Weather Part 2 and a bit more

Kaltxì nìmun, ma oeyä eylan—

After an unexpectedly busy month, I’m happy to be back to present and discuss more of the excellent suggestions of the vocabulary committee. The members have now given me a lot of food for thought; in the next few weeks I’ll dish out as many choice helpings as I can.

Weather expressions, continued

A. Air and Sky: “steady states”

Na’vi distinguishes between weather states you can feel and those you can see. For the former, we use the frame Ya lu ______ (you feel the air), for the latter Taw lu ______ (you see the sky).

In particular, temperature:

somwew (n.: som.WEW) ‘temperature’

(Compare hìmtxan ‘amount,’ holpxay ‘number,’ tsawlhì’ ‘size,’ ngimpup* ‘length.’ Note, by the way, that the stress is on the second syllable in each case.)

*pup (adj.) ‘short (physical length)’

*ngimpup (n.: ngim.PUP) ‘length’

pesomwew/somwewpe ‘what temperature?’ (The second variant here is the more common one: som.WEW.pe.)

To ask the temperature, you simply say:

Yari somwewpe?
‘What’s the temperature?’

Note that you can ask the temperature of things other than the air:

Payri somwewpe?
‘What’s the temperature of the water?’ (perhaps asked before swimming)

The answer to Yari somwewpe is, as I mentioned, Ya lu ______. Here are some temperature words that can fill the blank, from very cold to very hot. Some of these adjectives are new; some you’re already familiar with.

txawew (TXA.wew) ‘very cold’
wew ‘cold’
wur ‘cool, a bit chilly’
tsyafe ( TSYA.fe) ‘mild, moderate, comfortable’
sang ‘warm’
som ‘hot’
txasom (TXA.som) ‘very hot’

For the appearance of the sky, the question is:

Tawri fyape (or: pefya)?
‘What’s the sky like?’

The answer is, Taw lu ______. Adjectives that can go in this blank include:

leyapay (le.YA.pay) ‘foggy, misty’
lepwopx (lep.WOPX) ‘cloudy’
lepwopx nìhol ‘lightly cloudy, just a few clouds’
lepwopx nìpxay ‘heavily cloud-covered, many clouds’
piak ‘no clouds, completely clear’ (This is also the ordinary word for ‘open.’)
tstu ‘completely overcast, covered with clouds’ (This is also the ordinary word for ‘closed.’)

The word for ‘humid’ deserves some comment:

paynga’ (adj.: PAY.nga’) ‘moist, damp, humid’

In this compound, the second component is the transitive verb nga’ ‘contain’:

Na’rìngìl nga’ pxaya ioangit.
‘The forest contains many animals.’

Here, however, nga’ is acting as a derivational suffix, one that turns a noun into a related adjective with the rough meaning, ‘containing the noun.’ Examples:

paynga’ (PAY.nga’) ‘containing water’ = ‘moist, damp, humid’
meuianga’ (me.U.i.a.nga’) ‘containing honor’ = ‘honorable’
txumnga’ (TXUM.nga’) ‘containing poison’ = ‘poisonous’

Note that as an adjective former, -nga’ is less common than le-. It is not freely productive, which is to say you can’t simply coin your own –nga’ words at will: you need to find them in the dictionary. And on occasion the le- and –nga’ forms exist side by side with slightly different meanings. For example:

’akra (n.: ’AK.ra) ‘soil (in which plants can grow)’

’akra apaynga’ ‘moist soil’

’akra lepay ‘watery, saturated soil’

B. Wind

Na’vi uses tìran ‘walk’ and tul ‘run’ with hufwe ‘wind’ to indicate the degree of windiness:

Tìran hufwe.
‘It’s breezy (but pleasantly so).’

Hufwetsyìp lefpom tarmìran.
‘A pleasant little breeze was blowing.’

Tul hufwe nìwin.
‘It’s very windy.’

There’s still more to be said about the weather, but that will have to wait for another time.

Some miscellaneous vocabulary

Three useful adverbs:

nìlam ‘apparently’

nìli ‘in advance’

nìfrakrr (nì.FRA.krr) ‘as always’

Poan yawne latsu poeru nìlam.
‘Apparently she loves him.’

Ngeyä stxeliri alor oe new ngaru pivlltxe san irayo sìk nìli. Ke lu oer am’a*, tsa’u polähem a krr, sunu oeru nìtxan.
‘I want to thank you in advance for your beautiful gift. I have no doubt that when it arrives, I’m going to enjoy it very much.’

*am’a (n.: am.’A) ‘doubt’

Nìfrakrr fol ’olem a wutso ftxìvä’ lu nìngay.
‘As always, the dinner they cooked tasted really terrible.’

There’s much more to come, but for now I’ll just say hayalovay.

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29 Responses to Weather Part 2 and a bit more

  1. Txantsan! \o/

    A couple of observations:

    1) “(le.PWOPX)” should rather be “(lep.WOPX)”, kefyak?

    2) From the Halls of Conlang Coincidence®, the Klingon verb for “contain, have inside” is ngaS.

    • Pawl says:

      1) Zoslolu. Irayo nìtxan . . . nìfrakrr.
      2) Hmm. Interesting. Maybe Marc was communicating with me telepathically. (Can I get a copy of your book?)

