Na’viteri.org

“Receptive Ability”

What’s the Na’vi equivalent of English -able/-ible? That is, how do say that something is capable of “receiving” the action of a verb? For example, given yom ‘eat,’ how would you say, “This animal is edible”—i.e., can be eaten?

One obvious way is:

1. Tsun fko yivom fìioangit.
‘One can eat this animal.’

But there’s another way:

2. Fìioang lu tsukyom.
‘This animal is edible / can be eaten.’

Here the prefix tsuk- (a development of tsun + fko; no connection with tsuksìm) is attached to the ROOT of the verb to form an adjective. So, for example, you can say things like:

3. Tsukyoma ioang lu lesar.
‘An edible animal is useful.’

Note that the stress is on the root, not the prefix: tsuk-YOM.

For the negative, ke- attaches before tsuk-: ketsuktswa’ ‘unforgettable.’

Tsuk- is widely productive, considerably more so than English -able/-ible. For one thing, you can attach it to virtually any transitive verb: tsukrun ‘findable,’ tsuktxula ‘constructible,’ tsukfrrfen ‘able to be visited (visitable?)’, tsuktaron ‘able to be hunted, (huntable?),’ etc.

Additionally, you can often attach tsuk– to intransitive verbs as well:

4. Fìtseng lu tsuktsurokx.
‘One can rest here. / It’s possible to rest here. / This place is “restable.”’

5. Lu na’rìng tsukhahaw.
‘One can sleep in the forest. / It’s possible to sleep in the forest. / The forest is “sleepable.”’

Hesitation

To my knowledge, all spoken languages mì ’Rrta have words or sounds that indicate the speaker is hesitating, pausing, thinking, buying time, etc. In English, we have “um,” “uh,” “er,” and for some people “like” and “y’know.” Na’vi is no exception.

The Na’vi “hesitation marker” in speech is ìì. Unusually, it’s written with a doubled vowel. (Since it’s not a word any more than “er” is in English, it can flout the phonotactic constraints of the language, just as conversational expressions like oìsss and saa do.) It’s pronounced like a prolonged ì.

6. Lu oeru . . . ìì . . . tìngäzìk ahì’i.
‘I have . . . um . . . a slight problem.’

[Note: If you’re a glutton for punishment, I added some further explanation about case marking with modals at the end of the previous post.]

Edit 23 Mar.: In examples of transitive verbs with tsuk-, tsukftang deleted, tsukrun added.

A couple of posts ago, in a response to a comment, I mentioned that the following example sentence was correct:

Pol säfpìlit verar wivan.
‘He’s keeping his idea a secret.’

Here the verb var ‘persist in a state, continue to perform an action’ is used as a helping verb or modal, with the meaning ‘keep on doing something.’ A more literal translation of the sentence would be, ‘He’s continuing to hide the idea.’

The question was whether the first word should be po or pol. Several people suggested that pol was incorrect, based on the evidence to date. For example, ‘He sees you’ is Pol tse’a ngati, since tse’a is transitive, but ‘He CAN see you’ is Po tsun tsive’a ngati, since here, po is the subject not of tse’a but of tsun, and helping verbs like tsun (also new and var) are intransitive.

So I thought it would be useful to clarify some things about case marking—and also word order—with modals.

First, word order.

I have a slide in my PowerPoint presentation about Na’vi that shows how the words in a simple sentence like the one for ‘Eytukan sees Neytiri’ can be permuted in all possible ways, with all the versions grammatical and without altering the semantics of who is doing what to whom. In this case there are 3! = 6 possible permutations:

a.  Eytukanìl tse’a Neytirit.
b.  Eytukanìl Neytirit tse’a.
c.  Neytirit tse’a Eytukanìl.
d.  Neytirit Eytukanìl tse’a.
e.  Tse’a Eytukanìl Neytirit.
f.   Tse’a Neytirit Eytukanìl.

This is not to say that all six sentences are completely interchangeable in discourse. As in the vast majority of natural human languages, the word orders where the subject precedes the object (a, b, and e) are the most common; the others are grammatical but are generally used for special emphasis. For example, suppose someone thought Mo’at saw Neytiri, but you know that it was actually Eytukan who saw her. The conversation could go like this:

–Spaw oel futa Mo’atìl tsole’a Neytirit.
‘I believe Mo’at saw Neytiri.’

–Kehe. Tsole’a Neytirit Eytukanìl.
‘No, the one who saw Neytiri was Eytukan.’

Here the speaker has chosen a word order that puts Eytukanìl at the end of the sentence to highlight the important, contrastive information—just as the English translation does, but less concisely than the Na’vi.

With a modal verb in the mix, however, the situation becomes more complicated.

Let’s take as our example sentence ‘I want to eat teylu.’ One way of saying that is Oe new yivom teylut. How many possible word orders are there? Well, in this case we have four words, so there are 4! = 24 logically possible orders. Bear with me as I list them all. (For brevity, I’ll just use the initial letters of the four words.)

