Dative.... For posession?

[omängum fra'uti]

While trying to explain Ngaru lu fpon srak? in the beginner area, it occurred to me that, basically, you're asking "Do you have well being?"

As I said there, IANAL (I am not a linguist) but that got me thinking..  Could that be a way to say "I have something"?

If I said, for example...

Oeru eana ikran lu...

Would I be saying, basically, "I have a blue ikran"?

Or if I saw a nice piece of Na'vi tail, could I try hitting on her by saying...

Ngaru lora menari lu...
You have beautiful eyes...

(Or more likely.... Ngaru lora letxuma swizaw lu...  You have a lovely poisoned arrow... )

[edmoreira]

You beat me to the punch!

I was reading more about the dative case earlier today 'cause I wanted to use it to mark purpose as in
oe srungru za'u
I come for the purpose of assistance or I come to help

So I started reading about the uses of the dative case and I came across the "dativus possessivus" in Latin, which is exactly that a possessive dative. Immediately I remembered that we don't have a verb to have in Na'vi and I went: "voilá !"

But then again, I don't know if we're right!

Eywa Ngahu
Etx

[omängum fra'uti]

Well that makes it more plausible at least.  I was just pulling that out of my... um... txìm!

Now we just need someone who knows what they are talking about to weigh in.  Maybe Frommer?   Ok wishful thinking I know.

[omängum fra'uti]

From Wikipedia....

Latin...
Dativus possessivus (possessive dative) which means possession, e.g. angelis alae sunt - literally "to (or for) the angels are wings", this is typically found with a copula and translated as "the angels have wings".

Tsez
The dative/lative is also used to indicate possession, as in the example below, because there is no such verb as "to have".
Кидбехъор кIетIу зовси.
kidbe-qo-r    kʼetʼu    zow-si
girl:OBL-POSS-DAT/LAT    cat:ABS    be:PST-PST
"The girl had a cat."

So it certainly fits with Frommer's "Everything is present in a human language".  And it fits in with the "typically found with a copula" (lu) of the Latin description as well.

[edmoreira]

Now we just need someone who knows what they are talking about to weigh in.  Maybe Frommer?   Ok wishful thinking I know.

Well I think we're really on the right track since I've just recalled that in the vanity fair article:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2009/12/brushing-up-on-navi-the-language-of-avatar.html

It says that Frommer said the literal translation of Kaltxì, ngaru lu fpom srak is Greetings Do you HAVE a sense of well being?

So he said it not us hahaha

Kìyevame
Etx

[omängum fra'uti]

Nice catch!  That's good enough for me.  That actually earns my very first applause given out for that detective work.  (I'm rather stingy with those things, but that's ok because I'm even more stingy with smites.)

That also suddenly makes "Oeru txoa livu" make more sense as well.

[edmoreira]

I shall go to bed in peace tonight that another mystery of the Na'vi has been unraveled!

Cheers to us and thank you for the applause I'm honored!

etx

[omängum fra'uti]

You realize what this means, right?

I can finally, PROPERLY, do...



Edit: Fixed the phonetics

[edmoreira]

 
Well I'm happy! However I have to kind of disagree with the word tsizpurkr (oooops sorry about that)

Well first of all I cannot really make out what it means (maybe 'cause it's 2 am but I can't)
But must importantly the word cannot exist in Na'vi
Ir you read the syllable structure
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1977

1)z cannot end a syllable so tsiz cannot be a syllable
2)the second syllable would be pur which is ok as a syllable but what's kr? the syllable can start with kr, in which case you need a vowel afterwards or start with k and make the r syllabic by adding another one krr. Anyway, could you tell me what tsizpurkr is?

I'm sorry I kind of put down your lovingly created word though

Eywa ngahu
Etx

[omängum fra'uti]

If you knew the picture, you'd know what it meant.  It's "Cheezeburger" written with only natively Na'vi sounds...  I figured I'd get something that couldn't actually be a syllable, but I was too lazy to double check it.

