Kaltxì, ma eylan, ulte Vospxìpuk lefpom!
Happy June, everyone. I hope you’re all doing well as summer (or winter, depending on where you live!) fast approaches.
Among the most recent vocabulary submissions from the LEP (Lexical Expansion Project) were some excellent suggestions for certain time expressions, which got me thinking more generally about time in Na’vi. Up to now we’ve seen quite a few expressions for stretches of time: zìsìt ‘year,’ vospxì ‘month,’ kintrr ‘week,’ muntrr ‘weekend,’ trr ‘day,’ and various parts of the day—rewon ‘morning,’ kxamtrr ‘noon,’ ha’ngir ‘afternoon,’ kaym ‘evening,’ txon ‘night,’ etc.
What we haven’t seen, however, is anything corresponding to hours here on earth, not to mention minutes and seconds. And so we don’t as yet have official ways to ask what time it is.
The difficulty is clear: We don’t know if the Na’vi divide their day into uniformly equal segments like our hours. Even if they do, we have no reason to think they use a 24-hour division as we do. However, if we’re going to use Na’vi ’Rrtamì, it would be very useful to be able to talk about hours, minutes, and seconds, and ask what time something occurred or will occur. So let’s see what would be a reasonable way to do that.
First of all, we have this general word for a day division;
trrpxì (n., trr.PXÌ) ‘part of a day’
A trrpxì could be a rewon, a kaym, a txon, etc.
A: Fo pähem pesrrpxì (OR: trrpxìpe)?
B: Srekamtrr.
A: ‘What part of the day will they arrive?’
B: ‘Before noon.’
But trrpxì could also be a uniform division of the Pandoran day—possible although so far unattested.
When the Na’vi interacted with the Sawtute and became acquainted with the human way of reckoning time, it’s likely they adapted their already existing word trrpxì as a way of expressing ‘hour.’ To avoid ambiguity, they modified the word to specifically indicate an hour on the 24-hour human cycle, doing this in one of two ways:
trrpxì Sawtuteyä (n., trr.PXÌ SAW.tu.te.yä) ‘hour (in the 24-hour human cycle)’
pxevotrrpxì (n., pxe.vo.trr.PXÌ) ‘hour (in the 24-hour human cycle)’
The latter word clearly comes from pxevol ‘twenty-four’ and trrpxì, where the l of pxevol has eroded over time. (Tìkangkem atxantsan, ma ayhapxìtu LEP-ä!).
However, if the context is clearly that of an earth or human environment where we’re talking about hours on the clock, we can simply use trrpxì for a normal, familiar hour.
With that in mind, we have the following:
trrpxì (n., trr.PXÌ) ‘part of a day; hour’
trrpxìvi (n., trr.PXÌ.vi) ‘minute’
trrpxìvitsyìp (n., trr.PXÌ.vi.tsyìp) ‘second’
Note the following ways to translate time expressions in which English uses “in” and “for”:
Oe pähem maw trrpxìvi amrr. OR Oe pähem kay trrpxìvi amrr.
‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
(Recall that maw is ‘after’ and kay is ‘from now’; they’re equally correct here.)
Po tìkangkem soli (ka) trrpxìo amrr.
’She has worked for five hours.’
(Note the -o suffix to indicate duration with time words. Ka, which further indicates duration, is optional here.)
We’re now ready to talk about clock time: five o’clock, seven thirty, and so on. Before we do, however, we need to note a subtlety in Na’vi that’s usually glossed over in English.
For five o’clock, the most natural Na’vi expression would seem to be trrpxì amrrve, literally ‘the fifth hour’ (where, as we’ve noted before, we’re using trrpxì for a standard clock hour). But trrpxì really refers to a stretch or span of time, while 5:00 is a point in time. That is, 5:00 is actually the point that marks the end of the fifth hour! (I was originally tempted to say beginning, but if you think about it, that’s not right! 🙂 )
So technically, five o’clock is properly tì’i’a trrpxìyä amrrve, ‘the end of the fifth hour.’ However, in normal, everyday usage, we simply say trrpxì amrrve, with the understanding that this is short for tì’i’a trrpxìyä amrrve.
We need one more important vocabulary item, and then we’re ready to talk about time to our heart’s content:
lik (n.) ‘point, spot, particular place or position in some area’
Tskoti fyep fìlikro.
‘Grasp the bow at this spot.’
Ro salik a mì säftxulì’u atì’iluke peyä, oe holum.
‘At that point in his endless speech, I left.’