1.  N O T Y              7.   O N T Y          13.  T N O Y          19.   Y N O T
2.  N O Y T              8.   O N Y T          14.  T N Y O          20.  Y N T O
3.  N T O Y              9.   O T N Y          15.  T O N Y          21.   Y O N T
4.  N T Y O            10.   O T Y N          16.  T O Y N          22.   Y O T N
5.  N Y O T            11.   O Y N T           17.  T Y N O          23.   Y T N O
6.  N Y T O            12.   O Y T N           18.  T Y O N          24.   Y T O N

Are all 24 orders grammatical? Actually, no. The rule is that except in poetry or special ceremonial language, the modal has to precede the dependent verb. This means that in these examples, N = new must come before Y = yivom. So that knocks out half of the 24 logical possibilities. We’re left with these 12 word orders:

1.  N O T Y             7.  O N T Y          13.  T N O Y
2.  N O Y T             8.  O N Y T          14.  T N Y O
3.  N T O Y             9.  O T N Y          15.  T O N Y
4.  N T Y O
5.  N Y O T
6.  N Y T O

Now what about the case marking? Well, it’s clear that T is teylut throughout. As for O, oe is correct in all cases. But here’s where it gets interesting: one of these sentences, number 9, has an alternate form where O is oel. That is, 9 can be either of the following:

9a. Oe teylut new yivom.
9b. Oel teylut new yivom.

In fact, 9b is more common than 9a. Why is that? Well, the combination of Agentive/Ergative (the “l-case”) followed by Patientive/Objective (the “t-case”) is so frequent in Na’vi (e.g., Oel ngati kameie) that sentences like 9a are uncomfortable for many speakers. So a reanalysis takes place, where new yivom is thought of as a single, transitive verb, making 9b possible.

And that explains why the ‘keeping secret’ sentence we started out with is OK with either po or pol.

Sìlpey oe, fìtìoeyktìng law lilvu!

Ta Pawl

P.S.—The event with Marc Okrand in Boise was a blast! I really enjoyed meeting him, and I think our joint appearance went well. It was also great to meet ’Eylan Ayfalulukanä, an active member of the Community, who drove a long way to be there. Oh, and I got to see and talk with my first Klingon!

Addendum—March 22, 2011

Thanks to everyone who contributed astute questions and comments both here and elsewhere. Let me try to clarify some of the points I made above, although I can’t promise to offer definitive yes-or-no rules in all cases: constructions like this are inherently fuzzy.

There are four word orders in contention for reanalysis (which I’ll expand on in a bit); I’ll repeat them here for convenience:

5.   N Y O T
6.   N Y T O
9.   O T N Y
15. T O N Y

What defines these four is that in all of them, (a) NY (new yivom) is an uninterrupted sequence, and (b) O (oe or oel) and T (teylut) are contiguous.

The question is, Does O = oe or oel? As I indicated above, in all cases O = oe is grammatically correct. So it boils down to whether or not O = oel is also acceptable to native speakers of Na’vi in any of these sentences.

I’ll address that question in a moment, but first some general thoughts on linguistic variation, a large topic about which books have been written.

As language learners, we feel most comfortable with definite rules: “It’s A, not B.” But real language doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes A and B are equally correct, with no difference in meaning or usage, although some speakers might be more likely to use one than the other. (In English, how do you pronounce the first syllables of either and economics? How do you contract He is not here—He isn’t here or He’s not here?) As you know, Na’vi is particularly rich in such “free variation” (mì fay vs. paymì; awnga vs. ayoeng; lora syulang vs. syulang alor; to say “Who are you?” even if “you” is simply nga, you have 12 choices!). Another kind of variation is not within a given speaker but among speakers: For some, A is right, B is wrong, and that’s that. For others, A and B are both fine. For still others, A sounds better than B but B is still acceptable to some degree. That is to say, grammaticality judgments can vary among native speakers. (I just took a look at a textbook of mine from my graduate school days. In one of his seminal articles, Chomsky had “starred” an example sentence, *It is easy for there to be snow in June, indicating that it was ungrammatical. I wrote in the margin that I thought the sentence was perfectly fine.) There’s no reason to think the situation is any different on Eywa’eveng. Unfortunately communication with Pandora has been difficult lately, and I haven’t been able to ask any native speakers of Na’vi how they feel about these sentences. (Oh for a Na’vi Maltz!) So I’ve had to use my intuition. That being said, here are my best guesses:

The one most likely to be judged grammatical with oel is 9:

9b. Oel teylut new yivom.

That’s judged acceptable by almost all Na’vi in all but the most formal situations.

The next most likely is 15:

15b. ?Teylut oel new yivom.

I’d put that at 50-50—that is, half the Na’vi will accept it, half won’t.

The next is 6, which I’d put at 30% acceptable, 70% unacceptable:

6b. ??New yivom teylut oel.

Finally, 5 is generally judged unacceptable with oel:

5b. *New yivom oel teylut.

I spent some time trying to justify these intuitions, but after reading what I wrote, I didn’t find the results coherent. And as they say, your mileage may vary. So I’m just going to leave it there, at least for the time being. Bottom line: If you don’t want to take any chances, use the intransitive-subject case in all such sentences. But in sentences like 9, feel free to choose either case.

Just one more thing:

As I mentioned, for 9b to be judged acceptable, new yivom has to be reanalyzed in the speaker’s mind as a single complex verb (or “super-verb,” if you like). That kind of thing is not unknown in English. For example, take the passive construction, which (at least under some theories of syntax) changes a sentence like The mouse ate the cookies into The cookies were eaten by the mouse: the original object of the verb has become the new subject, along with other changes. But what about:

a.       The researchers didn’t think of that outcome. –> That outcome wasn’t thought of by
the researchers.

b.      Her friends spoke badly about her. –> She was spoken badly about by her friends.

c.       His boss took advantage of him. –> He was taken advantage of by his boss.

