[For Beginners] FAQ

[Plumps]

How would one say that "It's raining"?

Tsaw tompa seri. - It (still) raining
But I'm not sure if is correct, because we havn't a word for raining yet.

It's not, I'm afraid In Na'vi rain simply falls or, if it's really raining cats and dogs, attacks

Tompa zup. — Tompa zerup.
It rains. — It's raining.

Tompa 'eko. — Tompa 'ereko.
It's raining hard.

[Tìtstewan]

It's not, I'm afraid In Na'vi rain simply falls or, if it's really raining cats and dogs, attacks

Well, I was afraid of it.
I thought....

Tompa zup. — Tompa zerup. It rains. — It's raining.

Yep, that is good!

Tompa 'eko. — Tompa 'ereko. It's raining hard.

This...hrh! *attack rain!*

[Mr. HelloBye]

How would you say the negative of an adjective, for example, how would you change, "Oel yereiom fkxenit aftxìlor" to say that it's bad tasting, or not delicious?

Edit: How do you express red or orange specifically instead of red-orange (tun)? And how does one express a lighter version of a color, like light red? Does it work like other adjectives, or like in German where one would say "Hellrot" for light red and "Dunkelrot" for dark red?

[Tìtstewan]

Unnecessary content deleted.
- ta Tìtstewan

Edit: How do you express red or orange specifically instead of red-orange (tun)? And how does one express a lighter version of a color, like light red? Does it work like other adjectives, or like in German where one would say "Hellrot" for light red and "Dunkelrot" for dark red?

Just take a look here Mipa ayopin, mipa aylì'u–New colors, new words

[Taronyu Leleioae]

(Can anyone tell me, if is allowed to combine -a- to keftxìlor?)

Except adding ke- to words isn't productive.  Meaning it isn't allowed to be used freely and such a created word would have to go through the LEP for submission...

keftxìlor
kelfpomtokx

You could keep the ke by itself though if describing something.  (Edit:  See next post about clause method...)


Colors:  You can also look at Na'vi in a Nutshell.  Chapter 6 (p19-20).  It describes what to do with colors there as a quick reference...

[Alyara Arati]

The negative of a adjective will created by using ke-UNFORTUNATELY, we cannot do this; only Dr. Frommer can create new adjectives in this way.
ftxìlor - delicious
keftxìlor - not delicious/ undelicious
(Horen leNa'vi 5.1.2.)

lefpomtokx - healthy
kelfpomtokx - unhealthy kelfpomtokx is a word that Karyu Pawl created.  See dictionary.
(Horen leNa'vi 5.1.2.1.)

Oel yerom fkxenit aftxìlor - I have ate delicious vegetable.
Oel yerom fkxenit akeftxìlor - I have ate undelicious vegetable.
(Can anyone tell me, if is allowed to combine -a- to keftxìlor?)

Edit: How do you express red or orange specifically instead of red-orange (tun)? And how does one express a lighter version of a color, like light red? Does it work like other adjectives, or like in German where one would say "Hellrot" for light red and "Dunkelrot" for dark red?

Just take a look here Mipa ayopin, mipa aylì'u–New colors, new words

You would have to say Oel yerom fkxenit a ke lu ftxìlor.  I am eating a vegetable which is not delicious.

[Tìtstewan]

You would have to say Oel yerom fkxenit a ke lu ftxìlor.  I am eating a vegetable which is not delicious.

That I thought first.

Unnecessary content deleted.
- ta Tìtstewan

[Alyara Arati]

I did see Horen.  5.1

Unless otherwise stated, the affixes below are not freely productive.

And ke is not one of the ones that can be used at will.

[Tìtstewan]

I did see Horen.  5.1

Unless otherwise stated, the affixes below are not freely productive.

And ke is not one of the ones that can be used at will.

Ok, my fail.

[Taronyu Leleioae]

To write keftxìlor is allowed (see Horen).

Kehe.  Horen is only describing "how" a word would be created.  Not that it is productive.