This gives us:
krrlik (n., KRR.lik) ‘point in time’
We now have two ways to ask “What time?”:
pesrrpxì / trrpxìpe (inter., pe.srr.PXÌ / trr.PXÌ.pe) ‘what time?’
pehrrlik / krrlikpe (inter., pe.HRR.lik / KRR.lik.pe) ’what time?’
To answer and say “It’s five o’clock,” the full and somewhat bookish response is:
Krrlik lu trrpxì amrrve.
‘The time is five o’clock’
Colloquially, however, we can simply say:
Lu mrrve.
‘It’s five.’ (Literally, ‘It’s the fifth [hour]’)
A: Nga pähem pehrr?
B: Ro srrpxì amrrve. OR (colloquially) Ro mrrve.
A: ‘When will you arrive?’
B: ‘At five o’clock.’ OR ‘At five.’
(We could have said payähem in the above question, but it’s not necessary to do so.)
Finally, to add some minutes:
5:30 : trrpxì amrrve sì mawl OR (colloquially) mrrve sì mawl
5:24 : trrpxì amrrve sì trrpxìvi apxevol OR (colloquially) mrrve sì pxevol
4:50 (i.e., ten minutes to five): trrpxìvi avomun sre srrpxì amrrve
OR (colloquially) vomun sre mrrve
That’s it for now. I hope you found this post worth your time. 🙂
Hayalovay!
Right, this post was about time! 😀 Now next time we have a Na’vi gathering, we can actually publish the schedule in Na’vi and confuse everyone, hrh.
> “I was originally tempted to say beginning, but if you think about it, that’s not right! 🙂 )”
Random trivia: This type of fencepost error is one of the world’s oldest known math mistakes. When the Julian calendar with leap years was introduced in Roman times, the intent was for leap years to happen every four years. However, the magistrates responsible mistakenly started to insert them every fourth year in the beginning rather than the end of that year. The result was that leap years happened every three years, which resulted in a time-keeping error that was discovered only after 36 years (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar#Leap_year_error).
That is to say: it isn’t that unthinkable that the Na’vi would get confused about this too…
Na’vigation schedule will be posted in Na’vi then 😀
Absolutely! 😊
Yes, this post was DEFINITELY about time! 😄
Very interesting information about the “fencepost error.” I wasn’t aware of that term. Irayo!
Kaltxì ma Pawl!
I’ve always felt a bit unsure handling time in Na’vi, and a bit sceptical about how it would even be done using english words for expressing time, such as hour, minutes, etc. But this seems to be just on point! It feels very natural. These new additions are greatly appreciated!
Irayo!
I’m very glad you like the time system!
Krrä faylì’uri amip irayo ma Pawl! 😁
When I made a computer program to search for Na’vi homonyms, one of the ones found was nìmip, which can mean “just got stuck” or “newly”. Although it looks grammatical, the lìfyaolo’ wasn’t sure about how likely Na’vi is to use “newly” instead of “recently”. 🤔
I’m curious where you found nìmip. It’s not in the dictionaries I use, and I don’t recall using it myself or posting it to my blog. (My memory could, of course, be faulty.) In any event, it certainly is the immediate past of nip. Could it also be a nì- adverbial with mip? I think it could. It wouldn’t be synonymous with ‘recent’ but would rather be a word akin to English ‘anew,’ which isn’t used much in conversation but might be more frequently used in Na’vi. My English dictionary defines ‘anew’ as ‘in a new or different, and typically more positive, way, as in: Her career had begun anew.’
ETA: Wait. A computer program to search for Na’vi homonyms? Tewti! That is wild! I’d be interested in what turned up. Do you have a list you could share?
Yes, it is in fact nì- (-ly) attached ti mip (new). Ralìri lì’uä alu nìmip irayo nìtxan!
The details and results of the program are posted here on the forums and ones that look good enough are imported into this lexicon document
Yes, I did mean the adverbial form of mip 😁
Here is the link to the results and a detailed description of the method: https://forum.learnnavi.org/projects/computer-assisted-homonym-hunt/
Homonyms that look good enough go into Vawmataw’s lexicon document on Kelutral
Is the way of telling time with expressions like «mune:pxevofu ha’ngir» that was published fourteen years ago at https://forum.learnnavi.org/language-updates/txelanit-hivawl/msg240892/#msg240892 now superseded, or are both ways correct?
Both are correct.
I have one question about the time expressions: Given that “pxevotrrpxì” is based on a 24 hour clock, does that mean that in Na’vi we always work with the 24 hour cycle when discussing sky people time, instead of 12 hour like it’s usually done in the US? So your examples would be 5:30am, 5:24am & 4:50am, and to say for example 5:30pm we have to say 17:30 -> mevolawve sì mawl?
