us their five ones,’ which doesn’t make sense in this context. Fota doesn’t run into that problem.

But the examples you’ve pointed out with the genitive aren’t wrong. There are two related ways to form partitives, which are sometimes but not always interchangeable:

1a. Na’viyä luyu hapxì.
1b. Na’vita luyu hapxì.

2a. Tsu’teyìl tolìng oer mawlit smarä.
2b. Tsu’teyìl tolìng oer mawlit smarta.

The a and b forms are acceptable in both cases. I’ll have to consider whether there are rules for preferring one over the other; right now I can’t think of any. But sawta and fota should be used with pum.

Hayalovay.

Kaltxì, ma frapo.

Whether you’ve been celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Festivus, or anything else, I hope this holiday season has been, and continues fo be, a healthy and happy one for you all.

Before anything else, I want to reassure you that I haven’t forgotten about the UDHR submissions! I was hoping to have some comments for you by this time, but other matters have intervened. I will, however, get to them in the next few days. Ayngeyä tìmweypeyri irayo!

In the meantime, here are some odds and ends I hope you’ll find useful:

More on indirect questions

There’s nothing here that’s really new. It’s more of a completion of things we already know.

Many of you have seen this explanation before—back in 2011, actually!—but I think it’s worth a review. An Indirect question is a question embedded in another sentence, which allows you talk about the question. For example, “Why did he leave?” is a direct question; “I know why he left” is indirect, where the speaker is commenting on the direct question. As this example shows, some languages—English, for instance—require different syntax for direct and indirect questions:

DIRECT
Why did he leave?
*Why he left?

INDIRECT
*I know why did he leave.
I know why he left.

As you know, Na’vi prefers directness, retaining the original quote for reported speech and the original question for embedded questions. So rather than the equivalent of “She said she would come,” Na’vi retains the speaker’s original statement: Poltxe po san oe zasya’u sìk, “She said (quote), ‘I will come’ (unquote).’

For embedded questions, Na’vi makes the underlying semantics clear. When we say, “I know why he left,” what are we really saying? It’s that we know the answer to the question, “Why did he leave?” Na’vi spells this out explicitly, using the noun for answer, tì’eyng, in a shortened form, teyng,as the base of various subordinate conjunctions: tì’eyng + a  teyngla, tì’eyngit + a –> teyngta, etc.

Our example sentence ‘I know why he left’ then becomes Omum oel teyngta lumpe po holum. In tortured English, this is essentially, “I know the why-did-he-leave answer.’

With that in mind, here are the teyng-forms we’ve already seen:

SUBJECTIVE: teynga

Teynga lumpe po holum ke lu law.
‘It’s not clear why he left.’

AGENTIVE: teyngla

Teyngla lumpe po holum oeti heykolangham.
‘Why he left made me laugh.’

PATIENTIVE: teyngta

Omum oel teyngta lumpe po holum.
‘I know why he left.’

That’s what we’ve seen up to now. But teyng exists in the other three cases as well:

DATIVE: teyngra (from tì’eyngur + a)

Rutxe law sivi teyngra lumpe po holum.
‘Please clarify why he left.’

GENITIVE: teyngä (from tì’eyngä + a)

Tìrunìl teyngä lumpe po holum oeti keftxo ’eykolefu.
‘The discovery of why he left saddened me.’

tìrun (n., tì.RUN) ‘discovery’

TOPICAL: teyngria (from tì’eyngri + a)

Teyngria lumpe po holum oel ke tslam ke’ut.
‘I understand nothing about why he left.’
(‘As for why he left, I understand nothing.’)

Note: The dative and topical forms were submitted to me by the LEP a little over a year ago. Irayo nìtxan, ma smuk!

One more thing: teyng can take adpositions too. For example:

Ayoe perängkxo teri teynga lumpe po holum.
‘We’re chatting about why he left.’

Moving on, here are a few things I’ve discussed with people privately via email that I’d like to share with everyone:

<ay> and <ìy> vs. <asy> and <ìsy>

A question arose about the “intentional future” infixes, the ones with s. How would we translate the well-known quote from Lord of the Rings, “You shall not pass!” Using ftem ‘pass by,’ would it be Ngal oeti ke ftìyem Or Ngal oeti ke ftìsyem? This was my response:

I would say that for “You shall not pass!” it’s better not to use <ìsy> and just use <ìy>. As you know, adding the s to the future infixes adds the idea of intent to a simple prediction about the future. That’s why the sy-forms are used exclusively in the first person: You know what your own intentions are, but you can’t make assertions about someone else’s, since you’re not in their head.

When you say Oe hasyum, you’re actually saying two things: (1) Something is going to happen, i.e., my departure; (2) it’s going to happen because it’s my intention—i.e., I am going to cause it to happen. (Of course, we have sentences like, “John intends to leave,” but that’s a little different. It’s making a statement about John’s current mindset as we understand it, but it’s not really making a prediction about the future. John may wind up not leaving at all, due to circumstances beyond his control.) For “You shall not pass,” we’re not saying, “Your intention is not to pass,” or that “I can compel you to intend not to pass.” It’s really a simple prediction about your behavior, even though it’s based on my own intentions.

