First draft of my list.

Started by Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn, March 02, 2010, 10:31:17 PM

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Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn

Ok, here's a list of things right off the top of my head, I can add more later. Some aren't so much words as catagories.

1.Colors of course and not just color words, we also need the word for color so you could ask something like "What color is that?" (A or B)

2.Feeling words such as happy, sad, angry; simple stuff like that. (A or B)

3.Weather conditions other than rain and the actual word for weather so we can ask "how's the weather?" (A or B)

4.It would be nice to know some proportions such as "one half", "one third" and things like that. (B or C)

5.Since we now know that they use an octal system for counting I'd like to know what kind of sysytem they might use to measure distance and/or weight of object (C)

6.Their word for moon. Not moon to them of course but we see some of the other moons going through the sky in the movie. (C)

7.Funny as in haha funny (C)
Naruto Shippuden Episode 166: Confession
                                    Watch it, Love it, Live it

Tuteyä amuiä 'itan

fail / failed ... (C priority)


Kayrìlien

Quote from: Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn on March 02, 2010, 10:31:17 PM
1.Colors of course and not just color words, we also need the word for color so you could ask something like "What color is that?" (A or B)


I almost forgot about colors. Definitely A priority in my opinion, though we don't know how the Na'vi refer to colors. There are some languages that only distinguish between light/warm colors and dark/cool colors rather than having a large number of basic color words like green, purple, orange, etc. I would imagine that the Na'vi definitely have a specific word for bioluminescence, or at least be able to describe the change in color that occurs when an organism experiences this.

Kayrìlien

Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn

well we already have blue and yellow which I think is pretty specific.
Naruto Shippuden Episode 166: Confession
                                    Watch it, Love it, Live it

'itan Na'rìngyä

Quote from: Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn on March 02, 2010, 10:31:17 PM
4.It would be nice to know some proportions such as "one half", "one third" and things like that. (B or C)

I don't remember if ordinal numbers exist yet, but this is often accomplished through ordinals. Of course with Na'vi we're free to be creative. English and Spanish and a few other languages I looked up use the cardinal-over-ordinal form for fractions, like two thirds and dos tercios (notice the transformation here from tercer to tercio... only half (mitad) and third seem to change from their actual ordinal).

At http://www.cafe-syria.com/Numbers.htm, though, we can see that Arabic has unique words for at least half and fourth.

So, any thoughts? Use cardinal-over-ordinal? Or will there be a special form of numbers for fractions so as to have cardinal, ordinal, and fractional numbers?

Time will tell... :)

Kayrìlien

Quote from: Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn on March 02, 2010, 10:48:40 PM
well we already have blue and yellow which I think is pretty specific.

True, which means that, according to the 1969 study by Berlin and Kay on color cognition, they must also have distinct words for white, black, red, and green. Their study found that in the 20 languages they studied, there is a direct progression from the least complex systems to the most complex, and the "chain" of color cognition goes roughly:

WHITE and BLACK
RED
GREEN or YELLOW (one word for both)
GREEN AND YELLOW (distinct words for each)
BLUE
BROWN
PURPLE, PINK, ORANGE, or GRAY

If you want to know more, look at Wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalism_and_relativism_of_color_terminology

Kayrìlien

'itan Na'rìngyä

Quote from: Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn on March 02, 2010, 10:48:40 PM
well we already have blue and yellow which I think is pretty specific.


I recall a discussion a while back about whether these are actually words for "cool color / bluish" and "warm color / yellowish", but I've not been on the forums in a while. I don't know if anything else ever developed.

'itan Na'rìngyä

Quote from: Kayrìlien on March 02, 2010, 10:54:41 PM
Quote from: Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn on March 02, 2010, 10:48:40 PM
well we already have blue and yellow which I think is pretty specific.
True, which means that, according to the 1969 study by Berlin and Kay on color cognition, they must also have distinct words for white, black, red, and green.

If I recall correctly (and that's definitely an if), Na'vi see a different (possibly wider) slice of the EM spectrum than do humans, and they also perceive colors differently. I like the idea that only a certain amount of colors may be recognized by the Na'vi. But I also like the idea of having a color or colors than aren't recognizable by humans. IIRC the Na'vi see a bit further into UV than humans. Perhaps we could also request words for those potential colors.

I propose something like this:

White / bright
Black / dark
Red (or maybe not... if Na'vi see UV, maybe they don't see reds)
Green
Yellow
Blue
A purplish-to-near-UV color
A totally UV color

zyymurgy

I'm studying Japanese currently, and I've noticed there's a few similarities between the feel of leNa'vi and Nihongo. XD; I'd think that perhaps they'd have a suffix or prefix for fraction counters, or perhaps something like:

(NUMBER)+suffix prefix+(NUMBER)

Example would be, "Aw'hune rre'mune", with 'hune and rre' being suggestable suffix/prefix'z. >w>

Also, regarding colors... here's what I think, simplest to most complex.

White/bright or luminous
Black/dark
Blue
Yellow
Green, Regular purples
A purplish-to-near-UV color, and weak Reds
A totally UV color and normal reds

Makes sense to me, since their eye structure is probably different, and different colors activate the rods and cones differently. This is, of course, assuming that Na'vi see using rods and cones, not some completely different system.
Eywa ngahu, niwotx karyu.

'itan Na'rìngyä

#9
Quote from: zyymurgy on March 02, 2010, 11:12:49 PM
Green, Regular purples
A purplish-to-near-UV color, and weak Reds
A totally UV color and normal reds

Whatever physiological system they use, green+purple don't fall together in the spectrum, nor do purple/UV and red! Groupings like green-blue are logical, whereas red-UV is certainly not!


EDIT:

I certainly see the temptation to group red and purple since they're somewhat associated in English (especially where red+blue=purple). But seeing as purple and red are opposite extremes spectrally, we can understand why purple is dead last on the color recognition list above:

Quote from: Kayrìlien on March 02, 2010, 10:54:41 PM
WHITE and BLACK
RED
GREEN or YELLOW (one word for both)
GREEN AND YELLOW (distinct words for each)
BLUE
BROWN
PURPLE, PINK, ORANGE, or GRAY

If you want to know more, look at Wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalism_and_relativism_of_color_terminology

So I didn't mean to attack you or anything, I'm just putting my extra-nerdy and slightly perfectionist $0.02 in... :-D