Mawey Na'via, Mawey

tsrräfkxätu · January 13, 2010, 04:33:49 AM

Hi,

To me, the grammaticality of that sentence (as spoken by Saldaña) is dubious for two reasons.

Firstly, because an adjective, mawey (calm), is used in a verbal sense (calm down.) This could be allowed, of course, but to my knowledge, there isn't another attestation of this phenomenon in the movie. At any rate, it sounds an awful lot like a direct translation of the English "Easy, guys, easy!", which is a language-specific, idiomatic construction (probably a shortened version of the idiom "[take it] easy" etymologically.)

The second problem is that [a] sound at the end of the word Na'vi or the beginning of mawey (which is less likely due to the long pause in between.) The a binding morpheme comes to mind as a possible explanation, but that doesn't really make sense here, in a verbal construction; also, if it were an adjective, then the first half of the sentence should have been "Maweya Na'vi [...]." The genitive case marker -yä proposed by others has a whole different sound in it [æ], and would furthermore generate an ill-formed construction.

In conclusion, I'd think that the extra [a] is either a mistake on the actress's part (not the only one, mind you), or something that we have as yet no knowledge of.

This is, of course, just my two nuggets of unobtanium.

Cheers,
blueme

Ftiafpi · January 13, 2010, 09:31:13 AM

Quote from: blueme on January 13, 2010, 04:33:49 AM
Firstly, because an adjective, mawey (calm), is used in a verbal sense (calm down.) This could be allowed, of course, but to my knowledge, there isn't another attestation of this phenomenon in the movie. At any rate, it sounds an awful lot like a direct translation of the English "Easy, guys, easy!", which is a language-specific, idiomatic construction (probably a shortened version of the idiom "[take it] easy" etymologically.)

There is another precedent in the movie of using "calm" as a verb (more or less). In the scene where Neytiri saves Jake you hear her tell the Viperwolf "Mawey-a tsmukan" (or something similar). Saying "calm brother" doesn't make much sense so perhaps it's "be calm brother" (with calm being used as a verb). Also, I somewhat remember there being a "yä" on the end of "tsmukan" so perhaps it's "brother (posses) calm" or something. This is a whole discussion on it's own but it definitely implies that something is going on here that we don't know about.

That said, I do like your idiomatic translation, that would make sense in a way.

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The second problem is that [a] sound at the end of the word Na'vi or the beginning of mawey (which is less likely due to the long pause in between.) The a binding morpheme comes to mind as a possible explanation, but that doesn't really make sense here, in a verbal construction; also, if it were an adjective, then the first half of the sentence should have been "Maweya Na'vi [...]." The genitive case marker -yä proposed by others has a whole different sound in it [æ], and would furthermore generate an ill-formed construction.

Definitely something weird with this sentence, we need a transcript or something for this one.

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In conclusion, I'd think that the extra [a] is either a mistake on the actress's part (not the only one, mind you), or something that we have as yet no knowledge of.

Agreed, though I would lean towards something that we don't know about.

Quote
This is, of course, just my two nuggets of unobtanium.

Hah! Nice.

Bozemoto · January 13, 2010, 03:18:53 PM

Is it possible to make Na'vi masuline?

"Mawey, Na'vian mawey"?

Maybe thats what she say.

tsrräfkxätu · January 13, 2010, 05:58:50 PM

I thought about that too, but the [n] at the end is definitely not there. Also, she utters that sentence while facing three Na'vi warriors, so it should be ayNa'vian (I believe.) Even so, it would be odd as one of the warriors is actually a female.

Txur’Itan · January 13, 2010, 07:00:24 PM

Maybe the -a- is accidental...

-a- could be a speech disfluency or a grammatically useless utterance like "um", which occurs frequently in American English when people have trouble remembering what they are planning to say.

calm my people! "UM"... calm!
calm my people! "UH"... calm!