If passive works on objects of verbs, then how are these passive sentences possible? After all, the new subjects are not the old objects of the verbs—that is, if you think of the verbs as, respectively, think, speak, and take. But instead, speakers appear to be reanalyzing the word sequences. Rather than considering “think of” as verb + preposition, they’re taking it to be the super-verb “think-of.” Likewise with “speak-badly-about” and “take-advantage-of.” If you do that, then these super-verbs do have objects, which allows the passive transformation to apply.

The big question is, Under exactly what conditions do such reanalyses take place? If you come up with a complete answer to that question, please let me know! 🙂

Kaltxì, ma oeyä eylan—

I wanted to fill you in on my Na’vi talks for the first few months of this year, both those in the recent past and those coming up.

It’s been gratifying to see that interest in Na’vi continues. The invitations to speak about the language are still coming in—not at the hectic pace of a year or so ago, of course, but still quite steadily. I haven’t solicited any of these appearances; rather, people have looked me up and contacted me about speaking at their events. When it’s been feasible, I’ve been pleased to do so.

In the recent past:

§  Iowa State University (Ames, Iowa)—Feb. 3.
My talk at ISU was at the intersection of two different programs: the Quentin Johnson Lecture Series in Linguistics and the National Affairs Lecture Series, which this year has the theme of innovation. It was my best-attended talk ever: almost 400 people in the audience—students, faculty, and interested people from outside the university! Prior to the evening presentation I talked informally with members of the linguistics faculty and graduate students in applied linguistics. It was bitter cold outside, but my reception at ISU was very warm.

§  University of Southern California (Los Angeles)—Feb. 18
This was a lecture for the undergraduate Engineering Honors Colloquium at the Viterbi School of Engineering at my graduate alma mater, USC. There were about 120 students in the auditorium and everything went quite smoothly. (For once I didn’t run over the allotted time!) Afterwards a number of interested students came up to continue the conversation, including a conlanger working on his own language, one with a very interesting pronominal system.

Coming up:

§  Boise State University (Boise, Idaho)—Mar. 3
Ngaytxoa—I should have mentioned this earlier, although I think a number of you already know about it. I’m leaving tomorrow for Boise, Idaho, where I’ll be sharing the spotlight with none other than Marc Okrand, creator of Klingon! It won’t be a lecture but rather a panel discussion titled “Linguists in Hollywood,” presented by the Boise State Linguistics Association and the English Majors Association. I’m looking forward to getting to know Marc a bit and sharing experiences and war stories, both on mike and off. I’ll let you know how things go.

§  University of Rochester Alumni Event (Los Angeles)—Mar. 12
This fundraising event for the University of Rochester, my undergraduate alma mater, will be held at Sony Studios in Culver City, a separate city that’s an “island” inside Los Angeles (like Beverly Hills). It’ll be pretty much the same presentation I gave on the UR campus back in October, when I attended my 45^th college reunion. I mentioned to the organizers that anyone who heard me back in October and is also planning to attend this event will have a strong sense of déjà vu, but they didn’t seem to think that would be a problem.

§  University of California (Los Angeles)—Apr. 9
I’ll be the keynote speaker at the second annual Southern California Undergraduate Linguistics Conference at UCLA. As you may know, UCLA is a linguistics powerhouse, so I’m expecting a lot of challenging questions.

§  California State University (Fullerton, California)—Apr. 18
I’ll be the keynote speaker at the 20th CSUF linguistics symposium. (I couldn’t find an announcement on the Internet—maybe I googled the wrong search terms.) This will be a return to the university where I taught linguistics way back in 1978-79, when I was working on my Ph.D. dissertation. I haven’t been back since, and I suspect things have changed a bit in the interim.

If anyone is in the neighborhood and would like to stop by any of these events to say hi, by all means do. To my knowledge they’re all open to the public, and, with the exception of the Rochester fundraiser, free of charge.

The Vocabulary Committee has been working overtime! The February submission was particularly rich, inventive . . . and massive. It’s going to take me a while to work through all the suggestions, discussions, and examples, and getting out the results will require more than a few blog posts. But I wanted to get in one more post before February turns into March, at least here in California. So for the time being, here are a couple of innovations I liked, which are now officially part of Na’vi. Much more to follow. Livu faylì’fyavi lesar ayngaru!

1.       wan ‘hide’ (vtr.)

Pol sä’oti wolan äo ayrìk.
‘He hid his tool under the leaves.’

As reflexive (with the –äp- infix), ‘to hide oneself’:

Wäpan!  Sawtute za’u!
‘Hide!  The Sky people are coming!’

Nga pelun wäperan?
‘Why are you hiding?’

Idioms and derivations:

Pol säfpìlit verar wivan.
‘He’s keeping his idea a secret.’

nìwan (adv.) secretly; in hiding, by hiding

Samsiyu perey nìwan.
‘The hunters lie in wait, prepared to ambush.’

tìwan (n.) ‘obfuscation, cover-up’

letwan (adj.) ‘dodgy, sneaky (of a person)’

2.      slele ‘swim’ (vin.) (SLE.le; infixes 1,2)

Lehrrap lu fwa evitsyìp slele mì hilvan luke fwa fyeyntu terìng nari.
‘It’s dangerous for tiny ones to swim in the river without an adult watching.’

Derivations:

nìslele ‘by swimming’

Tsun fko tsatsengene kivä nìslele fu fa fwa ikranit makto nì’aw.
‘You can only get there by swimming or riding an ikran.’

Edits Mar. 1: Changed n. to adj. for letwan. Corrected Samsiyul to Samsiyu in example sentence for nìwan.

