Kaltxì ma frapo,
Tengkrr lerok zìskrrsomìl tì’i’at, sìlpey oe, ayngari te’lan livu lefpom ulte tìrey zivawprrte’.
We haven’t had any new vocabulary in a while, so here are a few words and expressions, along with a couple of idioms, that I think you’ll find useful.
kantseng (n., KAN.tseng) ‘destination’
This word is, of course, derived from kan ‘aim’ + tseng ‘place.’ Your destination is the place you aim for.
Ngeyä fìtìsopìri pehantseng?
‘This journey of yours—what’s its destination?’
la’a (n., LA.’a) ‘physical separation, distance between two places or objects’
Don’t confuse la’a with lìm. The verb lìm ‘be far’ and the derived adverb alìm involve something being relatively far away rather than close: ’Ì’awn alìm! ‘Stand back!’ (That is, ‘Remain relatively far away.’) Sim ‘be near’ and asim ‘nearby’ work in a similar fashion. La’a, on the other hand, is neutral as to whether something is near or far; it simply refers to the separation between two places or things. The idiomatic way to ask how far A is from B is simply: Ftu A ne B pela’a?
Ftu Kelutral ne Txintseng Sawtuteyä pela’a?
‘How far is Hometree from Hell’s Gate?’
pela’a (inter., pe.LA.’a) ‘how near, how far, what distance’
As you might suspect, we also have the variant la’ape (inter., LA.’a.pe) meaning the same thing.
NOTE: Alternate terms for pela’a and la’ape are:
pelìmsim (inter., pe.LÌM.sim) ‘how near, how far’
and its variant lìmsimpe (inter., LÌM.sim.pe). These are used in the same way as pela’a, although pela’a is the more common expression.
keynven (vin., keyn.VEN, inf. 1,1) ‘step’
This intransitive verb is clearly derived from the transitive verb keyn ‘put down’ + venu ‘foot.’ When you step, you put down your foot.
Nari si tengkrr kereynven fìtseng. Lu kllte ekxtxu.
‘Step carefully here. The ground is rough.’
As you see in the preceding example, one way to express the idea ‘Do X carefully’ is to say ‘Be careful as you’re doing X.’ Since that’s a bit long-winded, a simpler idiomatic expression has arisen: Nari si+ V (root form).
Nari si keynven!
‘Step carefully!’
Nari si lonu swizawit.
‘Release the arrow carefully.’
Also note this idiom:
Po keynven sìn ketse.
‘He is socially awkward. (Literally, He steps on tails.)’
Speaking of idioms, here’s another one I think you’ll find useful:
To express your regret that someone couldn’t attend a meeting or event:
Ngari keftxo fwa ke tok.
‘We missed you. Sorry you couldn’t make it. Too bad you couldn’t be there.’
Literally, this is saying, ‘It’s sad that you weren’t there,’ with the object of tok unspecified. A shorter and more colloquial way to say this is to omit fwa:
Ngari keftxo ke tok.
ralke (adj., RAL.ke) ‘meaningless, devoid of content’
Derived from ral ‘meaning’ + (lu)ke ‘without,’ ralke is the opposite of ralnga’.
Txewì ka trro nìwotx ftxolulì’u, slä aylì’u peyä längu ralke.
‘Txewi spoke for an entire day, but sadly, his words were meaningless.’
Finally, we’ve had the adverb nìfkeytongay ‘actually, as a matter of fact, in reality’ for some time now, but not yet the words it’s related to. Here they are:
tìfkeytongay (n., tì.fkey.to.NGAY) ‘reality’
This comes from tìfkeytok ‘state, condition, situation’ + (a)ngay ‘true’: reality is the true situation. (Note that the k at the end of tìfkeytok has dropped just as it did in nìfkeytongay, making the pronunciation easier and smoother.)
Ayunil ngeyä lu lor, slä fìtxeleri lu tìfkeytongay keteng.
‘Your dreams are beautiful, but the reality of this situation is different.’
lefkeytongay (adj., le.fkey.to.NGAY) ‘real’
Similar to the evolution of nìfkeytongay, this word was originally *letìfkeytokangay. (See this blog post for a fuller explanation.)
Yune oet! Ke lu fìvrrtep tute lefkeytongay!!!
‘Listen to me! This demon is not a real person!!!’
A few grammatical things have come up that I’d like to share with you, but I’ll do that in another post.
Hayalovay, ma smuk!
Irayo ma karyu, fpìl oel futa tsaylì’u tsaylì’fyavisì lesar si nìtxan!
Lerok tì’i’at zìskrrsomìl a fì’u, zawprrte’ oene, taluna ya lamu som nìhawng fìtsenge.
I have one question about pela’a, namely: how could you answer such a question? I guess you could say just lìm or sim, but is there any more specific way of specifying distances? Maybe something like tìran tsatsengne a fì’ul nekx mawlit trrä (takes half a day to walk there)?
Alternatively maybe the Na’vi could count steps (säkeynven?) or feet?
Lesar nìtxan nìngay.
Speaking of keynven … I think the translation is missing 🙂
Taking up Wllìm’s ideas … they could also revert back to things we use(d) to say: ‘as far/fast as the crow/eagle flies’ or something like that.
We see that Na’vi has still much in store for us. Speaking of …
‘A few grammatical things have come up …’ That is a major cliffhanger 😀
Hayalovay ma karyu.
