Hello again, everyone. Nì’i’a tok oel nìmun fìtsenget!
The get-together and panel discussion two weeks ago at the EMP/Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, in conjunction with their current Avatar exhibit, were terrific. It was great to meet new people in the lì’fyaolo’ and reunite with old friends. Fpom and tì’o’ abounded, and the post-panel questions in Na’vi, prepared mostly in advance by community members and ably interpreted by Prrton, impressed the heck out of everyone there.
Here’s our happy group Saturday morning, July 9:
And this is the stylish free-standing plaque presented to me at the end of the panel by the community. Ayngaru seiyi irayo, ma smuk!
Thanks to the EMP administrators and staff—Brooks Peck, Kristen Hoskins, and David Wulzen—who welcomed us warmly and made sure things ran smoothly. And special thanks to our own Prrton, Txonä Rolyu, and Zefanaya, who communicated with the museum, arranged for the meals and accommodations, and generally coordinated a very successful meet-up. Finally, a big irayo to Keyl and Chie, who graciously hosted a convivial barbecue for everyone at their home.
For those who couldn’t make it . . . nìsìlpey zìsìtay! In the meantime, you might like to hear the audio of the panel provided by our friends at Avatar Nation.
And now for some new vocabulary:
pllngay (vin., pll.NGAY – inf. 1, 1) ‘admit’
Note that this is an intransitive verb, working similarly to plltxe. So you use direct speech with it:
Po ke tsun pivllngay san oeru tìkxey.
‘He can’t admit he’s wrong.’
To say “He admits it”:
Tsa’uri po pllngay.
‘He admits it.’
kawngsar (vtr., KAWNG.sar – inf. 2, 2) ‘exploit’
Ayngeyä kifkeyti fol kawngsar nìtut, fì’uri kekem ke si aynga.
‘They continuously exploit your world and you do nothing about it.’
[The following useful word plus the excellent explanation and several of the examples come from the vocabulary committee.]
lom (adj.) ‘missing, missed (as an absent person who is longed for)’
To say “I miss you,” use lom in the yawne pattern:
Nga lom lu oer.
‘I miss you.’
Note that lom covers only something you once had but no longer do, where there is a sense of emotional loss. For example:
Aysre’ lom lu tsakoaktanur.
‘The old man misses his teeth.’
That is, the old man feels bad about the fact he no longer has teeth. The sentence does not mean ‘The old man is missing his teeth’ in the sense of a neutral observation by an outside party.
koaktan (n., KO.ak.tan) ‘old man’
koakte (n., KO.ak.te) ‘old woman’
koaktu (n., KO.ak.tu) ‘old person’
Similarly, you can’t use lom for something you lack but never had in the first place, as in “We almost have a quorum, but we’re still missing three people.”
Derived form:
lomtu (n., LOM.tu) ‘missed person’
This word is reserved for special circumstances, e.g. toasts:
Tengkrr ftxozä sereiyi awnga, ke tswiva’ aylomtuti ko!
‘While we are celebrating, let us not forget those who we wish could also be here (but can’t).’ OR ‘A toast: To absent friends.’
fe’ (adj.) ‘bad’
(Yes, I know it’s about time we had this word. 🙂 )
Note: Fe’ is generally used for things, ideas, events, etc., but not for people. For ‘a bad person,’ use kawng.
Peyä tsatìpe’un a sweylu txo wivem ayoeng Omatikayawä lu fe’.
‘His decision to fight (= that we should fight) against the Omaticaya was a bad one.’
Note: In English, “fight with” is ambiguous—it can mean either (1) fight against or (2) fight alongside (as in, “During the so-called French and Indian War, Native Americans fought with the French against the British.”) In Na’vi there’s no ambiguity: “fight with” in the sense of (1) is wem wä, in the sense of (2) wem hu.
Derived forms:
nìfe’ (adv., nì.FE’) ‘badly’
Oe pllngay san molakto oe nìfe’, tafral snolaytx; wätu lu oeto txur.
‘I acknowledge that I rode badly, so I lost; my opponent was stronger than I was.’
wätu (n., WÄ.tu) ‘opponent’
fekem (n., FE.kem) ‘accident’
Nari si fte kea fekem ke liven ngar!
‘Be careful you don’t have an accident!’
Note: Fekem derives from fe’ + kem, having taken on the special meaning of ‘accident, unforeseen misfortune’ along the way, not simply something bad that happened. For the latter, use tìlen afe’, literally ‘bad event.’
tìlen (n., tì.LEN) ‘event, happening’
hawtsyìp (n., HAW.tsyìp) ‘nap’
Note the usage:
Oel new futa livu oer set hawtsyìp.
‘I want to take a nap now.’
Fnu, ma ’evi. Sa’nur leru hawtsyìp. Tsivurokx ko.