Here’s Part 2 of the new vocabulary post from last time. Some of these words, I think, will turn out to be quite useful.

1. li (adv.) ‘already’

Tìkangkem li hasey lu.
‘The work is already finished.’

Li pol terok fìtsengit srak?
‘Is she already here?’

Ayfohu li oe ultxa soli.
‘I’ve already met with them.’

What does li add to a sentence? To paraphrase the lucid analysis of one of the vocabulary committee members, li does two jobs: (1) it indicates completion, and (2) it’s a way for speakers (or writers) to react to their reasonable assumptions about what listeners (or readers) are thinking.

For example:

A: Srake new nga oehu yivom wutsot?
‘Do you want to have dinner with me?’
B: Oer txoa livu. Li yolom.
‘Sorry. I’ve already eaten.’

Here, B sees from A’s question that A is assuming she (B) hasn’t yet eaten. B’s response says, in effect, “You evidently think I haven’t had dinner, but in fact I have.”

For the negative, Na’vi doesn’t use a separate lexical item like English (already ~ not yet) or French (déjà ~ pas encore) but simply negates li:

A: Fo li polähem srak?
‘Have they already arrived?’
B: Ke li.
‘Not yet.’

Li has some idiomatic uses as well:

A.     In imperatives to convey strong urgency:

Ngal mi fìtsengit terok srak? Li kä!
‘You’re still here? Get going!’.

(Note: It’s the verb that gets the sentence stress, not the li: li KÄ!)

Also note the set phrase:

Li ko.
‘Well, get to it, then.’ OR ‘Let’s get on it.’
(Here li gets the stress: LI ko.)

B.     As a somewhat hesitant or weak ‘yes,’ as in colloquial English “Well, yeah, kind of.”

A: Nga mllte srak?
‘Do you agree?’
B: Li, slä …
‘Well, yes, I guess so, but . . .’

The negative of this usage is simply ke li, which could be translated in colloquial English as ‘not really.’ This overlaps the ‘not yet’ usage above, but in most cases the context will disambiguate.

C.     Combined with sre (ADP+) to indicate ‘by’ in the time sense—that is, ‘before or up to, but not after.’ For example:

Kem si li trraysre.
‘Do it by tomorrow.’

If sre comes before the time expression, it fuses with li into lisre (LI.sre), an adposition that is still ADP+ . . . i.e., that will cause lenition:

Kem si lisre srray.
‘Do it by tomorrow.’

Regarding ‘already,’ I want to say a big irayo to the vocabulary committee for an extremely rich discussion from which I learned a lot. I got great examples of how the corresponding words for ‘already’ are used in Japanese, Thai, Spanish, Irish, German, Swedish, Latin, Ancient Greek, and Nahuatl. Tewti, ma eylan! Lì’fyari lu aynga sulfätu nìwotx.

2. ronsrelngop ‘imagine, envision’ (vtr., infixes 33) (RON.srel.ngop)

Tsat ke tsun oe ronsrelngivop.
‘I can’t imagine that.’

Oel ronsrelngop futa Eywevengit tok.
‘I imagine that I’m on Pandora.’

The etymology of this word is probably clear: ronsem + rel + ngop, ‘mind-picture-create.’ Note, however, that in colloquial as opposed to careful or formal speech, ronsrelngop is usually pronounced ronsrewngop. (The sound change vowel + l –> vowel + w has occurred in Earth languages as well, for example in the history of French. Compare “salsa” and “sauce”!) This has led to a popular misunderstanding, or “folk etymology,” where the word is connected to srew, ‘dance,’ as if imagination were a dance in the mind. It’s a nice idea, but that’s not where the word actually comes from.

Derivation: ronsrel (n.) ‘something imagined’ (RON.srel)

Ayronsrel peyä hängek nìtxan.
‘His imaginings are (unpleasantly) weird.’

Derivation: tìronsrel (n.) ‘imagination’ (tì.RON.srel)

Lu poru tìronsrel atxanatan.
‘She has a vivid imagination.’

Note: txanatan (adj.) ‘bright, vivid’ (TXA.na.tan, from txan + atan)

Derivation: leronsrel (adj.) ‘imaginary’

Oe new sivop ne tsakifkey leronsrel.
‘I want to journey to that imaginary world.’

Derivation: nìronsrel (adv.) ‘in/by imagination’

Oe pxìm pängkxo ngahu nìronsrel.
‘I often talk with you in my imagination.’
OR
‘I often imagine I’m talking with you.’

3. srefey ‘expect’ (vtr., vitr., infixes 22) (sre.FEY, from sre and pey)

This verb can be transitive or intransitive, so there are alternate structures to express the same idea:

Set srefey oel futa tsampongu tätxaw maw txon’ong.
OR:
Set srefey oe tsnì tsampongu tätxaw maw txon’ong.
‘I’m currently expecting the war party back after nightfall.’

Note the useful idiom srefereiey nìprrte’, ‘looking forward’:

Tsaria ngahu ye’rìn ultxa si nìmun, oe srefereiey nìprrte’.
‘I’m looking forward to getting together with you again soon.’

You can use this phrase by itself as a positive response to someone’s offer:

A. Oeng rewonay ’awsiteng tivaron ko.
‘Let’s you and I go hunting together tomorrow morning.’
B. Srefereiey nìprrte’.
‘I’ll look forward to that.’ OR ‘I’d love to.’

FRACTION PARADIGM

mawl (n.) ‘half’

Tsu’teyìl tolìng oer mawlit smarä.
Tsu’tey gave me a half of the prey.