Irayo! The translation of keynven, ‘step,’ has been added.
As for the grammatical things, ngari txe’lan livu mawey. They’re just some discussions I’ve had privately with various ayhapxìtu lì’fyaolo’ä that I wanted to share on the blog.
Irayo, ma Wllìm. Srane, ayngeyä yafkeykìri asom fmawnit oel stolawm. Nìsìlpey zìskrrtsawn lìyevu tsyafe nì’ul.
I’ve been thinking about exactly the question you asked. The idea of something like “a half-day’s walk” makes sense. Might the Na’vi also talk about “a half-day’s flight” on an ikran? 😄 But this is an area in which we need clarification. In fact, there are three important things I still need to talk to The Man about:
(1) How do the Na’vi measure distance? Is it exclusively as we’ve discussed (“a days’ walk,” etc.) or are there actual units of distance like kilometers or miles, or perhaps the steps you’ve suggested?
(2) The same thing for time. We know there are days and years, but how about smaller units? Is there anything equivalent to hours, minutes, and seconds?
(3) How does the kinship system work? Prrton has some excellent suggestions, but I need to run these by JC.
These are all areas that are more cultural than purely linguistic, and needless to say, there’s only one person who can define Na’vi culture.
irayo seiyi oe ngaru nìteng ma Karyu! 😃 sunu oeru aylì’u amip!
kop teya si oer fwa fpole’ ngal mipa postìti! 😊
Irayo, ma Neytsyìp. Fula sunu ngar fìpostì oeti nitram ’eykefu.
Oel ngati kameie ma Karyu Pawl.
Nìvingkap hapxìtul ayoeyä lì’fyaolo’ sresole’a futa nga pamrel soli postìru fìvospxì. hrh
I have a question, what is the difference between lefkeytongay and ngay?
Hayalovay!
Ayngeyä säsrese’a lolu eyawr! 😃
säsrese’a (n., sä.sre.se.’A) ‘a prediction’
Your question is a good one. There is indeed some overlap between ngay and lefkeytongay. For example, tsyeym angay ‘a true treasure’ and tsyeym lefketongay ‘a real treasure’ are pretty much the same.
In general, however, ngay ‘true’ is usually the opposite of ‘false,’ and so is used to indicate the truth status of statements. On the other hand, lefketongay ‘real’ is usually the opposite of ‘imaginary’ or ‘artificial.’ So when the speaker in the example (presumably Tsu’tey) says that the “demon” is not a tute lefketongay, he’s saying that Jake may look like a real Na’vi but is in fact artificial. But the language is not entirely consistent in this regard.
lì’fyaolo’ä
Kaltxì ma nawma karyu! Aylì’uri amip ngaru seiyi irayo. Faylì’u oeru sunu.
I noticed that keynven was missing it’s definition directly after the word like all other words do.
I’m eager to add the new idioms to my compendium! “Nari si + verb” is my new favorite.
Can’t wait for the new grammar info, we’ve been building a list for a while now.
Irayo nìli!
~ Mako
Kaltxì ma Mako! Furia sunu ngar faylì’u amip oe ‘efu nitram!
I’ve been building a grammar list too. 😊 I hope to clean up my backlog little by little.
Oel ngati kameie nìmun ma Karyu Pawl
I have an additional question: Is “ngari keftxo (fwa) ke…” a productive idiom? Can we also say use the idiom without the ke? Here is an example: *Ngari keftxo han ‘Sorry for your loss’.
The format seems to be “keftxo (lu) (fwa) XYZ”.
Irayo nìli!
say use -> use
Oel ngati kameie nìteng, ma Vawmataw.
No, this idiom isn’t productive. To say “Sorry for you loss,” I’d just say Ngeyä tìhanìri keftxo.
Kaltxì ma Kayru. 🙂 Mipa aylì’uri, Irayo nìtxan. Mipa aylì’ul Eywevengit sleyku lefkeytongay nì’ul’ul. Oeru txasunu tsa’u.
Irayo, ma tsmuk. Ngeyä faylì’u oeru teya soli. Oeri fwa sleyku Eywevengit lefkeytongay tsranten nìtxan.
Nìfrakrr, faylì’uri lesar irayo nìtxantxan, ma karyu. Oel tse’a ‘a’awa pumit a fkol narmew sì karmin txankrr. Nìpxi txasunu oer lì’fyavi alu po keynven sìn ketse. Nìlaw lolu Tsyeyk fìfnetute. 🙂
(Kxeyeytsyìp: Nari si tengkrr kereynven fItseng -> fìtseng.)
Irayo, ma Ney!
Ulte kezemplltxe, ngaru tìyawr. Tsalì’fyaviri, sngä’ikrr lolu am’aluke awngeyä ‘eylan alu Tsyeyk tsafnetute. 😄
I noticed that you wrote “’A’awa Lì’fya sì Lì’fyavi Amip” Several languages? I was expecting lì’u but I might be wrong.
Is it a hint that a few conlangs will be created in the sequels? New planets? New people? 😛
You have sharp eyes, my friend. Irayo!!! I must have been thinking of lì’fyavi which led me to lì’fya rather than lì’u. I’ve now corrected the error.
As I’m sure you know, I can’t answer your question either positively or negatively. We’ll all just have to wait and see. 😉
Lamu hangvur, slä kezemplltxe maweypayey. 🙂
😊👍