Kaltxì, ma frapo.
Sìlpey oe, ayngari nìwotx Vospxìkin sngilvä’i nìltsan.
And for those of you in the States, Happy Independence Day! I was thinking about how to say that in Na’vi.
Independence, in the sense it was originally used in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, which opens with a statement about the necessity “for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,” is clearly about cutting ties. So that’s the key idea, I think, that should be represented in Na’vi.
syìmawnun’i (n., syì.maw.nun.’I) ‘cut tie, dissolved connection’
Note that the stress is on the final syllable. The somewhat convoluted derivation is from mun’i ‘cut’ and säyìm:
säyìm (n., sä.YÌM) ‘tie, something used for binding’
You tie something—or someone!—up (the verb yìm) with a säyìm, a tool for binding, which could typically be a rope or chain. The word is often pronounced and spelled syìm.
So we have syìm + mawnun’i (the passive participle of mun’i)
–> syìmmawnun’i
–> syìmawnun’i, where the double m’s have coalesced into one—thus, a tie or binding that has been cut. The word can be used in the context of a dissolved relationship:
Oengari sätare syìmawnun’i slolängu.
‘As for the two of us, I’m sorry to say our relationship is dissolved.’
The speaker here is saying to the addressee that their former relationship has become a tie that is now severed.
A related word of wider use is:
tìsyìmawnun’i (n., tì.syì.maw.nun.’I’) ‘independence, freedom from a pre-existing relationship’
It’s often pronounced and spelled tsyìmawnun’i.
To become independent, we use tsyìmawnun’i along with the verb mu’ni ‘achieve.’ (It’s easy to confuse mun’i ‘cut’ with mu’ni ‘achieve’! The two words differ not only in the placement of the tìftang but also in their stress: mun’I but MU’ni.)
Zene fra’eveng tsyìmawnun’it a ta sa’sem nì’i’a mivu’ni.
‘Every child must eventually achieve independence from his or her parents.’
And this finally brings us to:
Trr Tsyìmawnun’iyä Lefpom!
‘Happy Independence Day!
🙂
More soon . . .
Wou! Tìloho leiu! I love the word shapes and derivational logic you’ve got going here. I’ve always liked the tsy and sy clusters, and it’s interesting to see more of this pattern where the unstressed ä in sä- words tends to drop.
One question, where’d that extra tìftang in tsyì’mawnun’i come from? Typo? Since it wasn’t in any of the roots.
Trr Tsyì’mawnun’iyä Lefpom ngaru nìteng!
Yup. Typos. Thanks for catching them!😊 Now corrected.
Kaltxì nìmun, ma Karyu Pawl! Sìltsana lì’uvit ngolop ngal! Sunu oer, ulte sìlpey oe tsnì ngeyä Trr Tsyì’mawnun’iyä lolu kosman!
Furia sunu ngar faylì’u amip ‘efu oe nitram! Irayo!
* ‘ä’! “li’fyavit”, kezemplltxe. Ngaytxoa, ma karyu; frakrr oe tìkxey si fìtsenge…
Ke tsranten, ma tsmuk. Nìawnomum oe krro krro tìkxey si nìteng. 🙂
There are frequently being added variations of already existing words, e.g. tìsyìmawnun’i/tìlayro/kawkxan or zong/fmal/hawnu/tìhawnu si/tarep/’avun/sweyn but not really something new, until when it’s going to be the case?
Thank you for your comment. There will definitely be more words based on new roots! However, whether the components of a word are “new” (in the sense that we haven’t seen them before) or “old” (in the sense that they’re already familiar) isn’t important. Lots of times, entirely new words are built from already familiar components. Take these English words: abject, deject, eject, inject, object, project, reject, subject. They’re all built on the root “ject,” which originally had to do with throwing, plus a familiar prefix. But the meanings are not predictable and have to be learned separately for each item. That situation is very common in languages.
Kaltxì ma Karyu Pawl!
Pxelì’uri amip irayo! Lì’fya leNa’vi viveiar tsawl slivu.
Sìlpey oe tsnì ngaru limvu lefpoma trr tsyìmawnun’iyä. 🙂 As long as you mean the historical event, not the movie. 😉
Kop liyevu ngaru vospxìkin sì zìskrrsom lefpom!
Hayalovay!
Irayo nìtxan, ma ‘eylan. (As for “Independence Day,” it’s my theory that no matter what day or time it is, the movie is being shown somewhere on cable TV. It must be the most ubiquitous film in the history of cinema! 😂 )
Irayo nìtxan ma Karyu! Krrka Txon tsyìmawnun’iyä, “sìkangkem txepä” Eywayä (Eywa’s fireworks) polähem hu hufwe! (Rawmpxom) oeru sunu ayyrrap.
Hello, could someone explain tìftang’ to me? I thought it was impossible to put one behind a consonant, but there’s one in “tìsyìmawnun’i”…
I’m also curious how the name Rotxo is pronounced in the reef dialect? Is it really Rodo? Given that the actors seem to say Roto or Roxo.
And finally, is it spelled Ao’nung or Aonung? Considering that in reef dialect, it’s probably pronounced Aonung.
Oeru txoa livu, ma Eléonore! I just noticed that I hadn’t approved your comment for publication. (When someone comments for the first time, I need to approve it or it won’t appear.) Sorry this slipped between the cracks!!!
Anyway, to answer your questions:
First, one of the rules for the tìftang is that it can’t appear between two consonants, or after a consonant at the end of a word. But between a consonant and a vowel is fine! We’ve had words like that before–for example, am’a ‘doubt,’ mol’an ‘accepted.’ In these words, including tìsyìmawnun’i, the tìftang begins a syllable, which is fine as long as it’s followed by a vowel (or a pseudovowel, as in ‘Rrta).
Second, names can have their own idiosyncratic pronunciations. According to the rules of RN, Rotxo should ordinarily be pronounced Rodo, but if the actors are pronouncing it otherwise (I need to go back to the film and give a listen myself), that’s apparently an idiosyncrasy of nomenclature which we need to accept.
According to the recently revised Pandorapedia, it’s Aonung.
https://www.avatar.com/pandorapedia/ao-nung
Thanks for your questions!
Thanks for this answer ! For the tiftang, I had realized how it works just a few days ago, but it is very nice to have a real answer.
I also didn’t know about idiosyncrasy of nomenclature. That is definitely fascinating!