As you see, to say ‘half of something’ you simply use the genitive of the noun.

pan (n.) ‘third, one third’

Tsu’teyìl tolìng oer panit smarä.

Tsu’tey gave me a third of the prey.

Two thirds is simply mefan (me.FAN), with the dual me effecting lenition in the usual way.

For fractions with denominators higher than 3 we use the prefix form of the number plus the suffix pxì, derived from hapxì ‘part.’ Hapxì is stressed on the second syllable (ha.PXÌ), and this has influenced the fraction words, which retain the stress on pxì.

tsìpxì ‘one-fourth’ (tsì.PXÌ)

mrrpxì ‘one-fifth’ (mrr.PXÌ)

pupxì ‘one-sixth’ (pu.PXÌ)

kipxì ‘one-seventh’ (ki.PXÌ)

vopxì ‘one-eighth’ (vo.PXÌ)

To make higher fractions from these, use simple numbers:

munea mrrpxì – ‘two-fifths’

kipxì atsìng – ‘four-sevenths’

Tam. Hayalovay, ma oeyä eylan.

Edits, 21 Feb.: Example with hek corrected. “A’s response” corrected to “B’s response” in li discussion.

Kaltxì, ma eylan oeyä—

As some of you may know, we now have a structure in place whereby members of the community are submitting not only requests for new vocabulary but actual suggestions for new Na’vi words. (You’ll find information about the process at learnnavi.org.) I received the first such submission several days ago and was very impressed. A lot of thought and creativity went into the document, not to mention the time and effort it took to put it all together, with illustrative examples, etymologies, grammatical discussions, alternatives . . . Tìkangkem atxantsan, ma frapo! Thanks to everyone involved, and especially to the project’s very able coordinator, Lawren. Irayo nìtxan, ma tsmuke!

In looking at the committee’s suggestions, I found myself responding in several ways. For example:

1.       Perfect! I love it!
2.       Great idea—I’ll just make a few changes.
3.       Interesting and potentially very useful, but I need to think through the ramifications
and/or get some clarification before I commit to it.
4.       I see the need, but I’d rather do it differently.

Below you’ll find the items in categories 1 and 2. In some cases I’ve pretty much just cut and pasted from the doc that Lawren sent, since I didn’t think I could improve on it. In other cases I’ve made a few changes. If I haven’t included something, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve rejected it. Some things will require more time and thought than I’ve been able to put in in the last few days. So please consider this Part 1, with Part 2 to follow.

And even though 1/12 of 2011 is history, since I haven’t yet said it: Mipa Zìsìt Lefpom, ma frapo!

ta Pawl

1. taKRRa / aKRRta (conj.) ‘since’ (temporal)

Aylì’fya yawne leru oer takrra ’eveng lamu.

OR:

’Eveng lamu akrrta aylì’fya yawne leru oer.

‘I’ve loved languages since I was a child.’

Using the imperfective (leru) conveys the sense that the activity is ongoing; if it has ended, use the perfective:

Sawtute zola’u akrrta po ke ’olefu nitram.

‘Since the Skypeople came, she had not been happy [and this has now changed].’

When other time words are used in the sentence, the adposition ta- is sufficient to convey the concept of “since.”

Trr’ongta Txon’ongvay po tolìran.

‘He walked from dawn until dusk.’

2. few (ADP-) ‘across, aiming for the opposite side of’

NOTE: This new adposition is distinct from the existing adposition ka-, which means “across” in the sense of “covering thoroughly” (e.g., “Mother spread frosting across the entire top and sides of the cake.” OR “He wanted nothing more than peace across the entire world.”)

Po spä few payfya fte smarit sivutx.

‘He jumped across the stream to track his prey.’

Utral a lu few payfya a eo kelku oeyä tsawl lu nìtxan.

‘The tree on the other side of the stream in front of my house is very tall.’

~Derived form:  FEWtusok (adj.), “opposite, on the opposite side”

Note: In casual speech, the word is often pronounced fewtsok. In writing, however, the full form is used.

Oe kawkrr ne fewtusoka pa’o kilvanä ke kamä.

‘I never went to the opposite side of the river.’

3. SLA’tsu (vtr., infixes 12) ‘describe’

Pol sla’tsu ayioangit a tse’a fkol mì Eywa’eveng*.

‘She describes animals seen on Pandora.’

*Note: In informal contexts, Eywa’eveng can be shortened to Eyweveng.

~Derived form: tìsla’tsu (n.), “description”

4. ’en (n.) guess (informed guess; hunch; intuition)

Note: This word only covers informed guessing, not a “shot in the dark” sort of guess.

-Pelun fìtsengne nga zola’u fte tivaron?

-Lolu ’en.

‘-Why did you come here to hunt?’

‘-It was a guess (hunch).’

Fìuvanìri lu ngaru pxen nì’aw.

‘You only get three guesses in this game.’

~Derived form:  ’en si  ‘make an informed guess’

Ke sterawm oel ke’ut mì na’rìng.  ’En si oe, Sawtuteol tìlmok fìtsengit.

‘I don’t hear anything in the forest.  I guess some Skypeople were just here.’

~Derived form:  le’en (adj.), “speculative, intuitive” (of an action, not a person)

Eltu si.  Hem le’en tsun lehrrap livu.

‘Watch out.  Speculative moves can be dangerous.’

~Derived form:  nì’en (adv.), “making an informed guess, acting on intuition”

Pol pole’un futa pehem si nì’en.