      • Markì says:

        Bettet yet, Marc should jump on the LearnNavi forums and help breathe some life into the Klingon language board! 🙂

  2. Le'eylan says:

    Faylì’ul oet ‘eykolefu nitram nang! Pum leiu nìtxan lesar, nìfrakrr 😉

    These words made me really happy! They are very useful, as always.

  3. Wm Annis says:

    Would just Poan yawne latsu poer (without nìlam) also be sufficient?

  4. Kamean says:

    Txantsan ulte lesar! Irayo nìtxan ma Pawl. 🙂

    Lu oer ‘awa tìpawm. Txo am’a lu ” noun”, srake am’a si livu “verb”?

  5. Aylì’uri amip irayo seiyi nìtxan ma Karyu.

    Lu oeru ‘awa tìpawm: srake tsun fko sivar “topic”it lì’uhu alu am’a? Natkenong: tsari lu oeru am’a.

  6. Kä'eng says:

    Na’vi distinguishes between weather states you can feel and those you can see. For the former, we use the frame Ya lu ______ (you feel the air), for the latter Taw lu ______ (you see the sky). […] The answer to Yari somwewpe is, as I mentioned, Ya lu ______.

    “feel” nìNa’vi slu “‘efu”, kefyak?

    • Kä'eng says:

      never mind, ya ‘efu wouldn’t make sense since it’s not the air that’s doing the feeling. (English is weird with phrases like that…)

  7. Tswusayona Tsamsiyu says:

    slä lì’uhu alu “lu” tì’eyng lu nì’ul pup.
    fìtì’eyng lu pupa “‘efu futa ya lu___”.

    ulte sunu oer faylì’u, nìpxi lì’u alu “pup” talun lu hiyìk nìtxan :).
    irayo ma Pawl.

  8. Talis says:

    Vielen vielen Dank für die tollen neuen Vokabeln
    und beste Grüße aus dem sonnigen Kiel (auch wenn die Sonne bereits unter gegangen ist 😀 ) !
    Talis

  9. SGM (Plumps) says:

    Great … we’re one step closer to be able to talk about the weather 🙂

    ’akra sounds almost like the German „Acker“ 😀 that’s a good one to remember.

    Irayo nìtxan, ma Karyu.

  10. Prrton says:

    Tsun fko krro krro sivung lì’fyavi alu -nga’ fte mipa aylì’uti ngivop a fìfya’o lesar leiu nìwotx! Ke lu oer kea am’a a ayätxäle a san rutxe tsat sar a fìfnelì’uti ngivop nì’ul sìk vayirä nìtxan.

    Seiyi irayo!!

    🙂

  11. Sxkxawng says:

    Irayo nìtxantxantxan, ma Pawl. Faylì’uri ke tsun nìtam irayo siveiyu ngengaru! 😀

    T. S. fascinating phonetic contrast between nga and nga’. One more thing to drive beginners of the language insane 😉

  12. 'Eveng says:

    Irayo nìtxan ma Pawl ìlafìpo!!
    Why this Contrast betwen Nga = you
    And -Nga’- Contain? is a very crazy thing but beautiful for a language!
    Na’vi will be the language of the future!
    Thumb Up and keep it up!

  13. `Eylan Ayfalulukanä says:

    Txantsan, ma karyu Pawl. Aylì’ul tamìng ngat ayoeru a lu aylì’u lesar nìtxan

    Are there any precautions or ‘gotchas’ one needs to be aware of when using words ending in -nga’, especially when close to words ending in nga ?

    Based on Lance Casey’s observation, it would be good for you and Marc to get together more often 😉

    • Tswusayona Tsamsiyu says:

      in my opinion there shouldn’t be any problem because the glottal stop kind of cuts the flowing of the speech. so I think it will be noticable enough.

  14. Wm Annis says:

    So, would “it’s getting cloudy” be taw tstu säperi? And, “it’ll clear up soon” be taw piak säpi ye’rìn?

  15. 'Eveng says:

    What the differents betwen “Pefya” And “Fyape”?
    Eywa ngahu ma Karyu Pawl!

  16. SGM (Plumps) says:

    Can nga’ take more than one complement? So, would it be okay to say

    Na’rìngìl nga’ aysyaksyukit, hententi, salioangit sì ayhì’angit.
    ‘The forest contains prolemurises, fan lizards, sturmbeests and insects.’ ?

    • Prrton says:

      And a follow-on to this. Is either of these examples more correct or preferred?

      (2) Na’rìngìl nga’ aysyaksyukit, hententi, salioangit sì ayhì’angit.
      ‘The forest contains prolemurises, fan lizards, sturmbeests and insects.’ ?
      Generalized usage of the plural for this context of describing the forest.

      (2) Na’rìngìl nga’ syaksyukit, kententi, talioangit sì pxaya fnehì’angit.
      ‘The forest contains the prolemuris, the fan lizard, the sturmbeest and many types of insect.’ ?
      Generalized usage of the singular for this context of describing specific creatures as residents of the forest.

  17. Prrton says:

    It would be wonderful to get some other examples for tsyafe. Is it restricted to the weather/water conditions, or might it refer to mildness in food flavors/punishments/etc.? A “comfortable home”? Does it need corralling in some way?

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