Na’viteri.org

Today’s post provides some new vocabulary, mostly from the A-priority list of the LEP (Lexical Expansion Project), along with a few usage notes.

In the abbreviations indicating parts of speech, VT and VI refer to transitive and intransitive verbs respectively. As you know, transitive verbs are the ones that take objects; with these, the subject is in the agentive or ergative case (L-family endings) and the object is in the objective or patientive case (T-family endings): Oel ngati kameie. Intransitive verbs don’t take objects, and their subjects are unmarked: Po herahaw.

For verbs of more than one syllable, I’ve used the excellent notation I discovered on learnnavi.org (●) to indicate where the first- and second-position infixes are inserted.

Usage Notes

’A’AW
Used only with countable nouns (people, plants, rocks, days, ideas, . . . ), not with uncountables (water, air, time, patience, anger, . . . ). Like numbers, ’a’aw is used with the singular of the noun. Example:

Lu poru ’a’awa ’eylan. OR Lu poru ’eylan a’a’aw. ‘He has several friends.’

(These are good sentences for practicing your glottal stops!)

Don’t confuse ’a’aw ‘several, a few’ with hol ‘(only a) few, not many’:

Oel tse’a ’a’awa tutet. ‘I see several people.’

Oel tse’a hola tutet. ‘I see only a few people.’

Note that pxay ‘many’ is exceptional in that it can be used with either singular or plural nouns: pxaya tute and pxaya sute are both allowable. The form with the singular is appropriate for all contexts, while the one with the plural is mainly used colloquially.

’OKROL and ’OKVUR
’Okrol refers to the ancient tribal history of the Na’vi contained in the First Songs; ’okvur relates to more recent events, e.g. oeyä soaiayä ’okvur ‘my family’s history’ or ’okvur Sawtuteyä mì Eywa’eveng ‘the history of the Sky People on Pandora.’

ALU
Used mainly for nouns or noun phrases in apposition—e.g. ‘my friend Amhul,’ ‘Eytukan, leader of the Omaticaya,’ ‘Eywa, the Great Mother,’ etc. It comes from a + lu, with a fusing of the two words into one and a change in stress to the first syllable. Example:

Tskalepit oel tolìng oeyä tsmukanur alu Ìstaw. ‘I gave the crossbow to my brother Istaw.’

You can also use alu conversationally as an “explainer,” in the sense of “that is to say” or “in other words”:

Txoa livu, yawne lu oer Sorewn . . . alu . . . ke tsun oeng muntxa slivu. ‘Sorry, but I love Sorewn . . . in other words, you and I cannot marry.’

HAWNGKRR and YE’KRR
These are adverbs, not adjectives:

Hawngkrr rä’ä ziva’u! ‘Don’t come late!’

If you need the adjectives, they’re lehawngkrr and leye’krr: tìpähem leye’krr ‘an early arrival’

HEK
This verb conveys the idea of something appearing odd, strange, unexpected, or surprising.

Ngeyä säfpìl Sawtuteteri heiek oer nìtxan. ‘Your idea about the Sky People is very interesting to me (because it seems unusual).’ OR ‘I’m very curious (and delighted) about your idea regarding the Sky People.’

Note that nìhek is a sentence adverbial only, not a manner adverbial . . . alu . . . nìhek is ‘strangely’ in the sense of the speaker making a comment about the situation:

Nìhek fo nìNa’vi plltxe. ‘Strangely, they speak Na’vi.’

If on the other hand you want to say that someone does something in a strange manner, you’d use nìfya’o a hek, ‘in a way that’s strange’:

Fo nìNa’vi plltxe nìfya’o a hek. ‘They speak Na’vi strangely.’

Note the difference between the verb hek and the adjective stxong ‘strange, unfamiliar, unknown.’ Hek is used for something odd, unexpected, or puzzling but not necessarily bad. Stxong is stronger and usually has a negative connotation: it’s applied to something previously unknown or unimagined that appears threatening or dangerous. Example:

Larmu tsatsamsiyuhu tìvawm a lu stxong ayoer. ‘That warrior carried with him a darkness unknown to us.’

KI
Don’t confuse slä and ki. Ki is ‘but’ in the sense of ‘not A but (rather) B.’ (Speakers of German will see the parallel with aber vs. sondern.) Ke and ki form a pair:

Nga plltxe ke nìfyeyntu ki nì’eveng. ‘You speak not like an adult but a child.’