Counterfactual ‘should have’

A question arose about how to express counterfactual ‘should have’ expressions in Na’vi as in, “You should have gone (but you didn’t).” Here’s what I wrote:

As you know, “should” in Na’vi is sweylu, which literally means, “it’s best (that).”

So “You should (counterfactually) have gone” is actually “If you had gone, it would have been better.”

From the rules we’ve seen, this is:

(1) Zun nga kilvä, zel sweylilvu. Turning it around:

(2) Zel sweylilvu zun nga kilvä.

But we also know that if the time of both clauses is the same, we can use the bare verb in the zel clause:

(3) Zun nga kilvä, zel sweylu. And turning that around,

(4) Zel sweylu zun nga kilvä. 

Finally, in sentences like (4), we can omit zel in casual conversation to get:

(5) Sweylu zun nga kilvä.

So all of (1) through (5) are acceptable for “You should have gone.”

One wrinkle:

The above assumes that the “better” part was in the past: You didn’t go last year, and LAST YEAR it would have better if you HAD gone. But we could also mean that the better part is NOW: If you had gone last year, the situation would be better NOW. (There were negative consequences of the person’s not going that are affecting the present situation.) This changes (1) and (2) to:

(1’) Zun nga kilvä, zel sweylivu.

(2’) Zel sweylivu zun nga kilvä.

Note that there are no parallels to (3) and (4), since the verb in the zel clause can only go into the root form if the time of both clauses is the same:

(3’) *Zun nga kilvä, zel sweylu.

(4’) *Zel sweylu zun nga kilvä.

However, we can omit zel as in (5) to get:

(5’) Sweylivu zun nga kilvä.

And finally, a new idiom:

na fkxen eo fkio  Literally, ‘like vegetable food before a tetrapteron.’

It’s used in the sense of ‘to go to waste.’ Tetrapterons (ayfkio) are predators and have no use for vegetable-based food. If you place vegetables before them, that food will go to waste.

Ngeyä fìtìkangkemvi atxantsan ke slayu na fkxen eo fkio.
‘This excellent work of yours will not go to waste.’

That’s it for now. Hayalovay!

I’m delighted to announce that the Sarentu Song from Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has won Best Song in a Video Game (console & PC) at the 2024 Hollywood Music in Media Awards!

The complete list of winners is here, and you can hear the Sarentu Song and see the lyrics here.

The beautiful melody was composed by Pinar Toprak, and I provided the Na’vi lyrics. The recording and production were under the direction of Patrick Görtjes of Massive Entertainment in Sweden, a division of Ubisoft.

It was a real pleasure to be part of the team that developed this beautiful, moving song. And, of course, I’m proud that something involving Lì’fya leNa’vi has won this recognition.

On another note, irayo nìtxan to all of you who’ve already contributed translations for our UDHR project! I’m so glad you’ve taken the plunge and found the effort worthwhile. I won’t comment on the submissions until after the closing date, December 15^th, but please know I appreciate all of them—and I welcome more! (Related to the UDHR, I’m about to add a couple more resource links to the previous post that I think you’ll find interesting.)

Hayalovay!

Kaltxì, ma frapo, ulte Vospxìvosìng lefpom! Happy December! I hope that those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving had a great day with family and friends, and that you’re all doing well as we zoom into the holiday season.

I’d like to propose a little project that I think will be fun and productive to work on, and that also has relevance to the current world situation.

What is the most translated piece of writing that exists? If you answered “the Bible,” you’re right in that it’s the most translated book (or, if you prefer, collection of books). But if you’re talking about a document, it’s the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UDHR, which was adopted by members of the United Nations in 1948. To date, it’s been translated into 569 languages.

I think it’s time for a Na’vi translation!

Translating the entire document, with its lengthy preamble and thirty articles, is a major undertaking. (I should mention that a complete translation into Klingon is now available! It was submitted to and accepted by the United Nations in February of this year.) What we can do, however, is get started with the best-known part of the UDHD, Article 1:

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

So I’d like to invite any and all members of the lì’fyaolo’ who are interested to submit a translation!

Let’s do this: The deadline for submission will be two weeks from now, Sunday, December 15. You can submit your response in two ways: (1) as a comment to this post, which of course will include your Na’vi name, or, if for any reason you’d prefer not to have your name attached, (2) in an email to me (frommer@marshall.usc.edu) with the subject line “UDHR Na’vi,” which I will then transfer anonymously to a comment along with the others. Either way is fine. Feel free to include whatever explanation and discussion you think would be helpful, and any remaining questions you have. And please don’t feel your version has to be perfect! All efforts, at any level, will be appreciated! Once all the entries are in, I’ll review them and try to put together an “official” Na’vi translation using the best parts of the submissions as I see them.

