Kxì, ma frapo! Hi all!
To start off the new month, here’s a bit of new vocabulary along with some conversational expressions I hope you’ll find useful. As usual, some but not all the new words are taken or adapted from recent LEP submissions.
sweri (vtr., SWE.ri, inf. 1,2) ‘praise’
Tarontswot peyä frapol sweri.
‘Everyone praises his hunting ability.’
Ngeyä nantangtsyìpit sweri krra lek aysäkxìmit!
‘Praise your dog when he follows (your) commands!’
Lesnonrra tute a swäperi frakrr slu eyktan afpxamo.
‘An arrogant individual who always praises himself makes a terrible leader.’
säkxìm (n., sä.KXÌM) ‘a command or order’
tìsweri (n., tì.SWE.ri) ‘praise (general sense)’
säsweri (n., sä.SWE.ri) ‘praise (instance of)’
tìswäper (n., tì.swä.PER) ‘self-praise’
As you might guess, tìswäper has a negative sense and overlaps with the idea of boasting.
lehangham (adj., le.HANG.ham) ‘laughable, ridiculous, absurd’
Keep in mind that the meanings of le- adjectives are not always predictable. Here, lehangham doesn’t mean ‘pertaining to laughter’ or ‘funny’ (that would be ’ipu) but rather something that makes you laugh derisively. It can be used to describe people as well as ideas and events.
fenge (vtr., FE.nge, inf. 1,2) ‘mock, ridicule’
Oeti fenge rä’ä!
’Don’t mock me!’
Folenge frapol peyä tìhawlit lehangham.
‘Everyone ridiculed his ridiculous plan.’
tìfenge (n., tì.FE.nge) ‘ridicule’
nìleyn (adv., nì.LEYN) ‘repeatedly’
nal (vin.) ‘suffer’
Nal can refer both to experiencing physical pain and to emotional suffering .
Krra tse’a oel tìfkeytokit txanlokxeyä oey, nal nìtxan mì te’lan.
‘When I see the condition of my country, I suffer greatly in my heart.’
nalsteng (vin., NAL.steng, inf. 1,1) ‘feel empathy or compassion’
This verb is a compound of nal + ’awsiteng ‘together.’ The idea is that when you feel empathy or compassion for someone, you are suffering together with them. (In fact, the English word “compassion” was derived in much the same way: the com– part goes back to the Latin word cum, meaning ‘with,’ while the passion part relates to suffering, as in the Christian notion of Christ’s passion on the cross.)
Pori oe nalsteng.
‘I feel compassion for him.’
Alternatively, we can use hu:
Pohu oe nalsteng.
‘I feel compassion for him.’
tìnalsteng (n., tì.NAL.steng) ‘compassion, empathy’
lenalsteng (adj. ofp, le.NAL.steng) ‘compassionate’
tìnalstenga’ (adj. nfp, tì.NAL.ste.nga’) ‘compassionate’
Finally, take a look at these idiomatic ways of saying that something or someone looks/sounds/tastes/smells good or bad. They’re more common in colloquial conversation than the related structures using fkan. The outline of the structure is:
SUBJECT + za’u + ADVERB + ne + [SENSE ORGAN]
Here are some examples that should clarify this usage:
Nga za’u nìltsan ne nari.
‘You look good.’
(Literally: You come well to the eye.)
Po za’u nìfe’ ne nari.
‘She looks bad.’
Fìsyuve za’u nìfe’ ne ftxì.
‘This food tastes bad.’
(Literally: ‘This food comes badly to the tongue.’)
Nga za’u nìfpxamo ne mikyun. Mokriri kempe lolen?
‘You sound terrible. What happened to your voice?’
(Literally: ‘You come terribly to the ear.’)
And a heads-up: As many of you know, the annual online Na’vigation conference takes place this weekend, Friday Aug. 1 through Sunday Aug. 3. It’s open to absolutely everyone who’s interested in the Na’vi language. You can watch the proceedings here. And the schedule of events is here.
Hayalovay, ma eylan!
Mipa aylì’uri eltur tìtxen si ulte lesar lu nìtxan! Sari irayo nìngay! 🙂
Nìprrte’, ma tsmuk.
’awa tìpawm lu oeru mi teri mipa fya’o a lawk inanfyati …
When you say sense organ … what is that for ‘feel’? Is it the hand, finger or even skin (which is the actual organ scientifically)? So, would you be able to say:
Fìtskxe za’u nìekxtxu ne tsyokx/ne zekwä/ne ta’leng ???
for ‘This stone feels rough’
*Sämuwìntxuri ngeyä ro Na’vigation fìtrr etrìpa syayvi!
Eltur tìden seii!
’awa geyeychìp ahìi: «tì.FE.nge’» -> «tì.FE.nge»
Irayo, ma tsmuk . . . nìfrakrr. 🙂
Pùm ngeye!
Lots of great words here, and a shakeup to a long-established syntax! I expect a whole lot of “za’u ne” and a sharp drop in the use of “fkan” in the very casual atmosphere of the community.
‘Awa tìpawmtsyìp: What’s the difference between “nal” and “ngä’än”? They both mean to suffer, and their mental/emotional meanings seem to overlap.
