Pukapa Way a Mikyunfpi    Six Poems for Listening

Kxì, ma frapo.

I’ve now received some great Na’vi recordings from members of our lì’fyaolo’, which I’ll be delighted to present to you, in the order in which I received them, in this and subsequent blog posts. As before, I’ll first post the spoken Na’vi only, urging you to see how much you can understand just through listening. Then I’ll publish the Na’vi text and English translation in the next post.

The first contribution is from our own Neytiri: six brief, evocative poems about Pandora and Na’vi life. Rather than me telling you about them, I’ll let Neytiri do that in her own words:

 “[Oeyä aywayri,] txampxì lu waytsyìp a teri Eywa’eveng sì reyfya leNa’vi. Oe fmoli ngivop fyina aywayt a tsari lam fwa nìngay zola’u ftu Eywa’eveng.

 “The bulk of these way are my attempt making a traditional, ‘indigenous’ short poetry form for Na’vi, like a haiku, or the Filipino tanaga. The skeleton is the structure of the Spiral Song’s beginning. I loved the rhythm . . . :

Pamtseol [Pamtsewl] ngop ayrenut
Mì ronsemä tìfnu
Tengfya ngop säftxuyul
Mì hifkey.

“So [the first three of] these way have four lines, with syllables of 6, 6, 6, 3. [The fourth has two such stanzas: 6, 6, 6, 3; 6, 6, 6, 3.—PF] Other things like rhyme scheme and the exact stress pattern vary. I also liked the idea of them being similar in that the last 3 syllable line carries the ‘punch’. Sometimes it’s mystery, excitement, danger, or some kind of twist in the tone. Most importantly, however, they had to be truly Pandoran; they all must either describe a natural Pandoran scene, or a piece of Na’vi culture. The hammock poem [#4] is about a real Na’vi tradition of respectfully burning an old swaynivi, for example. There are some other styles in there that could make for some good listening exercises, like Vultsyìp Atsleng [#5] (can you guess what it’s about? 😁).

“I think that Na’vi poetry is the most beautiful because of the kato and pamuvan possibilities, and that’s what I try to play around with the most.”

Just one more thing: As I’ve said previously, in any language, poetry is more difficult to follow than prose. After all, what is poetry but the extraordinary—not the ordinary—use of language! So don’t be discouraged if you find Na’vi poetry challenging. Listen to the recordings as many times as you need to, check the dictionary when necessary, and I bet you’ll get a lot out of them.

Fayway ayngane zivawprrte’!

Way A’awve:

Way Amuve:

Way Apxeyve:

Way Atsìve:

Way Amrrve:

Way Apuve—Loreyu:

Makto zong slä ro helku ’ì’awn.

Hayalovay.