By the way, don’t think the English version is the original one, with all the others being secondary. The original version was actually the French one, which is considered authoritative if disputes arise about meaning. But the translations are not all parallel. Many, if not most, reflect something about the culture and environment in which the particular language is spoken. As one author has written (see the link below), “Translating this document isn’t self-evident . . . . Every language is a vehicle of different ideas, cultures and philosophical traditions; some would even go so far as to say that languages influence how we see the world.” (Sound familiar? 🙂  )

This means that our Na’vi translation is likely to reflect aspects of the Na’vi themselves: their way of thinking, their environment, perhaps their proverbs, similes, and metaphors, etc. You can use all of the vocabulary we have so far, but given the abstract concepts in Article 1, you’ll probably have to invent some new vocabulary as well. I’ll be interested to see what you come up with! But at the same time, don’t feel that if the English (or French, or German, . . . ) translation has a particular lexical item, you necessarily have to have a parallel item in your Na’vi version! There may be other ways to get the meaning across. (See the example below.)

For any sulfätu lelì’fya who would like to go further than Article 1, I’d suggest Article 19:

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Or you could choose whatever part(s) of the UDHR appeal to you the most. But these additions are not necessary. For the time being, we’re only aiming to produce an official version of Article 1.

Here are some resources you’ll find useful:

First, the official web site of the UDHR.

Next, the Wikipedia article.

Here is the complete UDHR in English.

This article on UDHR translation issues is one I especially recommend.

Finally, this Maori version of Article 1 illustrates how a translation can get the basic ideas across without slavishly following the vocabulary and structure of any other version.

Fìtìkangkemvi ahì’i ’o’ livu nì’aw! I’m looking forward to seeing your creativity!

Update December 2^nd:

Here are two more resource links that I think you’ll find interesting:

First, this is an excellent 12-minute podcast on the UDHR that provides a more in-depth look at its history and context. It’s in the “Documents That Changed the World” series, written, produced, and narrated by Joe Janes, a professor in the Information School of the University of Washington and a personal friend.

And this translation site provides a remarkable collection of UDHR translations in both written and audio form. Type the language you want into the search box and chances are you’ll get a written translation read by a native speaker.

Kaltxì, ma frapo.

I hope you’ve all had an appropriately fun and spooky Halloween, and that November has started out well for you. Ulte ayngeyä tìmweypeyri irayo seiyi oe nìtxan.

I’ve finally replied to the comments I received on the last post—take a look when you can, as there are a couple of new vocabulary items there that you may find useful.

And here, for those who missed it, I’m finally posting the video of my Na’vigation talk from a few months back, which Tekre provided in a form that mercifully eliminated the technical glitches that were entirely my own fault. Irayo nìtxan, ma tsmuk!

The video is available on Google Drive here.

(If there’s any problem with the link, please let me know.)

As you’ll see, the talk was especially targeted to those of you who have created, or are thinking of creating, your own constructed language. The examples I gave, however, are largely from Na’vi.

One new thing in this talk was a brief discussion of orthography—that is, writing systems. So let me say a few things—or rather, ask you a few questions—about orthography as it relates to Na’vi.

For convenience, here are the relevant PowerPoint slides:

Orthography slides–4 Aug 2024

Some questions to think about:

A. Of the five types of orthographies mentioned—alphabets, abugidas, abjads, syllabaries, and logographic systems—which do you think works the best for Na’vi? Why?

B. In particular, what about a syllabic system for Na’vi? Syllabaries work very well for Japanese. Would they work for Na’vi too? (Hint: What is the significance of the number 8,690?)

C. The standard alphabetic system we use to write Na’vi is of course a modified form of the Roman alphabet. In most cases, there’s a one-to-one correspondence between sound and symbol: each distinctive sound is mapped onto one written symbol, and each written symbol is mapped onto one distinctive sound. But there are exceptions: the digraphs. These are pairs of letters that correspond to single consonants. The Na’vi digraphs are ng, ts, kx, px, and tx (and in Reef Na’vi, ch and sh).

For many, digraphs are unappealing—partly for logical or aesthetic reasons (“Why should a single sound need two letters?”) but also because of possible ambiguities. Think of English words like “mishap” and “cathouse” and you’ll see the problem.

Some of you may recall that early on, there were two proposed Roman alphabetic systems for Na’vi—the one we have now, which we can call the “popular” system, and one that eliminated some of the digraphs, which we can call the “scientific” system.

In the scientific system, the ts sound was written as c. Since c is not otherwise used in Na’vi, this is perfectly possible. And in fact some earth languages use c in exactly this way, so there’s ample precedent for this usage.

Also, the ng sound—the velar nasal—was written simply as g. Since g by itself is not used in Na’vi, this works well. And as with c, there is precedent in earth languages for this usage. (Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa, is actually pronounced “Pango Pango.”)