NETRÌP
See SYAYVI.

RENG and TXUKX
These words primarily refer to physical depth: kilvan areng, kilvan atxukx. They can’t be applied to people: *tute areng makes no sense. But as in many languages, they are sometimes applied metaphorically to thoughts, ideas, analyses, etc.: e.g. aysäfpìl atxukx ‘deep thoughts.’

ROLUN
Rolun and tolel are conversational exclamations used for “Eureka!” moments. The difference is that Rolun! means you’ve found something, e.g. a lost object, the answer to a question, the solution to a problem, whereas Tolel! means you’ve had a flash of insight and now you “get it”—you’ve received knowledge or understanding.

SMAR
This word appears in a famous Na’vi proverb:

Ätxäle si palulukanur tsnì smarit livonu. ‘Ask a thanator to release its prey.’ Refers to a futile gesture, an attempt to achieve something that might be desirable but will clearly not happen. In conversation it’s usually shortened to Ätxäle pa(lu)lukanur. (In fast speech, palulukan tends to simplify to palukan, which is acceptable in colloquial style.)

SUNU
This important verb, which works similarly to Spanish gustar, is used to say you like something:

Sunu oeru teylu. ‘I like teylu.’ (Teylu sunu oeru is also possible.)

Sunu and prrte’ lu both mean that the speaker enjoys something. While sunu is ‘like’ in the general sense, prrte’ lu is generally deeper and more heartfelt; it’s often used in social situations, translating to “It’s a pleasure . . .”:

Furia tsolun oe ngahu pivängkxo, oeru prrte’ lu nìngay. ‘It was really a pleasure to be able to speak with you.’

[Digression: The prrte’ construction can be a bit confusing. Prrte’ is an adjective meaning ‘pleasurable,’ so an alternate way of saying the previous sentence is:

Fwa [fì’u a] tsolun oe ngahu pivängkxo oeru prrte’ lu nìngay. Literally: ‘The fact that I was able to speak with you is really pleasurable to me.’

The structure of the original sentences with furia is more like: ‘As for the fact that I was able to speak with you, (it) is really pleasurable to me.’ Either structure is acceptable.]

Mowan implies physical or sensual pleasure, and often has a sexual connotation:

Plltxe fko san ngaru lu mowan Txilte ulte poru nga. ‘I hear you like Txilte and vice versa.’

Mowan is also used slangily as a general term for ‘like’:

Tìtusaron mowan lu oer nìngay. ‘Hunting really turns me on.’

SYAYVI
Syay by itself means ‘fate’ in the sense of one’s destiny—the arc of one’s life:

Tsakrr syay ayngeyä, syay olo’ä oeyä layu teng. ‘Then you will suffer the same fate as my clan.’

Syayvi refers to a “little piece of fate”—that is, chance or luck in a particular situation. For example, the expression for ‘Good luck!’ is Etrìpa syayvi!

Note that nìsyayvi means ‘by chance, by coincidence, as luck would have it’—it does not mean ‘luckily.’ For that you use netrìp.

TOLEL
See ROLUN.

TXUKX
See RENG.

ZO
This stative verb indicates that “all is well” with the subject—something or someone is functioning correctly. Both zo and lu fpom can mean the subject is well, but there’s a difference in usage. Fpom is a noun meaning ‘well-being, peace, happiness.’ Zo is a verb with a narrower scope, usually implying physical health. So contrast these two questions:

Ngaru lu fpom srak? ‘Are you well?’ (Are you experiencing a general sense of happiness and well-being?)

Nga zo srak? ‘Are you well?’ (Have you recovered from your illness? Are you OK after that nasty fall?)

Examples of the derivative verbs zoslu and zeyko:

Oeri nì’i’a tsyokx zoslolu. ‘My hand is finally healed.’

Eywal zeykivo ngat nìwin. ‘May Eywa heal you quickly.’

Frawzo is from fra’u + zo. Compounds with ’u often lose the glottal stop. Here the resulting au combination has changed into a diphthong as well.

Edit 17 July–Two errors corrected: nìhek classed as ADV; glottal stop added to ftxìvä’.

Today’s post introduces some useful things you can add to your written and spoken Na’vi, along with a few new vocabulary items.

