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!