Losing and registers.

Started by omängum fra'uti, May 21, 2010, 09:56:05 PM

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omängum fra'uti

So I had a really quick question with Frommer about the meaning of "tatep".  It means more specifically than just the ambiguous "lose", "lose track or awareness of something".

But something caught my eye...  He gave the example of its use as "Tìkan tawnatep!" - target lost.

There's no typo there.  It's an unattributed passive participle.  So a follow up question later and I got a nice gem of a response.

Quote from: Karyu PawlThe explanation is that this is in a clipped, military register, just as the English translation is.

Of course the correct Na'vi would be "Tìkan atawnatep" or "Tìkanit oel tolatep".  There are other markers of the military register as well, but the only hint I got on that was...

Quote from: Karyu Pawlthe shortening of the genitive pronouns: oeyä --> oey [pron. wey], ngeyä --> ngey, etc.

It's worth noting that Frommer created the military register for the video game.  Despite the big battle scene in Avatar, there was not really a huge amount of military commands.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

What do you mean here by 'military register'?

Can Tatep be used for ordinary lost things, such as Oel tamatep oeyä tiskoti?

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

omängum fra'uti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_%28sociolinguistics%29

For tatep, perhaps.  Frommer said it didn't mean "misplace" exactly, but lose track of can be synonymous in many uses, so I'm not 100% sure on that one.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

roger

Cool. I'd heard that there was a rough or course register, but this is the first time I've seen any examples.