‘Quiet, young one. Mommy is taking a nap. Let her rest.’
uran (n., U.ran) ‘boat’
Ayfo solop ìlä hilvan fa uran.
‘They traveled along (up, down) the river by boat.’
Edit July 24: tìlem –> tìlen
Edit Jan. 25, 2013: nìrangal zìsìtay –> nìsìlpey zìsìtay
Ma Karyu! Lì’uri amip ngaru irayo seiyi oe nìtxan!
Ulte fwa ultxa mì Siätll leiu txantsan nìngay oeru teya si.
Irayo nìmun ulte etrìpa syayvi. 🙂
Irayo ngaru, ma Kamean. Sìlpey oe, tsun oeng ultxa sivi ro haya ultxa!
Ma Karyu,
txantsan lu fwa tse’a futa ngal fìtsengit tok nìmun 🙂 Lora aylì’u nìngay. Irayo ngaru nìtxan!
Great to see you back and that the event in Seattle is still producing such positive memories! I wondered what the plaque looked like 😉 when I heard about it from the audio recording.
Just to check: kekem is ‘nothing’, right? or is that a typo?
wätu is interesting, where one would expect lenition after wä…
Irayo nìtxan nìmun.
My pleasure, Plumps.
Yes, kekem is ‘nothing.’ So, of course, is ke’u, but there’s a difference. Ke’u is “not a thing, object, idea . . . ” Kekem is “not an action . . . ” Since the main verb “do,” as in “What are you doing?” is kem si, (Neytiri: “Ma Tsu’tey, kempe si nga?”), to say “do nothing” you need to use kekem (plus ke si).
And you’re right, wätu without lenition is exceptional. I don’t know what happened in the history of the language for that form to develop, but it’s possible that wätu “froze” before the lenition rule kicked in. Of course the history of lenition is pretty mysterious: it’s not clear why certain adpositions require it and others don’t. Perhaps we’ll all find out some day. 🙂
Mesìoeytìngìri irayo ngaru.
so, judging from the other words (kawtu, kawtseng, kawpo etc.) I’m assuming it’s KE.kem ?
Ngaytxoa, I’m also assuming kawngsar is only for things and not for people in the sense of ‘take advantage of somebody’?
What’s the accenting? KEkem seems the most likely.
So Kempe is formed by Ke by the infix ?
So if i’m not in wrong Kempe is formed in this way K-emp-e
What about the -Emp- Infix i’ve ever eard nothing about before!
Irayo ma Karyu! Ohel ngengati kameie!
no, kempe is formed by
kem – n. action
-pe+ – interrogative marker (prefix or suffix, lenition causing)
it’s kem-pe. aka pehem 😉
you can only infix verbs, and it has already been stated in October 2010 that no more verb infixes are to be made than already are documented. 😉
Irayo ma tsmukan!! Eywa ngengahu!
nìsung: just noticed. tìlem should be tìlen, right?
Srane! Rutxe tivìng nari nekll. Ulte irayo ngaru.
What does this mean?
please look down. Idiom? did I miss something?
“Please see below.”, kefyak?
See his response to me below.
Txantsan! I hadn’t heard the recording from the Seattle panel, I’m listening to this right now. 🙂 Oer lom lolu aynga a tok tsatseng! It’s a shame I couldn’t make it but next year I will definitely try to make it.
Huh, I just noticed that len = happen, occur. Should it not be tìlen? Or is this a combinations of len + kem?
I love pllngay! It just seems so simple and elegant. Irayo.
I look forward to future journal posts and future meet-ups. ‘ivong Na’vi!
Aaaargh! (That’s not Na’vi.)
I hate when that happens. Guess I had lom in my ear, and also the word telem. It should, of course, be tìlen. Thanks!
Oh, tsmuk Plumps beat me. 😛
Little typo spotted: “I acknowledge that I rode badly”? 🙂
Thanks! Changed it.
I was awaiting this. 😀 I am now satisfied. GREAT new words.
Crying shame I couldn’t have made it…
Ma Karyu!
Oeri ’ìlmi’a karmin a hawtsyìp ’eykefu ngeyn nì’it a muntrrmaw a’o’ nìwotx, ulte fmawnga’a fìpostì atxantsan oer muwäpolìntxeiu! Vereiar tì’o’! Furia Na’viru lu uran eltur oeyä tìtxen si nìtxan.
Tsaria menga lìm a eL.Ey.ftu solop fte frapohu krrnivekx fìtxan ka tsamuntrr a mì Siätll, Tsyanur kop seiyi irayo! Ketsuktswa’a stxeli leiu.
Ne aylomtu slolatsu frapor.
ma Pawl, can we finally lay to rest completely and entirely clearly the matter of direct and indirect speech in Na’vi?