For example, on p24, it shows le- and sä- just before ke-.  Those are not productive either...

Quotes from top of p24...

".....However, these affixes should not be considered freely productive, and the meanings of the derived forms are not entirely predictable.  Only with the help of a dictionary can you be certain of a derived word's meaning...  Unless otherwise stated, the affixes below are not freely productive."

If you need an example for one that is, see 5.1.5.2 where it says -yu is freely productive.


Mistakes and misinformation happen...  We all learn from these as reminders...  


(Edit...  Ninja'd by Alyara...)

[Mr. HelloBye]

Also, why do they say 'Tsahik' in the movie when it's supposed to be 'Tsahìk'?
And when you use 'sì' as a suffix, how exactly does that work?

Edit: And with all of those strike lines and confusion, what just happened, because it's not clear what the answer is... (what the heck do you mean by productive, etc.)

[Taronyu Leleioae]

Also, why do they say 'Tsahik' in the movie when it's supposed to be 'Tsahìk'?
And when you use 'sì' as a suffix, how exactly does that work?

Lots of questions!

Regarding the movie..., the pronunciations were... shall we say... of a range of good to cringe worthy.  Words were also initially created that have since been changed or corrected over time.  Spellings or even complete replacements.  Quality of acting and believability were more critical that perfect pronunciation.  But they did try.  Na'viteri and the Na'vi Dictionary are the authoritative references to go by.  With Horen for the rules summary.

As to using sì, you can either keep it alone, or just attach it to the end of the second word.  It's the same method as for adpositions.  However using sì this way is not very common.

An example... "It is black and white"

Po lu layon sì teyr   >   Po lu layon teyrsì.



Edit's in "productive" explanation...  

There are certain prefixes and suffixes that you can add to a word to legally change it.  An example would be...   menari.  Which means two eyes.  However you will not find menari in the dictionary.  Only nari.  For some of these changes, it is legal to do so without having the word submitted through the LEP process for approval.  If using this prefix or suffix is allowed, it is said to be productive.  (Meaning you can do this!)

Some examples of productive changes would be, adding the plural quantities of two, three, or many (me+, pxe+, ay+) to the front of a noun (the + means lentition happens changing certain letters).  For endings, a productive change could be -tsyìp which means (tiny or small version of...)

However for the majority of these prefixes and suffixes, they are NOT productive.  Such as tì-, sä-, le-, etc... or even adding si (helper verb) to add to an adj or noun to create a verb.  What this means is, you can't just make them up.  Why are the rules there explaining how to create such words?  For reference so that you understand how words were created from.

Sometimes you will find words "missing" from the dictionary that one might think would be logically there and included.  They just haven't been created/approved yet.  And it is sometimes a very very slow process.  So you learn to creatively find ways of saying what you want through other words that are available.

[Tirea Aean]

Ok, I think I kinda got it, 'Oel tsole'a tsatutanit a nga polom' means 'I say that guy that you kissed' where the 'that you kissed' saying which, or describing, the guy of topic.

Actually, that's an ambiguous sentence because there is no case ending on nga 'you'. It could either mean '... the man who you kissed' or '... the man who kissed you'. I think another L or T ending is needed

oel tsole'a tsatutanit a ngal polom.
I've seen that man who you've kissed.

oel tsole'a tsatutanit a ngati polom.
I've seen that man who has kissed you.

Actually, I don't know if I ever got around to posting it in /language-updates, but I emailed Paul about this when Kemaweyan brought this up a couple months ago. It turns out that it is not ambiguous. [...] a nga polom cannot possibly be mistaken for "[...]which kissed you" but I agree, here I'd use ngal. And this:

oeru sunu fì'u a oe tse'a = "I like [[the very fact]] that I see."
oeru sunu fì'u a oel tse'a = "I like this thing which I see."

I should probably go dig up that email and post it.

