Fmawnti stolawm srak? Have you heard the news?

Ma eylan, did you hear that TIME Magazine has recognized our beloved theme park in Orlando, Florida, Pandora—The World of Avatar—as one of the “World’s Greatest Places” for 2018? Meuia atxan leiu, kefyak?  🙂

Here’s a group picture of some of the Pandoran staff, with a congratulatory banner. Seykxel sì Nitram indeed!

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a talk at USC (the University of Southern California, my alma mater) given by Joe Rohde, the dynamic head of Walt Disney Imagineering, the Disney division devoted to the theme parks. As such, he was the major creative force at Disney behind Pandora. His talk was stimulating—I hope it will eventually be available online—and I hope to have some comments relating to what he spoke about in a later post.

For now, here are a few new vocabulary items I hope you’ll find useful.

fpxamo (adj., FPXA.mo) ‘terrible, horrible, awful’

This word allows us to complete the analogy sìltsan : kosman :: fe’ :______.

Mawkrra fko lie soli tìlenur afpxamo fìtxan, tìrey ke lu teng kawkrr.
‘After experiencing such a terrible event, life is never the same.’

Derivation:

tìfpxamo (n., tì.FPXA.mo) ‘horror’

nìfpxamo (adv., nì.FPXA.mo) ‘horribly, terribly, awfully’

Fpängìl oe, txonam oe rolol nìfpxamo.
‘Sadly, I think I sang terribly last night.’

tsyul (vtr.) ‘begin, start’

Tsyul is more or less synonymous with the word for ‘begin’ we’re already familiar with, sngä’i, but its use is a bit different, since it’s transitive.

Pol tìkangkemit tsyolul.
‘He began the work.’

We can use tsyul in an intransitive construction by adding the reflexive infix <äp>:

Tìkangkem tsyäpolul.
‘The work began.’

With the derived noun, however, there’s an important difference in meaning:

tìtsyul (n., tì.TSYUL) ‘beginning, start’

As you know, sngä’i yields two words for ‘beginning,’ one specifically for the time at which something starts, sngä’ikrr, and one specifically for the place at which something starts, sngä’itseng. Tìtsyul, on the other hand, is a general word for ‘beginning’ that’s neutral as to time or place.

Sìtsyul nìwotx lu ngäzìk.
‘All beginnings are difficult.’

nawang (vin., NA.wang, inf. 1, 2) ‘merge, become one with’

Nawang implies that two things have come together to become one, so that the original separateness is lost. We use hu to show that A has merged with B:

Tìmuntxamaw lam Ninatur fwa vitra sneyä nolawang hu pum muntxatuä.
‘After her marriage, it seemed to Ninat that her soul had merged with that of her mate.’

lamaytxa (n., la.may.TXA) ‘flood’

A lamaytxa is a flood or a powerful gathering of water. It’s not clear what the etymology of the word is, although the last syllable may have evolved from txan.

Lamaytxal atxan pxaya kelkut skola’änga.
‘The great flood sadly destroyed many homes.’

(Question: Where does the stress fall in skola’änga? 🙂 )

And finally, a word we’ve lacked for a long time:

oare (n., o.A.re) ‘moon’

Naranawm has fourteen moons revolving around it—including Eywa’eveng!—so it should be possible to see up to thirteen moons in the Pandoran sky. Each of these probably has a specific name in Na’vi, but it’s also clear that there must be a generic term for ‘moon.’ This is oare.

Polpxaya oaret tse’a ngal mì saw pxiset?
‘How many moons do you see in the sky right now?’

By the way, I had an interesting discussion with one of our ayhapxìtu lì’fyaolo’ä about whether or not the Na’vi realize that Pandora is in fact a moon of Naranawm. I hope Neytiri won’t mind my sharing her astute analysis with you:

“As for moon, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Na’vi were aware that Pandora is a moon. They are certainly very aware of the other moons and their patterns, so I don’t think it would be a stretch for them to realise that they orbit Naranawm as well. We know about the ‘circular drums’ whose ‘size and arrangement of the individual drums within the ring reflect Pandora’s solar system.’ And we know that the uses for waytelem ayllis to record history, including astronomy, going back 18,000 years.”

That’s it for now. Hayalovay!

Edit Sept. 1: tirea –> vitra
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17 Responses to Fmawnti stolawm srak? Have you heard the news?

  1. SGM (Plumps) says:

    Sute paylltxe san nì’i’a lì’u a slu nì’Ìnglìsì moon 🙂

    Txantsana aylì’u amip!

    Ulte nìpxi, Seykxel sì nitram aysuteru Kifkeyä Uniltìrantokxä. Leiu txana meuia nìngay.