I have seen you say many times that direct is the way to go (“Na’vi prefers direct to indirect…”)
Yet some people take that as It’s okay to use indirect, but direct is preferred.
how does one use peng? can this be used as a speaking verb like plltxe and pllngay? do they all always use san sìk to report speech? can one use futa with any of these? It seems you have already implied that using futa with pllngay and plltxe is incorrect. how about peng? just a random question I’m dying to see answered.
–TA
How does one use peng?
Ulte tsatxeleri kemlì’uä alu STAWM tsakrr a fko(l) stwam (fmawni(t) a)/(san) ______.
Nì’i’a! Now I can finally say aynga lom oeru leru set. Can’t wait to meet up again next year 😀
The Seattle meetup was indeed a ton of fun! Thanks for being there, ma Karyu!
Great! I’d like to ask about kekem. I thought that for “no action” we have kawkem. Am I wrong or something changed and I just didn’t notice that?
Nìrangal tsilvun oe kop tsatsenget tivok…
There appears to be an attributive particle missing from the title — or is that rule not quite as strict as at least some of us have assumed?
probably because we already know it was in Seattle.
the attributive particle is used when we want to elaborate on something and give more information, so if we already know it we can probably just drop it.
Hmmmm. I’m dubious about that (pre-cognizance) being the circumstance that allows ‘drop-ability’ for this attributive a. I think we should see what K. Pawl has to say about it before we jump to too many conclusions.
Or imagine an elided verb.
tsaylì’uri seiyi irayo (by the way is Irayo Si the only verb that the “si” can come first?).
It’s good to have fe’. we had troubles in the nìNa’vi Nì’aw sections of the forum coming up with ways around this.
also, I was surprised by that “kekem”. I always thought it would be “kawkem”. anyway I think I prefer kekem. it has a funny shape.
nìmun, oe ngengaru irayo seiyi nìtxan (nìfrakrr). li srefereiey ngey ‘upxaret ahay.
faylì’ul oeti pxeykeior (nì’ul teya ke tsun livu).
Yes.
“…seiyi irayo…” is ALL OVER the canon. I do believe somewhere he has said that no other ___ si verbs allow the si to come first. (tried to find the source, failed. I know it’s out there)
Perhaps this?
great. so perhaps we can conclude that all si verbs that are created not from a noun (irayo, kaltxì etc), are exceptional like that…
Probably not. There are si-verbs derived from adjectives (win si, etc.) and we have no reason to believe they behave different from nouns.
For now the only confirmed exception is irayo si. For the time being, at least X {negative} si will never be wrong.
Nìsung: Hì’ia tìpawm a teri fwa perlltxe fko a tsatìfkeytokìri a KXeKX za’u KeKsre nìfya’o a melì’u lu keteng; natkenong: Tsivurokx ko. Srake yom KXeKXìl KeKit nìfya’o a slu Tsivurokxo.? Oe leyn; lu tìpawm a teri tìpuslltxe nì’aw.
fì’uri oel polawm plltxetsengmì a fì’uti oel zerok. nìngay tsaw tsranten.
Sìltsana tìpawm… seems that is probably a little something I missed in Seattle 😛 Probably because it didn’t cross or trouble my mind.
Ma karyu!
I’ve a quastion about this frase = Aysre’ lom lu tsakoaktanur.
‘The old man misses his teeth.’
Aysre’ is not for “theeths”?
So the sentence would be : The Old man misses his theeths? Am i whrite?
‘Ivong Na’vi!
Irayo ulte Eywa ngengahu!
Ma ’Eveng,
sre’ is ‘tooth’ and aysre’ is the correct plural form for the ‘irregular’ English plural ‘teeth’.
yeah your right!! Sorry for this error!!
Irayo!! I was forgotten!!
Po ke tsun pivllngay san oeru tìkxey.
‘He can’t admit he’s wrong.’
Tì’efumì oeyä.. Tsaw lu keyawr, kefyak?
Tsat oel ralpoleng na san He can’t admit I’m wrong sìk taluna tìkxey lu oeru, poru ke lu..
It’s direct quoting speech:
He cannot admit, “I’m wrong”
if he says, “I’m wrong” that means he is saying he is wrong. this is why English is confusing. “He says I’m wrong” is different than “He says, “I’m wrong.””
It’s direct quoting speech:
He cannot admit, “I’m wrong”
if he says, “I’m wrong” that means he is saying he is wrong. this is why English is confusing. “He says I’m wrong” is different than “He says, “I’m wrong.””
It’s direct quoting speech:
He cannot admit, “I’m wrong”
if he says, “I’m wrong” that means he is saying he is wrong. this is why English is confusing. “He says I’m wrong” is different than “He says, “I’m wrong.””
I have no idea how this duplication happened. I wish I could delete them. Sorry about that!
Lag, maybe?
Irayo ma Tirea Aean.
Tslolam tsat 😉