‘He decided what to do on a hunch.’

5. SÄ’o (n.) ‘tool, utensil’

Na’viri txina sä’o tìtusaronä lu tsko swizaw.

‘For the Na’vi the bow and arrow is the main hunting tool.’

6. pamtseo si (vin.) ‘play music’

To convey that one plays a musical instrument, use the adposition fa-.

Po pamtseo si fa au nìltsan nìtxan.

‘She plays the drums very well.’

Note that one can also use reykol, but this idiom is considered more “poetic,” and perhaps may not apply to all instruments.

Tewti, nga lu tsulfätu i’enä.  Ngal tsat reykìmol!

‘Wow, you are a master on the i’en.  You just made it sing!’

7. väng (adj.) ‘thirsty’

Menga ’efu väng srak?

‘Are you two thirsty?’

~Derived form: tìväng (n.), “thirst”

Apxa tìvängìl poti steykoli.

‘(His) great thirst made him angry.’

8. sngum (n.) ‘worry’

For verb (worry, be worried, be anxious), uses “lu DAT” construction:

Lu oeru sngum a saronyu ke tìyevätxaw.

‘I’m worried that the hunters will not return (soon, as expected).’

~Derived form: nìsngum (adv.), “worryingly, fretfully”

Swey lu fwa nga fìkem ke sivi nìsngum.

‘It’s best that you not do this fretfully.’

(It’s best that you don’t freak out about doing this.)

9. yaYAYR (n.) ‘confusion’

For verb (be confused, be puzzled), uses “lu DAT” construction (same as sngum)

Sawtuteyä hemìri lu awngaru yayayr.

‘The Skypeople’s actions confuse us.’

[I love this word! For some reason it just sounds like confusion.]

10. wäTE (vtr., infixes 22)  ‘argue, dispute’

Sawtute lu ayvrrtep nìwotx a säfpìlit oel wäte.

‘I dispute the idea that the Skypeople are all demons.’

~Derived forms:

tìwäte (n.) (dispute, argument)

säwäte (n.) (point of contention, source of argument, thing disputed)

lewäte (n.) (disagreeable, argumentative [of an agent])

nìwäte (disagreeably, begrudgingly)

Edit, Feb 21: “fko” corrected to “fkol” in example sentence for #3.

Mehapxìtul lì’fyao’loä pxestxelit alor tolìng awngaru.

Two members of the German Na’vi community, Plumps (Stefan Müller) and Maksìl (Maximilian Reinhart), have translated three Christmas carols into Na’vi and recorded them. The wonderful singer is Maksìl. Please listen:

Maria Kxamlä Na’rìng Kä Maria Kxamlä Na’rìng Kä (Maria durch den Dornwald Ging)

Tewti Ma Utral Tewti Ma Utral (Oh Christmas Tree)

Txon Amawey Txon Amawey (Silent Night)

I think you’ll agree that these carols are astonishingly beautiful and gorgeously sung.

Irayo, ma meylan. Lora fìtìkangkem mengeyä meuia luyu awngaru nìwotx.

ta Pawl

And now it’s my great pleasure to announce the First Place Winners of the Na’vi Writing Contest:

(Fanfare, please . . . )

Beginners Verse: Tìrey Tsmukan

Advanced Verse: KalaKuival

Advanced Prose: Ataeghane

As before, the winning entries are below. And what beautiful work this is. (We even have rhymed verse! Tewti!)

Irayo, ma pxesmuk, ulte seykxel sì nitram. Pxengeyä tsulfä lì’fyayä leNa’vi oeru teya si.

P.

__________

Beginners Verse First Place (Tìrey Tsmukan)

Oe lu numeyu leNa’vi, oe zola’u alìm. Oe ke zola’u kea tìtslamhu, oe ‘ì’awn fte nivume frakrr.

Oe lu numeyu leNa’vi, lì’fya ‘erong, tsawl sleru na syulang na’rìngkip lì’fyayä. Hì’i ulte kea ralhu.

Mi fì’u lu tìngäzìk ke, talun ayoengal tsa’ut tse’eia. Ayoeng plltxe sì pamrel si, uteri atsawl hì’isì.

Ayoengal kame lì’fyati, ulte tsawmì slu tsawl, kxawm fpi tìyawr, kxawm ke. Slä ayoeng frakrr tsun livatem.

Ro fìtseng ayoeng ultxarun, ta seng atxan zola’u. Ayoengit zamolunge tì’awsitengìl, ne ‘uo anawm.

Ayoengal kame futa aylapo a perlltxe, teri ayoeng na sute ‘äpolia. Slä ayoengal tìng nariti Smukanur set, ulte Smuke za’u, Ulte ayoeng käpame fra’umì na Ävätar, zìlya’u fte kame krr Eywasì; set ayoeng tslam.

Ayoeng tok fìtseng fte nivume, ayoeng zola’u alìm. Ayoeng ke zola’u kea tìtslamhu, ulte ‘ì’awn fte nivume frakrr.

__________

Advanced Verse First Place (KalaKuival)

Fìlì’fya suneiu oeru nìtxan.

Fko tsa’uri syaw leNa’via pum.

Nivume tsa’ut lu oeyä tìkan.

Ke nìtam tsa’uti oel ke omum.

Peseng tsun oe nivume? sìk pawm fko.

Tsun oe mivok san leiu ‘awa tseng

alu nume lì’fyat leNa’vi, txo

tsulfätu nga new livu sìk oe peng.

