Category Archives: General

Kaltxì, ma eylan! Ayngari tengkrr ya wur sleru nì’ul, sìlpey oe, livu helku sang ulte te’lan lefpom. Here’s some new vocabulary—mostly excellent contributions of the LEP, some recent and some not-so-recent—involving shapes, directions, and the physical properties of objects. ’on … Continue reading →

Kaltxì, ma frapo— Ke längu fìpostìmì ke’u a lu mip. I’m afraid there’s nothing new in this post, just an old favorite, The Hunt Song, which as most of you know was published in the Activist Survival Guide. It’s one of … Continue reading →

Fmawn akosman, ma smuk! (Tìng nari nekll.) Fìsäomum txankrr lolu oer; set tsun oe tsawteri pivängkxo ayngahu. Kintrram fayfamrelsiyuhu oe ultxa soleiyi. Roleiun futa lu fo kanu sì leso’ha nìwotx ulte Uniltìrantoxkìri lì’fyayä leNa’vi wawet fol tslam. Am’aluke haya pxerel … Continue reading →

Kaltxì, ma smuk. I considered beginning this post with: Tswìlmayon oe ftu Wasyìngton ne kelku. Tewti! Mepunìri oe ’efu ngeyn nìngay! But I’m not sure old-time American vaudeville humor translates culturally into Na’vi. 😉 John and I did indeed just … Continue reading →

Kaltxì nìmun, ma eylan, Tse, EuroAvatar 2013 is well behind us. And what a great meet-up it was! John and I were so happy to be able to get to know and spend time with members of the European Avatar … Continue reading →

Kaltxì, ma eylan— Fìpostì mektsengur teya si. This post fills a gap in our understanding of Na’vi syntax: counterfactual conditionals. The counterfactual structure is a bit complicated, so we’ll go slow, and if necessary, we’ll have further clarifications in subsequent … Continue reading →

Ma smuk, I thought you might like to hear about some of the Na’vi-related things I’ve been doing and am planning to do soon. First, there’s this very nice segment in the PBS web series “The Secret Life of Scientists … Continue reading →

Kaltxì, ma frapo. We haven’t had much new vocabulary in a while, so here are some aylì’u amip to fill a mektseng or two (see below) that I hope you’ll find useful. Some of these were requests from the Euro-Avatar … Continue reading →

Kaltxì ayngaru, ma eylan— We’re all familiar with the verb tsranten, which means ‘matter, be important,’ as in: [Mo’at:] Yola krr, txana krr, ke tsranten.Tìng nari ‘It doesn’t matter how long it takes.’ The negative phrase ke tsranten yields the … Continue reading →

Here are some useful expressions for improvement and its opposite. tsan’ul (vin., TSAN.’ul—inf. 2, 2) ‘improve, get better’ fe’ul (vin., FE.’ul—inf. 2, 2) ‘worsen, get worse’ These are compounds built on ’ul, ‘increase,’ along with the adjectives for good and … Continue reading →