Also, why do they say 'Tsahik' in the movie when it's supposed to be 'Tsahìk'?
And when you use 'sì' as a suffix, how exactly does that work?

Edit: And with all of those strike lines and confusion, what just happened, because it's not clear what the answer is... (what the heck do you mean by productive, etc.)

If I understand what the question is, the answer is:

[...] a ke lu ftxìlor.

But I don't see why not just say [...] a lu ftxìvä'.

And "productive / freely productive"...

Just check out this quote by Paul Frommer made toward the beginning of our days when everyone was making up all kinds of stuff because our vocab was limited (like it kinda still is):

With the limited lexicon we currently have, it's natural for people to try to use the derivational affixes freely to fill gaps. But in fact they aren't freely productive, which is why forms with tì-, sä-, le-, and nì- need to be listed in the lexicon. It's not a given that any particular root can take these affixes, and even when the form exists, the meaning won't necessarily be predictable. (E.g. tìrol means 'song' rather than 'singing.' And in English, "ordinarily" does not mean "in an ordinary manner.") But you don't have that problem with a nìfya'o adverbial--the process is always productive and always interpreted as a manner adverbial.

So when someone says something is NOT productive, it means "ya can't just go and slap that in there and have it work." or "what you just did is currently not yet proven correct." and when it IS productive, it means "sure, go ahead, put this on Anything within reason, and it will be just fine."

[Mr. HelloBye]

What is the LEP process? And I looked at the color post; it mentioned that 'ngul' can mean drab, so could you say 'ngula rim' for drab yellow?
Edit: but I don't think that would work, it would have to become an adverb, so how would that work out (possible?, word ordering, etc. )?
Edit: also, the Na'viteri post that was linked to about -a- phrases, he wrote Seattle as Siätll; so how does one do that/what are the rules. Thanks for all the help!

[Taronyu Leleioae]

What is the LEP process?

Ah... So many new things.  Ok, long winded explanation...  

The LEP standards for Lexical Expansion Project.  It is a small, select committee of experienced LN members that rotate every couple of months.  It is their task to review properly submitted suggestions (there is an anonymous thread for this), to make comments, and to work together to come up with goals and even themes for that submission.  (I don't profess to know the details, but this is just an overview.)  The LEP is authorized to then submit these new words (with sentence examples, etc.) to Karyu Pawl for consideration.  He might approve.  He might not.  It may be years before he decides to approve something.  He controls every word and rule for the language.  But he has been generous and open to allow LN to work for him to help manage the language and suggest new development.

[Mr. HelloBye]

Jus to make sure you know, I made some edits to my last post

Edit: how does one says thanks for something? An example being, as I said in my last post, "Thanks for all the help"

[Taronyu Leleioae]

And I looked at the color post; it mentioned that 'ngul' can mean drab, so could you say 'ngula rim' for drab yellow?
Edit: but I don't think that would work, it would have to become an adverb, so how would that work out (possible?, word ordering, etc. )?

Well, drab yellow isn't really a color per se.  (yellow that is drab).  But to me, ngul means gray more than drab (yes, I know it's that way in the dictionary listing both).  What you are saying is grey yellow?  It doesn't make much sense.

You could use "sì" for a simple sentence.  Tskxe lu rim sì ngul.  (Txkxe = rock)

You could also specify yellow further using the adposition na- (remember to keep the - when you do this specific method with na-)
Tskxe arim-na-X    (rock yellow as/like X)  And you have the a- in front of the adjective so it points/connects to the noun you are describing.  It seems odd, but if you look in NiaN (Na'vi in a Nutshell) on the top of p20 in Chapter 6, it explains it fairly clearly...



============

Saying thanks..!

Ok.  Saying simple thanks (irayo) is easy.

Saying thanks "for something", or apologizing "for something", requires the use of the topical (-ìri, ri) case.  It's the most complicated case in the Na'vi language and it takes time to accept and just go with it.  Often, beginners avoid it altogether.  But topic is used for many things as you will learn as you go along.  Don't worry about it much.

