Videos of my attempts at speaking Na'vi

Started by Ezy Ryder, June 19, 2012, 07:42:42 AM

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Ezy Ryder

I've recorded myself reading a text I've written before the video (so that there wouldn't be too many unnecessary pauses). How bad is it?
Here's the link: Is my Na'vi pronunciation correct?
Ps.: There's a translation in the video annotations.

P.A.'li makto

Cleverer people will answer your question about your pronunciation and grammar, the only thing that hit my ear at the first listening was "Avatar" which is "Uniltìrantokx " in Na'vi.
Nice attempt however! :)

facebook: soaia leNa`vi

Plumps

Sran, sìltsana tìfmi nìngay!

I have to admit that I wouldn't understand everything if it wasn't subtitled, but as soon as one is accostumed to your way of pronouncing it gets easier to understand.

Concerning the grammar, I would have to look at the text. Just by listening I noticed things like *leNa'vi lì'fya which should probably be leNa'via lì'fyat in that context due to nume (though we still don't know whether this is transitive). But the missing a was the first thing I noticed. It's needed this side of lì'fya because it's an adjective describing the language more closely.

Same goes for »first time I saw Avatar«, 'awvea alo a oe talmìng nari Avatar-ur or as P.A.'li suggested Uniltìrantokxur – the dative is required because of tìng nari here.

»In my opinion« is tì'efumì oeyä, I'm not sure whether you can say 'efu oer lor as »feels beautiful to me«

The sentence with other languages' grammar being harder than Na'vi was a hard one to 'decipher'. If I understood you correctly it's fìlì'fyayä horen to ketenga aylì'fyayä horen lu ngäzìk. Here, you should pay attention to the ä and ì of ngäzìk – it sounds like *ngazik. And again, the a attached to keteng because it describes languages. In fast speech, though, I expect this to fuse with aylì'fyayä almost like *ketengaylì'fyayä, so in a way, it's probably right :P

Pronunciationwise, be careful for that glottal stop in new tsivun pivängkxo nìNa'vi

»before Avatar's continuation« would be srekrra – although sre lenites before regular nouns, in this construct for some reason, it doesn't ;)

I came across the word for »continuation« but am not sure at the moment whether this is a Frommer-approved word. I couldn't find a reference so far. Could be a remnant from the times where we thought tì- was productive to form nouns.

Otherwise, very good :) In general, we need more of these to practice comprehension :)