Ciro · January 13, 2010, 07:05:32 PM

I´m pretty new to Na'vi (my first day actually)
Maybe i´m saying nonsense but i´m pretty sure i hear a letter "T" when she speaks
like : Mawey Na'vitya, Mawey

tute nuereime · January 13, 2010, 07:09:44 PM

Quote from: blueme on January 13, 2010, 05:58:50 PM
I thought about that too, but the [n] at the end is definitely not there. Also, she utters that sentence while facing three Na'vi warriors, so it should be ayNa'vian (I believe.) Even so, it would be odd as one of the warriors is actually a female.

it wouldn't be too off. in spanish "they" is the same for talking to only guys and guy/girl groups (ellos). it could also be that magical trial form because she was talking to three people but that wouldn't work either because she then turns to address the whole group.

tsrräfkxätu · January 13, 2010, 07:48:26 PM

Quote from: tute nuereime on January 13, 2010, 07:09:44 PM
Quote from: blueme on January 13, 2010, 05:58:50 PM
I thought about that too, but the [n] at the end is definitely not there. Also, she utters that sentence while facing three Na'vi warriors, so it should be ayNa'vian (I believe.) Even so, it would be odd as one of the warriors is actually a female.
it wouldn't be too off. in spanish "they" is the same for talking to only guys and guy/girl groups (ellos). it could also be that magical trial form because she was talking to three people but that wouldn't work either because she then turns to address the whole group.

Ha! I swear I wanted to address that in my post, but it slipped my mind. Yes, there are languages that refer to a group collectively as male if it contains at least one male member, however, Na'vi doesn't seem to be one of them. Inflecting either nouns or pronouns for gender is entirely optional in Na'vi (and has a semantic function not a syntactic one as in Spanish), and it seems very unrealistic that Neytiri would go out of her way to address a mixed gender group as "men", when she could have simply used the readily available and gender-neutral "people" root.

gnátxere · January 22, 2010, 01:53:15 PM

just something to think about, i noticed the subtitles said "calm people, calm" without the in it, na'vi is "the people". possible difference for their name for them as a people and using na'vi to adress a group of people? sorta like na'vi "the people" is a noun as it's what they call themselves as a people, but something else (i'm really bad with grammer) whatever it is that you use when your adressing someone, imo it can be a big difference in context between "the people" and "people". and it should be na'viya not na'via.

Tseyk Tìriuä · January 24, 2010, 01:57:18 PM

This is my opinion but...

I think it might be "Mawey Na'viyä Mawey...saying Calm People Calm (people of calmness) Idk its the best I could come up with... xD

täftxuyu · January 31, 2010, 01:49:25 AM

I don't think it's a speech disfluency or masculine of Na'vi... When have you yelled at a kid or a dog and said "Bad uh...Dog!". It just doesn't seem to make sense. And if one of the warriors is female then Neytiri would be incorrectly addressing the group.
Cameron wouldn't put that line in if Neytiri said it wrong. If Jake said it wrong then it would seem natural, but she's supposed to be a native speaker.
The pause between Na'vi-a/yä and mawey make it hard to think that the -a/yä is supposed to be stuck to the mawey. It would be similar to a person saying "Hello the....re!"

That leaves me with either (a) Na'vi-yä or Na'vi-a (my pref is the second one) means either lit. Na'vi's people or (b) is some command form used that we don't know about yet.

Either one makes sense to me.

p.s. I feel like I sound a little mean in there. I'm just debating

kewnya txamew'itan · January 31, 2010, 12:39:41 PM

Following on from the discussion in the maweya tsmukan thread I'm tempted to say that this should be ma oeyä na'vi amawey (be calm my people) with an implied imperative to be.

Given Frommer's pronounciation of inflected forms of oe it seems that oeyä would be pronounced weyä and the ä could easily be elided.