All this being said, the scientific system was not successful and died out quickly. Why do you think that happened?

Hayalovay, ma eylan.

Ma eylan,

Tse, Vospxìvolaw polähem sneyä tì’i’aro, ulte leiu oe txen. 🙂 

(If you don’t know the reference, try this.)

We haven’t had any new vocabulary in a long time, so here are a couple dozen words I hope you’ll find useful. They’re taken from, or inspired by, the large backlog of submissions I have from the LEP committee. Seysonìltsan, ma smuk!

In no particular order:

keve’o (n., ke.VE.’o) ‘chaos, disorder’

This is from ke + ve’o ‘order.’

Ngeyä aysäfpìlmì tse’änga oel keve’ot nì’aw.
‘In your thinking, I see only chaos.’

lekve’o (adj., lek.VE.’o) ‘chaotic’

Lam oeru kifkey lekve’o.
‘The world seems chaotic to me.’

vurtu (n., VUR.tu) ‘fictional character’

Txon Kihote lu vurtu nì’aw; ke fkeytolok kawkrr.
Don Quixote is a fictional character; he never existed.

tstunlan (adj., TSTUN.lan) ‘kind-hearted’

From tstunwi ‘kind’ + txe’lan ‘heart.’ It’s the opposite of kawnglan ‘bad-hearted, malicious.’

kalintu (n., ka.LIN.tu) ‘sweet person’

Lu nga kalintu nìngay.
‘You’re really a sweet person.’

Kalintu can be used as an endearing form of address, as in ma kalintu, but it’s not as intimate or affectionate as paskalin.

txeym (adj.) ‘interested’

As an adjective, txeym is used with ’efu. So we now have two ways to say we’re interested in something:

Oeri tsavur eltur tìtxen si.
Tsavurìri oe ’efu txeym.
‘I’m interested in that story.’

Txeym, however, yields the noun for ‘interest’:

tìtxeym (n., tì.TXEYM) ‘interest’

Feyä vurìri lolu txana tìtxeym.
‘There was great interest in their story.’

tengralì’u (n., TENG.ra.lì.’u) ‘synonym’

This is clearly derived from teng ‘same’ + ral ‘meaning’ + lì’u ‘word.’

Melì’u alu pxel sì na lu tengralì’u.
‘The two words pxel and na are synonyms.’

wäralì’u (n., WÄ.ra.lì.’u) ‘antonym’

Recall that wä means ‘opposing.’

zal (n.) ‘clay, usually for pottery’

Fkol fìfnetsngalit txula ta zal.
‘This kind of cup is made of clay.’

let’eylan (adj., let.’EY.lan) ‘friendly’ ofp

tì’eylanga’ (adj., tì.’EY.la.nga’) ‘friendly’ nfp

Ayhapxìtu soaiä ngeyä lu oeru let’eylan nìwotx.
‘Your family members are all friendly to me.’

Ngeyä aylì’uri atì’eylanga’ seiyi irayo.
‘Thank you for your friendly words.’

hasa’ (n. ha.SA’) ‘orphan’

Krrka tsam slängu pxaya ’eveng hasa’.
‘During war, sad to say, many children become orphans.’

yehaw (adj., YE.haw) ‘well-rested, having had enough sleep’

As you recall, ye is an adjective meaning ‘content’ or ‘satiated.’ The second syllable, of course, comes from hahaw ‘sleep.’

Lam frakem letsunslu krra fko ’efu yehaw.
‘Everything seems possible when one is well-rested.’

tseovi (n., TSE.o.vi) ‘work of art’

Fìfkxile lu tseovi alor.
‘This necklace is a beautiful work of art.’

tìnitram (n., tì.nit.RAM) ‘happiness’

We now have three words that refer to happiness: fpom, lawnol, and tìnitram. Although there is overlap, they’re all slightly different in meaning. Fpom refers to the general feeling or situation of peace and well-being in your life. Lawnol is the most intense of the three—a transcendent feeling of joy. Tìnitram usually refers to the happiness resulting from a particular situation or event.

Note the two equivalent grammatical constructions:

Oe ’efu nitram.
Lu oer(u) tìnitram.
‘I feel happy.’

okupsyu (n., O.kup.syu) ‘dairy product’

Clearly from okup ‘milk’ + syuve ‘food.’

stxang (n.) ‘axe, hatchet, tomahawk’

There was some discussion about whether the Na’vi traditionally use axe-like tools, but it seems plausible that they do, since these are natural tools for chopping down trees and other vegetation.

tìwätenga’ (adj., tì.wä.TE.nga’) ‘controversial’ nfp

Recall the word tìwäte, meaning ‘argument’ or ‘dispute.’

Fìpukmì a aysäfpìl lu tìwätenga’ nìtxan.
‘The ideas in this book are very controversial.’

velun (n., ve.LUN) ‘logic’

This is a compound of ve’o ‘order’ + lun ‘reason.’