Edit: Oh I know what happened...  I actually had it spelled with a couple extra ìs in there to break up the consonant clusters but their lolcat builder didn't like taking those characters...  I noticed to change <ìm> to <er> in lereiu (I wanted lìmeiu for the purposely badly grammatical mixed tense) but I forgot to check what it did to the rest of it.

[edmoreira]

That is funny! LOL

So if you wrote tsispurkrr (tsi.spur.krr) then it follows the rules of syllable structure but you lose the voiced fricative /z/  

I think I should go to bed now I'm too tired

kìyevame
Etx

[omängum fra'uti]

Ooh that works nicely, I'll make a new one

[OfPandora]

You realize what this means, right?

I can finally, PROPERLY, do...



Edit: Fixed the phonetics

rofl I'm in tears laughing

But, basically you guys are saying to make the phrase "I have" (as an example) you can say "Oeru lu"?

[omängum fra'uti]

Srane, tsa'u tìngay lu.

[OfPandora]

Sìltsan tìomum. 

[edmoreira]

Sìltsan tìomum. 

1st) Thanks
2nd) I apologize in advance since I'm gonna earn the title of second Na'vi's grammar Nazi but it should be sìltsana tìomun, right?

I think I'm might be getting annoying

Oeru Txoa!

Etx

EDIT: spelled tìomun right

[omängum fra'uti]

Yes, I saw that but let it slide this time.  However you are correct.  Well, if you spelled tìomum right anyway.

Edit: You still spelled tìomuM wrong.

Also, oeru txoa should really be said with livu.  If you want to shorten it just say txoa.

[OfPandora]

Please, correct me as much as possible. It would be illogical of me to take it offensively!

[Doolio]

slavic languages have amazingly similar phonetics, grammar, word construction etc as na'vi - i consider myself lucky to have serbian as native language:) - although i must go na'vi to english to serbian because all the info is in english. but still, i see that english speaking people often have hard time grasping some things, for example, nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative etc (in serbian, also in latin, there are seven of these, bulgarian has six etc - i'm not sure what they are called in english). that is why, for example, the word order is free in slavic languages and in na'vi.

ok, what i wanted to say was that this caught my eye because 'oeru lu' phrase exists in serbian and it is used to present feelings or some state of the person, but not possession, and it is used along with adverb.

so, in english, you would say 'i am well'. in serbian it would go something as 'to me is well' when translated literally to english. if na'vi has the same principle it would come to 'oeru lu nìltsan'.
in serbian, 'to me is well' practically means 'i have welness'. but it does not go with the noun. for instance, you couldn't say 'to me is ikran' in serbian, it wouldn't make sense.

but you could say something like 'to me goes ikran', which exists in english (for example, 'this house goes to john').

ofcourse, it is a wild, wild guess:) but, if nothing else, i think we're having a pretty good exercise in these forums:)

[edmoreira]

Thank you very much for your comment

but still, i see that english speaking people often have hard time grasping some things, for example, nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative etc (in serbian, also in latin, there are seven of these, bulgarian has six etc - i'm not sure what they are called in english).

They're called cases, grammatical cases

ok, what i wanted to say was that this caught my eye because 'oeru lu' phrase exists in serbian and it is used to present feelings or some state of the person, but not possession, and it is used along with adverb.

so, in english, you would say 'i am well'. in serbian it would go something as 'to me is well' when translated literally to english. if na'vi has the same principle it would come to 'oeru lu nìltsan'.
in serbian, 'to me is well' practically means 'i have welness'. but it does not go with the noun. for instance, you couldn't say 'to me is ikran' in serbian, it wouldn't make sense.

Well apparently in Na'vi it works with nouns (like in Latin) since "fpom" is a noun

ngaru lu fpom = (to or for) you is well.being
which again translates in you have well being

Anyway, you're right that it is a great exercise!
Let's keep unraveling the mysteries

Eywa Ngahu
Etx