The Diminutive Form

Lots of languages have a way of adding something to a word to mark it as “little” version of the original. Na’vi has this too.

The diminutive marker is –tsyìp. It’s a suffix, always unstressed, which you attach to the end of a word—usually a noun, but pronouns can take –tsyìp as well. (This is unusual in Earth languages.) And you can use it productively—that is, you’re free to add it to most nouns, including proper nouns, and pronouns—but see below.

Don’t use the diminutive simply to indicate that something is small—for that you use hì’i. For example, “small tree” is hì’ia utral/utral ahì’i, not utraltsyìp.  What, then, is the diminutive for? Three things:

1. To form new lexical items that originated as small versions of a noun but may have lost the small connotation. Since their meanings are not always predictable, words in this category are listed in the dictionary. Examples:

puk ‘book,’ puktsyìp ‘booklet, pamphlet’

utral ‘tree,’ utraltsyìp ‘bush’

säspxin ‘illness, disease,’ säspxintsyìp ‘minor ailment’

Note that you can modify many of these words with tsawl without contradicting yourself—for example, tsawla utraltsyìp ‘large bush.’

2. To express affection or endearment. Here –tsyìp may or may not be associated with physical smallness. Examples:

Za’u fìtseng, ma ’itetsyìp. ‘Come here, little daughter.’ (Could be said even to an adult daughter.)

[Digression: With verbs of motion, ne can be optionally omitted if the destination comes after the verb. So you can say Po zola’u fìtsengne or Po zola’u fìtseng. But *Po fìtseng zola’u is ungrammatical; it has to be Po fìtsengne (or ne fìtseng) zola’u.]

Kempe si nga, ma sa’nutsyìp? ‘What are you doing, little mommy?’ (This would not be said to an actual mother, which would be disrespectful, but rather to a young girl, in endearing anticipation of her becoming a mother.)

Kamtsyìpìl wutsot yerom. ‘Little Kamun is having dinner.’ (Kamun might be a little boy, but he might also be a huge adult Na’vi, in which case –tsyìp is ironic and/or affectionate. Note that when –tsyìp is added to a proper name of more than one syllable, the name is often shortened. The full form, in this case Kamuntsyìp, can also be used.)

Ngatsyìp yawne lu oer. ‘I love you, little one.’ (Could be said to any loved one, not only to a young child.)

Ngari tswintsyìp sevin nìtxan lu nang! ‘What a pretty little queue you have!’ (tswin ‘queue.’ Note that in sentences like this that involve possession, especially “inalienable possession, the –ri form (i.e. the topic marker) is slightly more idiomatic than the possessive pronoun, although both are correct. So “Ngeyä tswintsyìp . . .” is fine, although many Na’vi would prefer to say “Ngari . . .”)

3. To express disparagement or insult.

Fìtaronyutsyìp ke tsun ke’ut stivä’nì. ‘This (worthless) little hunter can’t catch anything.’

Ngatsyìpìl new peut ta oe? ‘What does little you want from me?’ (Note that while ngatsyìp was endearing in the previous example, here it’s disparaging. To tell which is which, you need to consider the context, facial expressions, and body language.)

Nga nìawnomum to oetsyìp lu txur nìtxan. ‘As everyone knows, you’re a lot stronger than little old me.’ (Here –tsyìp is used ironically, for mock self-deprecation. Also, oetsyìp is pronounced WE.tsyìp.)

Be careful not to confuse –vi and –tsyìp: there are similarities, but they’re not the same. Rather than indicating a small version of the original, the –vi suffix is used for a part or division of a whole, or a “little bit of” something. So atanvi ‘ray’ is a bit of atan, light; txepvi ‘spark’ is a bit of txep ‘fire’ (txeptsyìp would possibly be a ‘dear or cute little fire’); lì’fyavi ‘linguistic expression (word, phrase, sentence)’ is a bit of lì’fya ‘language.’ Also, -vi is not as freely productive as –tsyìp. This is worth some explanation.

Take the English suffix –er that’s added to verbs to get the “agent”—the one who is doing the verb: eater=one who eats, hunter=one who hunts, etc. You can add –er to most verbs, and you’ll get another word whose meaning is predictable. So even if you don’t know what it means to burble, you do know that that a burbler is one who burbles. (This doesn’t always work: people who type or cycle are better called typists and cyclists than typers and cyclers. But it works more often than not.) We say that the –er suffix is productive.