Ngeyä tìhawlìri ke längu kea velun.
‘I’m sorry to say there’s no logic in your plan.’

säpxor (n., sä.PXOR) ‘explosion’

Stìmawm säpxorit! Tul!
‘(I) just heard an explosion! Run!’

txikx (vtr.) ‘chew’

säkeynven (n., sä.keyn.VEN) ‘step’

This word is colloquially pronounced skeynven and often written that way informally.

Rawng tsaslärä ftu fìtsenge lu vola skeynven nì’aw.
‘The entrance to the cave is only eight steps from here.’

kawlo (adv., KAW.lo) ‘not once’

This is a contraction of ke ‘not’ + ’awlo ‘one time.’

Oel keng kawlo ke solar kea räptulì’fyat ngahu!
‘I have never even once used vulgar language with you!’

That’s it for now. If you see any typos or other goofs, please let me know!

Hayalovay!

Edits Oct. 31: Various typos corrected; vuri –> vurìri 2X.

Ma eylan,

Soaiari Uniltìrantokxä, alo amuve längu fmawn atìkeftxonga’. Ayngari txo ke li ke stilvawm, zene oe piveng san tolerkängup awngeyä eyktan sì ’eylan alu Jon Landau.

It came as a terrible shock to learn that Jon Landau, Avatar’s producer and James Cameron’s dear friend and collaborator, died Friday, July 5^th, at the age of 63.

My acquaintance with Jon went all the way back to 2005, when I first signed on to the Avatar team. Since then, I interacted with him numerous times. He would often call me to give me a Na’vi assignment or ask how to say such-and-such in the language. He was sometimes my conduit to JC when for whatever reason I couldn’t contact Jim directly with a question. And he approved—and sometimes revised 🙂 —the character and clan names for the video games.

Something that stands out in my memory was Jon’s unannounced visit to one of the U.S. Avatar meet-ups, where he surprised and delighted all the fans in attendance with his warmth and support. In talking to the group about things to come, he expressed his enthusiasm for Na’vi and how he wanted to see the language develop. Needless to say, that was good to hear.

Jim wrote a moving tribute to Jon on Instagram. If you haven’t seen it, let me share it with you:

“The Avatar family grieves the loss of our friend and leader, Jon Landau. His zany humor, personal magnetism, great generosity of spirit and fierce will have held the center of our Avatar universe for almost two decades. His legacy is not just the films he produced, but the personal example he set — indomitable, caring, inclusive, tireless, insightful and utterly unique.

“He produced great films, not by wielding power but by spreading warmth and the joy of making cinema. He inspired us all to be and to bring our best, every day.

“I have lost a dear friend, and my closest collaborator of 31 years. A part of myself has been torn away.”

In my note of condolence to Jim, I included the following:

“Human lifetimes are short, but what you and Jon created together will live on as long as people watch movies, bringing awe and wonder and joy to generation after generation.

“Tolerkup tute; tìkangkem peyä tì’i’avay krrä rayey. The person dies; his work will live on forever.”

Ngari hu Eywa salew tirea, ma Jon. Nga lom layu ayoeru nìtxan.

ta Pawl

Kaltxì nìmun, ma frapo!

Our LEP (Lexical Expansion Project) team has been working overtime, and I have an impressive list of submissions, some from months ago, that I’m gradually going through. Most of the following new vocabulary items are either taken directly from their submissions or inspired by them.

First, some body parts:

tsyokxtil (n., TSYOKX.til) ‘wrist’  (usually pronounced tsyoktil)

Tsyokx, as you know, means ‘hand.’ Recall that til means ‘joint.’

zektil (n., ZEK.til) ‘knuckle’ (from zekwä ‘finger’+ til)

tstir (n.) ‘palm of a hand’

stang (n.) ‘torso’

sil (n.) ‘body stripe (non-facial)’

Compare pil, which refers specifically to facial stripes.

Pori frapil sì frasil lor lu nìtxan.
’He/She is very attractive.’
(Literally: ‘As for him/her, every facial and body stripe is very beautiful.’)

In Na’vi slang, this proverbial expression is often reduced to:

Frapil frasil!
‘Wow! Check him/her out! He/She is gorgeous!’

tski (n.) ‘jaw’

kxon (n.) ‘internal organ’

Lu tokxur tuteyä polpxaya kxon?
‘How many internal organs does a person’s body have?’

The next few words are not strictly body parts themselves but are related to them:

rumtsyokx (n., RUM.tsyokx) ‘fist’ (lit.: ball hand)

rìktsyokx (n., RÌK.tsyokx) ‘flat hand’ (lit.: leaf hand)

Ateyol Entut tolakuk fa rumtsyokx.
‘Ateyo punched Entu (i.e. struck him with his fist).’