Fìlì’fya lu lor, tì’efumì oey:

Frapam lam ‘ango oeyä mikyunur.

Oel fpìl futa tsa’u nìngay lu swey.

Irayo sayi oe frakrr ngopyur!

Hufwa fìlì’fya ngäzìk tsun livu,

tsunslu fì’u a livu tsulfätu.

__________

Advanced Prose First Place (Ataeghane)

‘Okvur lì’fyayä leNa’vi

Nìawnomum, lora lì’fya leNa’vi ke tsivun livu luke txantsana rel arusikx TseymsìKameronä. Fìrel eltur tìtxen sarmi ulte var, ngian aysuteori lì’fya sarmi nì’ul. Pxaya stawnarsìma tute lenomum sngolä’i nìwin pivängkxo teri lì’fya sìreysì Na’viyä. Fwarmew nìno fo ulte frafya’oti sìpängkxoä eana fayswiräyä atsawl ftivia fmarmi.

Ye’rìn tsamaw, ngaya aynongyu kifkeyä alu Eywa’eveng tsarmun pivlltxe fìlì’fyafa sì tslivam fìlì’fyati taluna ke narmìn fol aysìngäzìkit a za’u hola lì’uta sì hìma tìtslamta ayrenuä lì’fyayä. Nìk’ong stawnarsìma ayupxare ta Karyu Pawl nìlaw srung soli ayoengaru. Fayul lì’fyat txarmula tafral set tsaw awngaru smon.

Awngakip lu sute a vivewng veiar pongut aynumeyuä. Hufwa pxaya tute sngalmä’i tìsopit ne kifkey ayhorenä sì aylì’uä ulte maw trr ahol ftolang, lu mi aysute a pamrel si fte srung sivi aysngä’iyur sì ayeylanä eltur tìtxen seykivi lì’fyat leNa’vi.

Fpìl oel futa txo ayoeng fmayi, tsayun veykivirä fìlì’fyat alor. Set suneiu nìtxan ayrenu awngar ulte lu aylì’u nìtam fte pivängkxo txeleteri letrrtrr. Ayoeng tsun slivu nawma lì’fyaolo’ – nivume zene nì’aw. ‘Ivong Na’vi, ma aysmuk!

As everyone knows, December 21^st is a significant date–it’s the winter/summer solstice. But much more importantly, it’s also the birthday of learnnavi.org!

To celebrate LN’s first anniversary, several members of the community proposed and implemented a Na’vi Writing Contest.

The judges were Wm. Annis, Prrton, and Lance R. Casey—and their decisions are now in!

It gives me great pleasure to announce the Second Place Winners:

Beginners Verse:  Reyona te Tsateka Ray’i’itan

Advanced Prose: Futurulus

Their winning entries are reproduced below.

Seykxel sì nitram, ma meylan! Mengeyä tìkangkxem txantsan lu nìngay.

Congratulations!

I’ll announce the first place winners in the next post.

P.

_____________

Beginners Verse, Second Place (Reyona te Tsateka Ray’i’itan)

 (The author wishes to acknowledge help from Tirea Aean.)

Hahaw ma oeyä ‘eveng
Trr’ong zìya’u
Zamerunge trr amip

Hahaw ma oeyä ‘eveng
Txon ‘ayi’a
Txonä tìvawm kalmä

Hahaw ma oeyä ‘eveng
Tsawl slu win sì tstew
Na nangtang na’rìngä

Hahaw ma oeyä ‘eveng
Tsawl slu txur sì txantslusam
Nga layu taronyu

Hahaw ma oeyä ‘eveng
Ulte ‘awa trr
Nga layu ‘itan Omatikayaä

_____________

Advanced Prose, Second Place (Futurulus)

San Kxamlä menari tsun fko vitrati tsive’a sìk.  Fìfya plltxe fkol ‘awa lì’fyavit leÌnglìsì.

Slä kxamlä menari tsun fko tsive’a peut nìngay?  Ngay lu fwa ke lu kea mesute a mefor lu aynari ateng.  Slä ke latem nari.  Aynaril wìntxu ‘ut ateng frakrr.  Nìnari ke latem vitra kawkrr srak?  Tengkrr ‘eveng tsawl slu, tsawl slu peyä ronsem, nìtengfya tsawl slu peyä vitra.

Fra’ul a fko nolume tsat, fkot sloleyku tute aketeng nì’it.  Leratem vitra nìlkeftang.  Slä ke latem nari.  Ha srake kxamlä menari tsun fko vitrati alusatem tsive’a nìngay?  Txokefyaw, kxamlä peu?

Lì’fya.  Kxamlä lì’fya tsun fko vitrati stivawm.  Lì’fyal wìntxu ronsemit nìwotx.  Lì’ut fkol solar a krr, tsalì’ul wolìntxu hapxìti vitrayä.  Mipa lì’ut fkol nolume a krr, tsalì’u slolu hapxì vitrayä.

Ulte mipa lì’fyati fkol nolume a krr, tsalì’fya slolu vitra amip nìwotx.

‘Ivong ayvitra amip.  ‘Ivong Na’vi!

Kaltxì, ma oeyä eylan!

Contrary to rumors that I have fallen off the face of the earth, I’m happy to say I’m alive and well, if a bit damp, here in Los Angeles. My three months of heavy travel—September through November—are now history. The revisions for the fifth edition of the linguistics workbook I’ve co-authored, Looking at Languages, which is due out next year, are almost complete. (This edition will include two Na’vi exercises.) And I’m looking forward to returning to my blog and being in closer touch with you all.