Good question about nal vs. ngä’än. They’re very similar in meaning. Ngä’än has a slightly stronger sense to it, in that it implies being miserable. Nal can imply quieter or more stoic suffering. If you’re walking through a swamp and being attacked by a thousand mosquitoes, it’s ngä’än. If you silently observe your mate acting inappropriately with someone else and you suspect they’re having an affair, that’s more likely nal. But those aren’t hard and fast rules, so you can think of the two words as basically synonymous. Nal, however, allows you to form compounds like nalsteng.
Eltur tìtxen si! One more question, can both include physical suffering or is that solely the domain of nal?
Both can include physical suffering.
Nìfrakrr irayo nìtxan!
Kezemplltxe I ran my homonym detector again. New homonym in forest Nìmal: (“trustingly, without hesitation” or “suffer (recent past)”)
The rest are based off fenge and only work in reef:
Fenge: “mock” or “of which beak (lenited)”
Fayenge: “will mock” or “of these beaks”
Fìmenge: “mock (recent past)” or “of these two beaks”
Fepenge: “self-mock” or “of which three beaks (lenited)”
Fengänge: “mock (negative infix)” or “of which stomach (lenited)”
Fìmengänge: “mock (recent past, negative infix)” or “of these two stomachs”
Fepengänge: “self-mock (negative infix)” or “of which three stomachs (lenited)”
The last three are weird. Their interpretations have different syllable stresses and require unstressed ä to e to be applied to äp and -ä, but not äng. 😁
It looks like you’re mixing up the rules of Reef Dialect and Forest Dialect: the merging of identical vowels is particular to Forest Dialect, so according to the known rules of Reef Dialect, the forms of «’eng» “beak” would have to be «feenge, fìmeenge, fepeenge». «Fayenge» could be a real homophone though, depending on the exact rules of the change from ä to e.
Oh okay. Thanks! I can correct that in the places where I can
Your homonym detector is amazing, ma Txonpay! Not being a programmer myself, I can’t imagine how you set that up, but it’s impressive. A question occurred to me: Have you run into a situation where both homonyms would make sense in the same slot, so that a genuine misunderstanding could occur? For example, take this English conversation in a car between driver and passenger:
DRIVER: I think I should turn left at the stop sign.
PASSENGER: Right!
🙂
Kosman! I found two examples of such a sentence or phrase:
Oel ramit tok. Tse’a ikranit a uvan si mì saw “I’m in a mountain. I see an ikran that plays in (it, the sky)”
Makto zong sounds like “ride safely” or “ride (and then) save”. Maybe patientives make the phrase even hairier? (Makto zong Payakanit)
Mipa aylì’uri irayo nìtxan ma Pawl!
I have to ask to satisfy my curiousity, hrh: Why tìswäper and not tìswäperi? 😀
Interesting suggestion! Up to now, I don’t believe we’ve seen -yu attached to anything but a verbal root. But attaching it to this particular infixed form of the verb makes sense. I like it! I don’t see why it wouldn’t be valid.
We’ve seen -0- + -yu before with zeykoyu where zeyko has been established to be a normal derivation of zo rather than its own thing. Wouldn’t this fit the same pattern?
(I’m assuming your comment is a reply to persona non grata’s below)
Kaltxì ma Karyu Pawl,
Is this process (attaching -yu to an infixed verb) freely productive?
Irayo nìli!
Rather ask, is this process of attaching -yu to a verb with or is freely productive?
Other infixes don’t make as much sense, ’cause they modify the verb, but don’t change its “stem meaning”, in my opinion.
Irayo! Just to make sure nothing unexpected appears, the stress is swä-PE-ri-yu and its English definition is “narcissist, someone who praises themself too much”, kefyak?
I would not outright define that as “narcissist”, beyond “one who praises themself (in negative sense)”.
I considered tìswäperi. For some reason, the truncated form, which ended in a stressed syllable, seemed to fit the meaning better for a word with a strong negative connotation. Just a gut feeling–I really don’t have any better explanation. But it’s a good illustration of the fact that exceptions always exist in natural languages, and things can occur in a particular word that don’t occur in related ones. There’s a famous old saying among linguists, “Chaque mot a son histoire.” That is, each word has its own story. Natural languages always have exceptions to uniformity, and Na’vi, although we know it’s a conlang, is a natlang on Pandora. 🙂
Fpìlfya a eltur tìtxen si nìtxan! I didn’t mean to suggest or question, but to learn more about your train of thought and decision making behind this choice. Thank you for sharing that!
Makes perfect sense, and I agree, tìswäper sounds somehow “rougher”, so it is definitely a better fit, I was just curious, is all. 🙂
Would *swäperiyu be valid?
oeri frapor ke’u.
I think he replied to your comment, but under Eana Unil’s comment.
Kaltxì, ma Karyu! Mipa lì’uri alu sweri irayo nìtxan oeyä txe’lanta! Oe poli NÌT’ILUKE!!! Slä ke set!
A question, if I may; Regarding nalsteng, is there a difference between using the topical and the adposition hu? I.e. Does the meaning change, is one more formal than the other, etc.
Is there a difference between rì’ìr si and fenge?
Between “reflect, imitate” and “mock, ridicule”? A ton.
Thanks!