Ftiafpi · January 31, 2010, 05:06:23 PM

Quote from: tìkawngä mungeyu on January 31, 2010, 12:39:41 PM
Following on from the discussion in the maweya tsmukan thread I'm tempted to say that this should be ma oeyä na'vi amawey (be calm my people) with an implied imperative to be.

Given Frommer's pronounciation of inflected forms of oe it seems that oeyä would be pronounced weyä and the ä could easily be elided.

Except we have the subtitled translation as "calm people, calm" (if I recall correctly)

Tseyk Tìriuä · January 31, 2010, 07:05:38 PM

I've been thinking...Na'vi means The People..."Calm, The People calm" doesn't really make sense. Maybe "Na'via" is a way to address specifically a small group of Na'vi.

Tengfya swizaw · January 31, 2010, 07:35:06 PM

I'm not sure that it means "The People", per se. Just when translated as a title or proper noun into english, it gains "the" to distinguish it from just "people".
I'm not entirely sure, though.

kewnya txamew'itan · February 01, 2010, 01:59:00 AM

Quote from: Ftiafpi on January 31, 2010, 05:06:23 PM
Quote from: tìkawngä mungeyu on January 31, 2010, 12:39:41 PM
Following on from the discussion in the maweya tsmukan thread I'm tempted to say that this should be ma oeyä na'vi amawey (be calm my people) with an implied imperative to be.

Given Frommer's pronounciation of inflected forms of oe it seems that oeyä would be pronounced weyä and the ä could easily be elided.

Except we have the subtitled translation as "calm people, calm" (if I recall correctly)

The English translation will be an idiomatic one to make it more easily readable, expecting it to be the literal translation of the Na'vi dialogue is unrealistic.

Quote from: Tiriuä on January 31, 2010, 07:05:38 PM
I've been thinking...Na'vi means The People..."Calm, The People calm" doesn't really make sense. Maybe "Na'via" is a way to address specifically a small group of Na'vi.

Na'viyä would mean of the people and may imply a subset if used without another noun.

Ftiafpi · February 01, 2010, 09:21:28 AM

Quote from: tìkawngä mungeyu on February 01, 2010, 01:59:00 AM
The English translation will be an idiomatic one to make it more easily readable, expecting it to be the literal translation of the Na'vi dialogue is unrealistic.

But, as far as I can tell, each translation that they've done has been spot on so why would they (probably Frommer) add another calm in there if there wasn't one?

kewnya txamew'itan · February 01, 2010, 10:56:01 AM

Frommer didn't add the calm in, he would have taken one away. The script was written in English (as the subtitles) and then translated, it's quite possible that Frommer thought that the two calms would be unnecessary (which seems likely given that effectual infixes can be assumed after they've been used once).

Tseyk Tìriuä · February 08, 2010, 11:43:47 PM

well subject can be implicative in Na'vi maybe its literally:

Calm, (those) of the people, calm
Mawey, Na'viyä, mawey

Tsu'roen · February 09, 2010, 04:16:18 AM

Quote from: tìkawngä mungeyu on February 01, 2010, 10:56:01 AM
Frommer didn't add the calm in, he would have taken one away.

Why would he have taken one "calm" out? I would say the second is an enforcement of the first.

Quote from: tìkawngä mungeyu on February 01, 2010, 10:56:01 AM
The script was written in English (as the subtitles) and then translated, ...

Only that this line wasn't in the original script. This has been added later, possibly ad hoc on set.
And as far as I know Frommer was present on set for all Na'vi scenes. So I doubt he would have let something totally wrong slip through.

Also I would say this is rather a shout than a grammatically complete sentence.

I have listened a lot to this the last two days. She definitely says "a" (as in father) and not "ä". It's really hard to say if there is in fact a "y" between "Na'vi" and "a". It may just be the fast transition from "i" to "a" that creates something that sounds like "iya"

"Mawey Na'vi(y)a! - Mawey!"
"(Be) calm People! - (be) calm!"

Out of the situation it must be a command/strong imperative. Maybe something we don't know yet?