However, to answer your question...  WM Annis did a nice intro posting regarding topicals in the beginner section.
http://forum.learnnavi.org/syntax-grammar/navi-linguistics-practicum-topicals-%28i%29/

At the top, an example was given:

Sìpawmìri oe ngaru seiyi irayo.

What this means...  When you have a word in the topical (-ìri or ri), it HAS TO be moved (out of order) to the front of the sentence (or the clause in the sentence).  But using this example... it breaks down like this...

Question = tìpawm,  questions (plural) is ay+ tìpawm.  However, the + means lentition meaning possible letter change.  And in this example, there is one.  The t becomes an s.  (See NiaN on p2).  So the plural of question(s) > sìpawm.

Now the thing you thank for (or apologize for) goes into the topical case.  Hence sìpawm > sìpawmìri.

Then you have:  oe = I/me.

The person you are giving thanks (to) is nga = you.  This needs the dative case, thus nga-ru > ngaru.

The verb "to thank" is [irayo si].  Si is the helping verb, and with si verbs, the infixes go inside the helping verb.  NOT the main verb.  Thus you have s<ei>(y)i.  You add the y if you have an i-i collision to split them up for pronunciation.  So s<ei>i turns into seiyi.  Which means happily do this verb.  So.... irayo seiyi means...  (happily) thank.  You may notice the words are out of order, but this is ok in Na'vi when they are back to back.  Having irayo on the end simply suggests a bit more emphasis/focus on that "thank" part.  You'll learn this.  It's just an optional but subtle word order option.

Putting it all together...   Questions (the thing you are thanking for) / I / (to) you / happily thank...
Rearranging the words for english speakers, it becomes...  "I (happily) thank you for the questions."

This may seem an odd format, but it is a style which is idiomatic.  Which essentially means specific and in the style of the language.  If the idiomatic concept is still confusing, think of "sayings/expressions" that are unique to a language.  Something you might say in english, doesn't translate properly to say german.  You have the words, but the meaning of the words (or combination of such words) is different to german speakers.

[Mr. HelloBye]

About the yellow drab, that just means that it's a dull (drab) version of the color. Compare pictures of the color olive with pictures of olive drab. drab is actually a yellowish color if you look it up...

Edit: regarding the last post, a good German example is 'Das Backpeifungsgesicht'

[Taronyu Leleioae]

About the yellow drab, that just means that it's a dull (drab) version of the color. Compare pictures of the color olive with pictures of olive drab. drab is actually a yellowish color if you look it up...

Nods.  I know what you are getting at.  The challenge is that you are trying to modify an adjective with an adjective, and in Na'vi that really doesn't work.  You can actually place an adjective on either side of a noun that they are modifying...

Ngul-a tskxe a-rim   (note that the a on each adjective points towards the noun).

But using drab in this case, really is confusing as it's a color more than a shade.  Hence my suggesting using the na- construction because you can then say... yellow (as/like) X.  Where X is some object...

IE...  Blue as the sky.  Yellow as the sun.

[Tirea Aean]

saying "light/dark/dull/shiny <colour>" is an interesting question. I can't say I've ever had to say that. But right now, making a comparison by saying something like "yellow like a <object that happens to be some specific dull yellow colour>" then that would get the point across, I think.

About the yellow drab, that just means that it's a dull (drab) version of the color. Compare pictures of the color olive with pictures of olive drab. drab is actually a yellowish color if you look it up...

Nods.  I know what you are getting at.  The challenge is that you are trying to modify an adjective with an adjective, and in Na'vi that really doesn't work.  You can actually place an adjective on either side of a noun that they are modifying...

Ngul-a tskxe a-rim   (note that the a on each adjective points towards the noun).

But using drab in this case, really is confusing as it's a color more than a shade.  Hence my suggesting using the na- construction because you can then say... yellow (as/like) X.  Where X is some object...

IE...  Blue as the sky.  Yellow as the sun.

^ this too.