I thought you might be interested in a few highlights of my travels.

SEPTEMBER: Europe
I spoke in Stockholm at the Bonnier GRID 2010 conference, a two-day event for employees of the multi-national Bonnier Corporation. The theme of the conference, “It’s all about passion,” fit in well with the development and growth of Na’vi. After a wonderful week in Stockholm during which I met members of the Swedish Na’vi community, John and I headed to Copenhagen for five days and then flew to Paris for another ten.

OCTOBER: U.S.A.
The month kicked off with the now-legendary Ultxa a mì Na’rìng—the Meeting in the Forest, hosted at the beautiful sylvan home of Prrton and Yotsua in northern California. Ever since, I’ve proudly ended my talks about Na’vi with pictures and stories from that event, including an analysis of Po täpeykìyeverkeiup nìnäk* that some of the attendees had come up with. Audiences are always impressed with the creativity and exuberance of the community.

My next event was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I spoke at the annual Oklahoma Conference in the Humanities and met some great members of the community as well. Then it was off to Rochester, New York for the 45^th reunion of my undergraduate class at the University of Rochester. I was one of the guest speakers, and the audience was extremely enthusiastic, which was gratifying. (My undergraduate college career was hardly distinguished, yet I was given the royal treatment on my return to campus 45 years later. It’s remarkable what an association with Avatar can do!)

After visiting my piano teacher from college days in central New York, I flew back to Los Angeles to take part in a Fox media event promoting the Collector’s Edition of the Avatar Blu-Ray and DVD. They had invited about 60 members of the press, both domestic and international. We creative types were divided into teams, each one staying at its station while the journalists rotated around in groups of six to eight to hear the presentations. I was paired with Dr. Jodie Holt, the botanist from the University of California, Riverside, who had named and described the plants in the Pandoran forest. We did our joint talk no less than ten times; the last time around, Jodie half-seriously suggested that we exchange roles, with her talking about the language and me about the plants—that’s how familiar we had become with each other’s presentations!

It was good to see James Cameron again, whom I hadn’t talked to since the end of 2009. He looked great—fit and trim (I believe he had dropped 30 pounds) and relaxed. At the time, I learned what I’m sure you all know by now: there will indeed be Avatar 2 and 3, which are slated for release in 2014 and 2015 respectively. A reporter asked whether we could expect Dr. Grace Augustine to make a miraculous reappearance; Jim smiled and answered cryptically, “Well, no one in science fiction ever dies.” Beyond that, I don’t know any more than you do about the new scripts. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there will be some Na’vi in them and that I’ll be re-invited to participate.

My final talks of October were back on the east coast, at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Wellesley is an all-female university . . . and what an impressive place it is. In the morning I had the great pleasure of talking to a linguistics class devoted to created languages, I believe the only such class in the country! The students were extraordinarily engaged and engaging; the professor, Dr. Angela Carpenter, had put together a rich course that they clearly loved. As a semester project, each student had to make progress in developing her own conlang, and at the start of the class, I was greeted in 16 different artificial languages, along with kaltxì, which they had all practiced. In the evening, I spoke to a more general audience of about 250 people. Unfortunately the technology failed and my PowerPoint couldn’t be projected onto the screen, so I had to wing it, which was a challenge. But all in all I think things went well.

NOVEMBER: Australia and New Zealand
We spent three and half weeks Down Under, a great trip. I spoke twice—first at Monash University in Melbourne and then on the west coast, in Fremantle (close to Perth), at the biennial conference of AUSIT, the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators, where I was the keynote speaker. I usually begin my talks by plunging into a Na’vi greeting (typically: Kaltxì, ma oeyä eylan. Oel ayngati kameie nìwotx. Furia fìtsengit terok fte tsivun ayngahu teri lì’fya leNa’vi pivängkxo, oeru prrte’ lu nìngay) and then explaining what I just said. This time, though, before I got up to speak, an elder of the Noongar group of indigenous people opened the conference with a beautiful—and long!—bilingual blessing, half of which was in fluent Noongar. When it was my turn, I had to acknowledge that what they were about to hear might not sound very impressive after that.

The rest of our time in Oceania was pure vacation. In addition to Melbourne and Fremantle, we toured the west coast wine-growing of Margaret River; then Sydney; then a hop over to New Zealand for five wonderful days on Waiheke Island, a little piece of heaven 35 minutes by ferry from Auckland; and then back to Melbourne before heading home to L.A. In most of those places we connected with friends we hadn’t seen in years, all of whom were extremely generous with their time and hospitality.

While in Melbourne I did several interviews for Radio Australia. If you have 15 minutes, you might like to listen to this one with Maria Zijlstra of the Lingua Franca program. In my second interview with Maria, we talked not so much about Na’vi but rather about the kinds of things I generally find the most fascinating about language.

Let me conclude by congratulating Sebastian and everyone else involved with the amazing LearnNavi.org on the site’s first anniversary. (More about that in the next post.) And to the many people who have written me e-mails and haven’t yet received a response—thank you all for your patience, and I hope to catch up on my correspondence soon.

Hayalovay, ma frapo.

ta Pawl

*The canonical translation is, “I’m so jazzed that he may be about to drink himself to death.”

Edit: error correction–nìnäk. Also, please note that in the Lingua Franca interview I mentioned, I mangled the name of the book I was referring to: It’s Through the Language Glass, not Through the Looking Glass. (Deutscher points out some strange things about language, but he’s not Lewis Carroll.)