Pronunciation of ì in Vocabulary Clips

[kdreeves]

I'm wondering if there's a rule regarding ì in context that I missed. Without getting into IPA, I've noted fairly consistently that the vowel is "eh," not "ee" or "ih."

Examples that seem accurate when played:

kaltxì = kal-TXEY
kxanì - KXAH-ney
nìtxan - neh-TXAHN
tìrol = teh-ROHL

My question then pertains to txìng. When I play the audio sample, I get:

txìng = tx-IHNG

Shouldn't this be tx-EHNG?

Would that I had a microphone so that I could illustrate, but unfortunately I do not at the present time. Is there a rule governing ì that would change its sound in context, or is the audio example too "ih"-sounding?

[Erimeyz]

The only absolute pronunciation guidance we have is IPA, Frommer's own recorded samples (very few), and the movie (which may or may not actually be "correct" due to errors by actors).

Na'vi is phonetic, so ì is pronounced the same way everywhere all the time.  There aren't any variations like "e" in "seat", "set", and "forte", if that's what you're asking about.  There appear to be some cases where there is elision, i.e. sometimes some vowels that "should" be there get dropped, but we don't have the rules for that yet - it's just something we've noticed Frommer doing a few times.

ì should be pronounced like the i in "bit".  I would call that "ih", not "eh", so it may be that you're thinking it sounds different than it should.

I just now relistened to kaltxì, kxanì, nìtxan, and tìrol.  I agree that kaltxì and kxanì sound more like "eh" or "ey" than "ih" - but they shouldn't.  They should sound like "ih", as in "bit".  To my ears, nìtxan sounds almost like "ee" (Na'vi i), and tìrol sounds almost like "eh" or even "uh".  Again, they shouldn't.  They should sound like "ih" as in "bit".  Honestly, they're not bad, and getting them right is hard.  They're close, but they're not perfect (yet).  The people recording them work at them pretty carefully, and even so they go through several iterations as other people listen and provide feedback and corrections.

You can listen to Frommer say a few ì words:

Kaltxì - http://www.archive.org/download/FrommerSpokenNavi/Kaltx.mp3

Fayvrrtep fìtsenge lu kxanì. - http://www.archive.org/download/FrommerSpokenNavi/FayvrrtepFtsengeLuKxan.mp3

Kaltxì. Ngaru lu fpom srak? - http://www.archive.org/download/FrommerSpokenNavi/KaltxNgaruLuFpomSrak.mp3

The largest collection of Frommer's pronunciation is his message to the community.  There's lots of examples of ì there, and all the other letters too.  Read and listen at http://masempul.org/upxare-niinglisi/, the Na'vi transcription is at http://wiki.learnnavi.org/index.php?title=Corpus#A_Message_From_Paul and an audio clip you can play on your own is at http://forum.learnnavi.org/intermediate/empisriri-fitrra-upxare-ta-karyu-pawl-mp3-from-todays-message-from-paul/

Hope this helps!

  - Eri