In contrast, adding the suffix –ment to a verb to get a related noun is not freely productive. From govern we get government, which is a body that governs. From replace we get replacement, but that’s not a body that replaces—it’s the thing replaced. And there’s no *eatment, *huntment, *feelment, etc. (I’m not sure about burblement.) So the  –ment suffix is not productive: we can’t add it freely to verbs, and when we can, the meaning isn’t necessarily clear. Words with –ment have to be learned individually, and so they’re listed in the dictionary.

Similar things are true in Na’vi. Certain affixes (prefixes, infixes, and suffixes) are productive, others not. For example, almost all the verb infixes (-er-, -ol-, -iv-, -ay-, -ìm-, etc.) are productive: you can use them with any verb at all, as long as you know the right place to insert them. The agentive suffix –yu is also freely productive. On the other hand, the prefix tì-, which forms nouns out of verbs, adjectives, and other nouns, is not freely productive. You can’t come up with your own tì- words—you need to make sure they’re in the dictionary. And when they are, the meanings won’t always be predictable: tìftang means ‘stopping,’ but tìrol doesn’t mean ‘singing’ but rather ‘song.’ (Note that when you want to talk about an action—as in “Swimming is great exercise”—you can always use the Na’vi gerund, which is a two-affix form: use the tì- prefix along with the –us- infix: tìyusom ‘eating,’ tìtusaron ‘hunting,’ etc., and that process is productive. Example: Tìkusar eltur tìtxen si. ‘Teaching is interesting.’)

Finally, some affixes are midway on the productivity scale. The adverb-former nì- is productive when used with adjectives: nìngay ‘truly,’ nìwin ‘fast,’ nìsti ‘angrily,’ nìftue ‘easily,’ etc. But it’s sometimes also used with other parts of speech—nìtut ‘continually,’ nì’eyng ‘in response,’ nì’awtu ‘alone’—and these words have to be learned as separate lexical items; you can’t take them as patterns on which to base new forms.

And with that I’ll just say: Sìlpey oe, ayngari fìtìpängkxotsyìp eltur tìtxen silvi.

Some Conversational Expressions

Here are some miscellaneous expressions you might find useful in conversation.

1. Responding to thanks

Depending on the situation, there are different ways to respond to someone who thanks you for something:

• Kea tìkin. Literally: no need. That is, there’s no need to thank me.
• Nìprrte’. Literally: gladly, with pleasure. That is, what you’ve thanked me for, I did with pleasure.
• Oeru meuia. Literally: an honor to me. That is, it was an honor to be of help to you.
• Hayalo ta oe/Hayalo oeta [pronounced WE.ta]. Literally: next time from me. That is, I’ve done something for you and you’ve thanked me, but next time you’ll do something comparable for me, and I’ll thank you. (hayalo ‘next time,’ hamalo ‘last time’)
• Pum ngeyä. Literally, yours. That is, you’ve thanked me, but I really should be thanking you. The thanks belong to you. [Pronounced pum NGE.yä]

2. Responding to a compliment

It’s not customary to say irayo in response to a compliment. Instead, there are three common responses:

• Ke pxan. Literally: not worthy. That is, I don’t deserve your praise.
• Tstunwi. Literally: kind. That is, it’s kind of you to say that. (tstunwi ‘kind, thoughtful, considerate’)
• Ngaru tsulfä. Literally: to you the mastery. This is said in a situation where the one praising you is better at the activity you’re being praised for than you are yourself. For example, if a native Pandoran says to you, Nga nìNa’vi plltxe nìltsan, you should respond with Ngaru tsulfä, which implies: When it comes to Na’vi, you’re obviously the master, so you have the right to give me praise, which I humbly accept.

3. Congratulating someone

Upon hearing about someone’s good fortune, the Na’vi say Seykxel sì nitram! Literally: Strong and happy! That is, may you derive strength and happiness from this event, accomplishment, etc. Note: seykxel and txur are both adjectives meaning ‘strong,’ but they aren’t the same: txur refers to physical strength, seykxel to inner strength, a quiet feeling of confidence in one’s own capability. [Pronunciation: sey.KXEL sì nit.RAM]

Hayalovay . . .