A clarification might be useful given that I’ve had conversations with people who weren’t very familiar with how to work with a 24 hour cycle because they have only seen it being done with am/pm their entire life.
Although many Americans don’t seem to be able to handle the 24-hour system (the way we spurn the metric system 🤨 ), it’s clear and unambiguous. It’s the preferred system for time in Na’vi. However, if clarification is necessary, we can use the equivalents of AM and PM in English, namely SK (srekamtrr) and MK (mawkxamtrr).
I know this is late but one small question: Is “mawkxamtrr” a word we can always use or just in this context? Asking because we had “kxamtrrmaw” before (fitting with other words like “kxamtxonmaw”, “txon’ongmaw” etc, it has always been sreX but Xmaw for parts of the day), would these two be synonyms? Or was that a mistake and you meant KM (kxamtrrmaw)?
Fìpostìri amip, seiyi irayo oe nìtxan!
As for that 24 hour clock topic, some more trivia:
This “24 hour” thing is actually a terran concept. Of course, Pandora and everything with it is fictional, but when adding some science into it, then it is very likely that Pandora’s day cycle is way longer than the Earth’s one.
If we take one of the Jupiter’s moon for example Europa, its day is 3.55 terran days long. For Pandora, I’d expect a similar length of day. Now, how the RDA will put that 24 hour into let’s say a 3 day cycle? Ke omum.
But there are indeed some possible ways for solving that. Either one add some extra hours (like in Star Trek Deep Space 9 with a 25 hour day cycle) or adding more minutes or seconds. Of course, they can just keep the terran time standard, but this would be an interesting experience when one have to wake up at 2 pm / 14:00 and it’s deep Pandoran night, hrh. (Srane, we even have the same funny thing here on Earth if one lives next to the polar circle.)
Eltur tìtxen si nìtxan! Irayo! (Oeri ke omum nìteng.)
Kaltxì ma Karyu Pawl,
Vospxìpuk lefpom ngaru nìteng ulte sìlpey oe tsnì ngaru livu fpom!
I agree with Tìtstewan’s comment, but I think we have a great system here.
I have a few other questions:
– If it’s 4:45, do you say tsìpxì sre mrrve or vohin sre mrrve?
– Is tsìve sì mrrvomrr still valid?
– If it’s 4:15, can you say tsìve sì vohin and tsìve sì tsìpxì?
– How do you say 0:00 to 0:59 and 12:00?
– Do they use the 12 (12:00AM to 11:59PM) or 24 hour (0:00 to 23:59) format? If so, how do you indicate AM and PM?
Nìfrakrr mipa säomumìri lelì’fya irayo nìtxan ulte hayalovay!
Additional question to these: Given we have the special word “pan” for “third”, and given that we can say “trrpxì amrrve sì mawl” / “mrrve sì mawl” for 5:30, how about:
5:20: trrpxì amrrve sì pan / (colloquially) mrrve sì pan
4:40: pan sre srrpxì amrrve / (colloquially) pan sre mrrve
Yes, I don’t see why the forms with pan shouldn’t be used, especially since Na’vi has special forms relating to three. It makes me wonder why we don’t say “a third past five” in English the way we commonly say “a quarter past five.”
My guess is that it’s due to the English-speaking general public in the USA being famously not great at fractions. HRH 😀
You may be right!
I’ll tell you a true story that happened many years ago when I was preparing for a dinner party.
I don’t remember what dish I was making, but whatever it was, it required a small amount of an extremely expensive type of ham. So I went to the deli department of an upscale market that I knew would carry the item.
At the deli counter, I was served by a pleasant young woman who looked like she was just out of high school. I told her what I wanted and explained I only needed an eighth of a pound, which would have been no more than a couple of slices.
As I’m watching her slice the ham at the slicing machine, I see the slices mounting up alarmingly. So I call over, saying “Excuse me, I only want an eighth of a pound! That looks like a lot more!” She says, “No, it’s not an eighth of a pound yet. I’m waiting for the scale to say point eight. That’ll be an eighth of a pound.”
At that point I asked to speak to the manager. 😄
Irayo, ma Vawmataw!
– If it’s 4:45, do you say tsìpxì sre mrrve or vohin sre mrrve? BOTH OK
– Is tsìve sì mrrvomrr still valid? YES
– If it’s 4:15, can you say tsìve sì vohin and tsìve sì tsìpxì? YES
– How do you say 0:00 to 0:59 and 12:00? JUST USE KEW FOR ZERO.
– Do they use the 12 (12:00AM to 11:59PM) or 24 hour (0:00 to 23:59) format? If so, how do you indicate AM and PM? SEE ABOVE. 12:00 is simply KXAMTRR.