  2. Tìlu says:

    sunu oeru tsalì’u alu oare nìtxan! 😀

  3. Wllìm says:

    Wou! Sunu oeru aylì’u amip, ulte nìpxi tsalì’u alu oare – irayo nìtxan!

    One question: if tìtsyul is both for time and place, does that also hold for tsyul itself? In other words, can we say things like “tsafya’o tsyäpul ro Helutral” – “that path starts at Hometree”? Or would sngä’i be better here?

  4. Neytiri says:

    Seykxel sì Nitram fraporu Eywa’evengä! Kosmana postì, ma tsmuk. Set tseiun oaret livawk a fì’u layu prrte’ oer. 🙂

    • Neytiri says:

      Nìvingkap:
      “tirea sneyä nolawang” -> “vitra sneyä nolawang” (her ‘soul’), kefyak?

      • Vawmataw says:

        Fìlì’ukìngìri lì’u alu vitra sìltsan to pum alu tirea lu. Ha, ngaru tìyawr.

      • Pawl says:

        Thanks. I’ve now changed tirea to vitra. I find I keep confusing the terms, probably because I’m not sure exactly what the difference is between spirit and soul. Suggestions, anyone? 🙂

        • Neytiri says:

          Tì’efumì oeyä:

          A vitra is a person’s true spiritual core. It is a combination of personality, memories, and energy. I believe the only instance we see it mentioned is for the Tree of Souls, so from that I get a sense of greatness and specialness about the word. It’s rarer than tirea. It may be more ceremonial or archaic. The vitra is the part of a person you ‘hear’ at a Tree of Voices/Souls, because Eywa records souls.

          A tirea is a person’s spiritual or energetic body (“tokx *lesyura”). It is structured or organised syura. Tirea has slightly wider usage, but vitra and tirea may often be used in place of one another. You could have easily used tirea/spirit in the nawang example, and it would have been fine. (Using vitra really drives in the depth of the statement for me, though; not just her spirit merged, but her /soul/.)
          We see three instances of ‘tirea’ in Avatar, which are used for prayers to wish someone’s spirit to pass to Eywa with ease.
          • Hu nawma sa’nok tivul ngeyä tirea.
          • Ngari hu Eywa salew tirea, tokx ‘ì’awn slu Na’viyä hapxì.
          • Pori tireati munge mì nga, ulte tìng ayoer nì’eyng hu ngeyä ya.

          Atokirina’ are also referred to as “spirits” of Eywa—little units of organised, intelligent syura. Jake also refers to Eywa as Sa’nok Tirea (just dodgy Na’vi, or a valid title for Her?) when wishing Tsu’tey a peaceful passing, and She is the most organised, structured collection of syura there is.

          A good way to think of the distinction between vitra and tirea is this: a vitra is to a tirea what a txe’lan is to a tokx. The soul is the heart (core) of a spirit. But, as I said, they can often be used interchangeably. Txe’lan and ran can sometimes overlap with vitra and tirea as well, but they lack the spiritual aspect, and for txe’lan it’s a secondary, metaphorical sense, the primary being the ‘organ that pumps blood’.

          So, in conclusion, I think that it’s usually up to speaker preference (with statements like your nawang one), but there is a subtle difference that makes vitra deeper, more specific and/or ceremonial, and therefore not as common as tirea. I see the vitra as the deepest part of a being’s tirea. 🙂

    • Pawl says:

      Tsalì’u alu oare zola’eiu awngane ìlä txantsana sämok ngeyä. Ha . . . irayo nìtxan, ma Ney!

  5. Pamìrìk says:

    faylì’uri lesar oe irayo si nìtxan!

    I have several related questions about nawang- can it be used in a similar way as “mixed [with]” or “combined [with]”? Ex. “wutso a mauti nawang fkxenhu”.

    If so, is it limited only to things that cannot (easily) become separated (like combining two liquids or dissolving something in a liquid) and not things like seeds and nuts (that could be divided back into piles by type)? And if so, might there be two words for combining- one for things that lose the separate-ness (nawang) and one for things that are still made of their constituent parts? Or, is there a completely separate verb (transitive perhaps?) for mixing?

    • Pawl says:

      Ngeyä fìtìpawm eltur tìtxen si, ma Pamìrìk.

      The context in which nawang originally came up was a spiritual one, which is why I chose for the example sentence the idea of two souls merging into one. In certain cases I can see the word being extended into the physical realm, for example when two roads merge into one, losing their separateness. But you’ve correctly pointed out that we need words for physical actions like mix and dissolve. Irayo! They’re on the list. 🙂

  6. Nicholas Rau says:

    Irayo nìtxan fpi mipa aylì’u. Oeru sunu mipa lì’u yafkeykä, set ayoengru lu melì’u alu tompakel sì lamaytxa. Kop siva ko ma Eyweveng!!! Txantsana fmawn.

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