Ateyol Entut tolakuk fa rìktsyokx.
‘Ateyo slapped Entu (i.e. struck him with his flat hand).’

heynyì (n., HEYN.yì) ‘lap’ (i.e., the flat surface created when sitting)

Za’u heyn sìn oey heynyì, ma ’evi.
‘Come sit on my lap, my child.’

A couple of grammatical terms:

rawnlì’u (n., RAWN.lì.’u) ‘pronoun’  (from rawn ‘substitute, replace’)

pamrìrlì’u (n., pam.RÌR.lì.’u) ‘onomatopoetic word’

An onomatopoetic word is one that imitates (rì’ìr si) the sound of its referent. Most if not all languages have such words. An English example is ratatat, ‘a rapid succession of knocking, tapping, or cracking sounds.’ A Na’vi example is kxangangang ‘boom.’

And some miscellaneous words:

tìtok (n., tì.TOK) ‘presence’

I really like this word! It’s obviously from tok ‘be at, occupy a space.’

Tìtokìl ngeyä ngop tìngäzìkit fraporu.
‘Your presence creates a difficulty for everyone.’

tìktok (n., tìk.TOK) ‘absence’

This is a development of tì + ke + tok. Since tìtok and tìktok are close in sound but opposite in meaning, you need to distinguish them carefully in speaking. If there’s any danger of confusion, you can say the original long form of the word, tìketok.

Tìktokit peyä fkol tsoleri.
‘His absence was noted.’

Tìtok slu tìktok fa pamtsyìp a’aw.
‘Presence becomes absence by means of one little sound.’
(A proverbial expression meaning: ‘Small things can make a big difference.’)

pamtsyìp (n., PAM.tsyìp) ‘small or slight sound’

tskxemauti (n., TSKXE.ma.u.ti) ‘nut’

From tsxke ‘stone’ + mauti ‘fruit’

yayl (n.) ‘nonsense, gibberish’

Yayl can refer either to something completely unintelligible or to something that’s foolish and makes no sense.

Faylì’u a poltxe nga lu yayl nì’aw.
‘What you said is nothing but nonsense.’

You can also use the bare word yayl as a rude put-down of what someone has just said or written:

Yayl!
‘Bullshit!’

leyayl (adj., le.YAYL) ‘nonsensical’

tìtxanro’a (n., tì.txan.RO.’a) ‘fame, glory’

This is a nice sentence to practice out loud for stress and rhythm:

Tsatu a new tìtxanro’at nì’aw / ke slayu eyktan atxantsan kawkrr.
‘The person who wants only fame will never become an excellent leader.’

zeklor (adj., zek.LOR) ‘pleasant to the touch’

Clearly from zekwä ‘finger’ + lor ‘beautiful.’

Sunu oer fìfnesrä taluna lu zeklor.
‘I like this kind of cloth because it feels good.’

Hayalovay, ma eylan!

Edit: ZEK.lor –> zek.LOR

Kaltxì, ma eylan, ulte Vospxìpuk lefpom!

Happy June, everyone. I hope you’re all doing well as summer (or winter, depending on where you live!) fast approaches.

Among the most recent vocabulary submissions from the LEP (Lexical Expansion Project) were some excellent suggestions for certain time expressions, which got me thinking more generally about time in Na’vi. Up to now we’ve seen quite a few expressions for stretches of time: zìsìt ‘year,’ vospxì ‘month,’ kintrr ‘week,’ muntrr ‘weekend,’ trr ‘day,’ and various parts of the day—rewon ‘morning,’ kxamtrr ‘noon,’ ha’ngir ‘afternoon,’ kaym ‘evening,’ txon ‘night,’ etc.

What we haven’t seen, however, is anything corresponding to hours here on earth, not to mention minutes and seconds. And so we don’t as yet have official ways to ask what time it is.

The difficulty is clear: We don’t know if the Na’vi divide their day into uniformly equal segments like our hours. Even if they do, we have no reason to think they use a 24-hour division as we do. However, if we’re going to use Na’vi ’Rrtamì, it would be very useful to be able to talk about hours, minutes, and seconds, and ask what time something occurred or will occur. So let’s see what would be a reasonable way to do that.

First of all, we have this general word for a day division;

trrpxì (n., trr.PXÌ) ‘part of a day’

A trrpxì could be a rewon, a kaym, a txon, etc.

A: Fo pähem pesrrpxì (OR: trrpxìpe)?
B: Srekamtrr.
A: ‘What part of the day will they arrive?’
B: ‘Before noon.’

But trrpxì could also be a uniform division of the Pandoran day—possible although so far unattested.

When the Na’vi interacted with the Sawtute and became acquainted with the human way of reckoning time, it’s likely they adapted their already existing word trrpxì as a way of expressing ‘hour.’ To avoid ambiguity, they modified the word to specifically indicate an hour on the 24-hour human cycle, doing this in one of two ways:

trrpxì Sawtuteyä (n., trr.PXÌ SAW.tu.te.yä) ‘hour (in the 24-hour human cycle)’

pxevotrrpxì (n., pxe.vo.trr.PXÌ) ‘hour (in the 24-hour human cycle)’

The latter word clearly comes from pxevol ‘twenty-four’ and trrpxì, where the l of pxevol has eroded over time. (Tìkangkem atxantsan, ma ayhapxìtu LEP-ä!).

