Fleltrrä aylì’u  Words for April Fool’s Day

Kaltxì, ma frapo!

Fleltrr Lefpom! Happy April Fool’s Day!

No tricks—just a few new words this time along with a new way to use a word you already know. I hope you’ll find these useful.

Actually, the only word family for today that’s directly related to foolery is based on:

flel (vtr.) ‘trick (someone), fool (someone)’

Entul Peyralit fìtxan flolel kuma fpìl poe san oe yawne lu por.
‘Entu fooled Peyral so much that she thought he loved her.’
OR ‘Entu tricked Peyral into thinking that he loved her.’

säflel (n., sä.FLEL) ‘trick, hoax, dishonest act or scheme’

Pot spaw rä’ä! Lu fì’u säflel!
’Don’t believe him! It’s a trick!’

Don’t confuse säflel with ìngyentsyìp, which also means ‘trick’ but in another sense. An ìngyentsyìp is a clever device, as in “There’s a trick to solving this equation.” A säflel is something dishonest.

tìflel (n., tì.FLEL) ‘trickery (abstract concept)’

fleltu (n., FLEL.tu) ‘fool, sucker, mark, someone easily tricked’

NOTE: Keep in mind that when you encounter nouns where the -tu suffix has been attached to a verb, the meanings have to be learned individually, since you don’t know beforehand whether the noun refers to the agent or the patient of the verb. I can’t do better than to quote the Horen:

-tu creates agent nouns most often from parts of speech other than verbs . . . When attached to verbs, the noun might refer to either the agent or the patient of a verbal action, such as frrtu guest from frrfen visit (agent), spe’etu captive from spe’e capture (patient). [Horen 5.1.5.1]

Fleltrr (n., FLEL.trr) ‘April Fool’s Day’

Fleltu slu rä’ä! Fìtrr lu Fleltrr!
‘Don’t be fooled! Today is April Fool’s Day!’

säfleltsyìp (n., sä.FLEL.tsyìp) ‘practical joke’

Here’s another -tu word that works the same way as spe’etu and fleltu:

hawntu (n., HAWN.tu) ‘one under someone’s protection’

Oey yawntu lu oey hawntu.
‘My beloved is under my protection.’
OR ‘The one I love is the one I protect.’

The next word is a result of someone asking me how to say “washing machine” in Na’vi. That led me to ask myself what “machine” would be in general. What’s the essence of a machine, and did the Na’vi have the concept of machine prior to the arrival of the Sawtute?

It seemed to me that “machine” has two basic defining components: (1) It’s something that helps you do something you couldn’t do or do as well without it, and (2) it’s something that’s constructed rather than occurring in nature. In this sense, a bow could be considered a kind of machine, since it satisfies properties (1) and (2). This led to:

säsrung (n, sä.SRUNG) ‘helper (inanimate), something that helps’

Contrast säsrung (inanimate) with srungsiyu, ‘helper’ in the sense of an assistant or person who helps.

Oeyä tìtslamìri tìoeyktìng ngeyä lolu säsrung.
‘Your explanation helped my understanding.’

(This is admittedly a bit stiff compared to the simpler and more natural Oeyä tìtslamur tìoeyktìng ngeyä srung soli.)

A machine, then, is a constructed (txawnula, from txula) säsrung.

txawnulsrung (n., txaw.NUL.srung) ‘machine’

The historical derivation is a bit complex:

*txawnulasäsrung > txawnulsäsrung > txawnulsrung

And so:

txawnulsrung a yur (n.) ‘washing machine’

This pattern is obviously the basis for other kinds of machines, such as:

txawnulsrung a tswayon (n.) ‘airplane’

kahena (vtr., ka.HE.na, inf. 2,3) ‘transport’

The derivation here is obvious: ka ‘across’ + hena ‘carry,’ similar to the derivation of the English word from Latin trans ‘across’ + portare ‘carry.’ (Sometimes humans and Na’vi think alike.)

Fwa kahena fì’uranit atsawl ftu tsray oeyä ne pum ngeyä layu ngäzìk.
‘It’s going to be difficult to transport this large boat from my village to yours.’

tìkahena (n., tì.ka.HE.na) ‘transportation (abstract concept)’

säkahena (n., sä.ka.HE.na) ‘means of transport, transportation device, vehicle’

As with other sä– words, the unstressed ä usually drops in casual pronunciation when the resulting consonant cluster is permissible. So this word is usually pronounced skahena colloquially.

Contrast säkahena with sämunge, which also means a transportation device. The difference is that sämunge usually refers to something small that something else can fit in, like a pouch, while a säkahena is typically something that can move large things, including people.

Finally, there’s now a pet turtle in the Lightstorm office, and I’ve been asked how to say “turtle” in Na’vi. As with other terrestrial animals that don’t exist on Pandora, we take the name of the Pandoran animal that seems the closest and typically add –tsyìp, since our earth versions are usually smaller. So alongside nantangtsyìp ‘dog’ and palukantsyìp ‘cat,’ we now have:

mawuptsyìp (n., MA.wup.tsyìp) ‘turtle’

from mawup ‘turtapede.’

Now for that new use of a familiar word that I mentioned above:

We haven’t yet seen how the Na’vi express the kind of emphasis we achieve in English with the “self” words, as in: I myself, you yourself, etc. For example, “You yourself said I shouldn’t go!”

To do this in Na’vi, we use the adposition sko, which we’ve seen glossed as ‘in the capacity of, in the role of,’ with a repeated noun or pronoun. An example will show you how this works:

Nga sko nga poltxe san rä’ä kivä!
‘You yourself said don’t go!’

Literally, this means something like “You in the role of you,” which is weird in English but fine in Na’vi as a means of emphasis.

Keep in mind two things: First, sko is one of those adpositions that trigger lenition in the following word, and (2) like all adpositions, it can be suffixed onto its object. So the above example could also be Nga ngasko poltxe san . . . For ‘I myself,’ it’s either oe sko oe or oe oesko. As you would anticipate from oehu and oene, the latter is pronounced WES.ko.

That’s it for now. Nìmun, Fleltrr Lefpom, ulte fleltu slu rä’ä! 🙂