However, if the context is clearly that of an earth or human environment where we’re talking about hours on the clock, we can simply use trrpxì for a normal, familiar hour.

With that in mind, we have the following:

trrpxì (n., trr.PXÌ) ‘part of a day; hour’

trrpxìvi (n., trr.PXÌ.vi) ‘minute’

trrpxìvitsyìp (n., trr.PXÌ.vi.tsyìp) ‘second’

Note the following ways to translate time expressions in which English uses “in” and “for”:

Oe pähem maw trrpxìvi amrr. OR Oe pähem kay trrpxìvi amrr.
‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’

(Recall that maw is ‘after’ and kay is ‘from now’; they’re equally correct here.)

Po tìkangkem soli (ka) trrpxìo amrr.
’She has worked for five hours.’

(Note the -o suffix to indicate duration with time words. Ka, which further indicates duration, is optional here.)

We’re now ready to talk about clock time: five o’clock, seven thirty, and so on. Before we do, however, we need to note a subtlety in Na’vi that’s usually glossed over in English.

For five o’clock, the most natural Na’vi expression would seem to be trrpxì amrrve, literally ‘the fifth hour’ (where, as we’ve noted before, we’re using trrpxì for a standard clock hour). But trrpxì really refers to a stretch or span of time, while 5:00 is a point in time. That is, 5:00 is actually the point that marks the end of the fifth hour! (I was originally tempted to say beginning, but if you think about it, that’s not right! 🙂 )

So technically, five o’clock is properly tì’i’a trrpxìyä amrrve, ‘the end of the fifth hour.’ However, in normal, everyday usage, we simply say trrpxì amrrve, with the understanding that this is short for tì’i’a trrpxìyä amrrve.

We need one more important vocabulary item, and then we’re ready to talk about time to our heart’s content:

lik (n.) ‘point, spot, particular place or position in some area’

Tskoti fyep fìlikro.
‘Grasp the bow at this spot.’

Ro salik a mì säftxulì’u atì’iluke peyä, oe holum.
‘At that point in his endless speech, I left.’

This gives us:

krrlik (n., KRR.lik) ‘point in time’

We now have two ways to ask “What time?”:

pesrrpxì / trrpxìpe (inter., pe.srr.PXÌ / trr.PXÌ.pe) ‘what time?’

pehrrlik / krrlikpe (inter., pe.HRR.lik / KRR.lik.pe) ’what time?’

To answer and say “It’s five o’clock,” the full and somewhat bookish response is:

Krrlik lu trrpxì amrrve.
‘The time is five o’clock’

Colloquially, however, we can simply say:

Lu mrrve.
‘It’s five.’ (Literally, ‘It’s the fifth [hour]’)

A: Nga pähem pehrr?
B: Ro srrpxì amrrve. OR (colloquially) Ro mrrve.
A: ‘When will you arrive?’
B: ‘At five o’clock.’ OR ‘At five.’

(We could have said payähem in the above question, but it’s not necessary to do so.)

Finally, to add some minutes:

5:30  :  trrpxì amrrve sì mawl OR (colloquially) mrrve sì mawl

5:24 :  trrpxì amrrve sì trrpxìvi apxevol OR (colloquially) mrrve sì pxevol

4:50 (i.e., ten minutes to five): trrpxìvi avomun sre srrpxì amrrve
OR (colloquially) vomun sre mrrve

That’s it for now. I hope you found this post worth your time. 🙂

Hayalovay!

Kaltxì, ma frapo!

Fleltrr Lefpom! Happy April Fool’s Day!

No tricks—just a few new words this time along with a new way to use a word you already know. I hope you’ll find these useful.

Actually, the only word family for today that’s directly related to foolery is based on:

flel (vtr.) ‘trick (someone), fool (someone)’

Entul Peyralit fìtxan flolel kuma fpìl poe san oe yawne lu por.
‘Entu fooled Peyral so much that she thought he loved her.’
OR ‘Entu tricked Peyral into thinking that he loved her.’

säflel (n., sä.FLEL) ‘trick, hoax, dishonest act or scheme’

Pot spaw rä’ä! Lu fì’u säflel!
’Don’t believe him! It’s a trick!’

Don’t confuse säflel with ìngyentsyìp, which also means ‘trick’ but in another sense. An ìngyentsyìp is a clever device, as in “There’s a trick to solving this equation.” A säflel is something dishonest.

tìflel (n., tì.FLEL) ‘trickery (abstract concept)’

fleltu (n., FLEL.tu) ‘fool, sucker, mark, someone easily tricked’

NOTE: Keep in mind that when you encounter nouns where the -tu suffix has been attached to a verb, the meanings have to be learned individually, since you don’t know beforehand whether the noun refers to the agent or the patient of the verb. I can’t do better than to quote the Horen:

-tu creates agent nouns most often from parts of speech other than verbs . . . When attached to verbs, the noun might refer to either the agent or the patient of a verbal action, such as frrtu guest from frrfen visit (agent), spe’etu captive from spe’e capture (patient). [Horen 5.1.5.1]

Fleltrr (n., FLEL.trr) ‘April Fool’s Day’

Fleltu slu rä’ä! Fìtrr lu Fleltrr!
‘Don’t be fooled! Today is April Fool’s Day!’

säfleltsyìp (n., sä.FLEL.tsyìp) ‘practical joke’

Here’s another -tu word that works the same way as spe’etu and fleltu:

hawntu (n., HAWN.tu) ‘one under someone’s protection’

Oey yawntu lu oey hawntu.
‘My beloved is under my protection.’
OR ‘The one I love is the one I protect.’

The next word is a result of someone asking me how to say “washing machine” in Na’vi. That led me to ask myself what “machine” would be in general. What’s the essence of a machine, and did the Na’vi have the concept of machine prior to the arrival of the Sawtute?

It seemed to me that “machine” has two basic defining components: (1) It’s something that helps you do something you couldn’t do or do as well without it, and (2) it’s something that’s constructed rather than occurring in nature. In this sense, a bow could be considered a kind of machine, since it satisfies properties (1) and (2). This led to:

säsrung (n, sä.SRUNG) ‘helper (inanimate), something that helps’

Contrast säsrung (inanimate) with srungsiyu, ‘helper’ in the sense of an assistant or person who helps.

Oeyä tìtslamìri tìoeyktìng ngeyä lolu säsrung.
‘Your explanation helped my understanding.’

(This is admittedly a bit stiff compared to the simpler and more natural Oeyä tìtslamur tìoeyktìng ngeyä srung soli.)

A machine, then, is a constructed (txawnula, from txula) säsrung.

txawnulsrung (n., txaw.NUL.srung) ‘machine’

The historical derivation is a bit complex:

*txawnulasäsrung > txawnulsäsrung > txawnulsrung

And so:

txawnulsrung a yur (n.) ‘washing machine’

This pattern is obviously the basis for other kinds of machines, such as:

txawnulsrung a tswayon (n.) ‘airplane’

kahena (vtr., ka.HE.na, inf. 2,3) ‘transport’

The derivation here is obvious: ka ‘across’ + hena ‘carry,’ similar to the derivation of the English word from Latin trans ‘across’ + portare ‘carry.’ (Sometimes humans and Na’vi think alike.)

Fwa kahena fì’uranit atsawl ftu tsray oeyä ne pum ngeyä layu ngäzìk.
‘It’s going to be difficult to transport this large boat from my village to yours.’

tìkahena (n., tì.ka.HE.na) ‘transportation (abstract concept)’

säkahena (n., sä.ka.HE.na) ‘means of transport, transportation device, vehicle’

As with other sä– words, the unstressed ä usually drops in casual pronunciation when the resulting consonant cluster is permissible. So this word is usually pronounced skahena colloquially.

Contrast säkahena with sämunge, which also means a transportation device. The difference is that sämunge usually refers to something small that something else can fit in, like a pouch, while a säkahena is typically something that can move large things, including people.

Finally, there’s now a pet turtle in the Lightstorm office, and I’ve been asked how to say “turtle” in Na’vi. As with other terrestrial animals that don’t exist on Pandora, we take the name of the Pandoran animal that seems the closest and typically add –tsyìp, since our earth versions are usually smaller. So alongside nantangtsyìp ‘dog’ and palukantsyìp ‘cat,’ we now have:

mawuptsyìp (n., MA.wup.tsyìp) ‘turtle’

from mawup ‘turtapede.’

Now for that new use of a familiar word that I mentioned above:

We haven’t yet seen how the Na’vi express the kind of emphasis we achieve in English with the “self” words, as in: I myself, you yourself, etc. For example, “You yourself said I shouldn’t go!”

To do this in Na’vi, we use the adposition sko, which we’ve seen glossed as ‘in the capacity of, in the role of,’ with a repeated noun or pronoun. An example will show you how this works:

Nga sko nga poltxe san rä’ä kivä!
‘You yourself said don’t go!’

Literally, this means something like “You in the role of you,” which is weird in English but fine in Na’vi as a means of emphasis.

Keep in mind two things: First, sko is one of those adpositions that trigger lenition in the following word, and (2) like all adpositions, it can be suffixed onto its object. So the above example could also be Nga ngasko poltxe san . . . For ‘I myself,’ it’s either oe sko oe or oe oesko. As you would anticipate from oehu and oene, the latter is pronounced WES.ko.

That’s it for now. Nìmun, Fleltrr Lefpom, ulte fleltu slu rä’ä! 🙂