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Welcome!If you're reading this you're probably very excited, and jonesin' to get learning that cool language you heard on the screen, or in any one of the many interviews that are up. You're in the right place - we're excited too! This forum is real new, and everyone here is all eager and pumped up after watchin' the movie. That said, since the inception of this forum, we've compiled a lot of information, and answered a lot of questions! None of us here claims to be an expert at the language, as it is extremely new, and this will continue to be the case until Frommer starts posting here (fingers crossed!)
Some of us are, however pretty knowledgeable with what is available to us. We've got linguists, PHD's, 15 year olds, artists and supergeeks in our collective, and some of us are learning weirdly fast. Others, (me) are not. Most of the moderators are pretty knowlegeable, or pretty helpful, so listening to them would be a good idea.
So where do you start? Hopefully right here. Things could get really confusing and annoying if you don't follow some basic guidelines (other than the ones you agreed to when you registered.) Firstly, and this is perhaps not a guidelines, but a strong suggestion, you should most definitely LURK.
There is a good chance that your question has been answered, or can easily be answered by looking around the beginner forum, or the child-forums within. The intermediate speakers are hopefully going to come up with some sort of base cirriculum or some kind of starting point to suggest to completely new people, and hopefully there will be a FAQ soon, but for now, just lurk around. Consider that, if you don't see your question answered, there might be a topic that it would go best under, instead of making a completely new topic.
Secondly,
Read this PostThirdly, you should know how to write na'vi in this forum:
to Start, the Na'vi language uses ì and ä. You can acheieve these letters via copy-pasting, but it might be quicker to learn the keyboard shortcuts:
For PC, alt plus keycodes are used:
alt + 141 = ì
alt + 132 = ä
alt + 0204 = Ì
alt + 142 = Ä
For Mac,
Option + ` then press i = ì
Option + u then press a = ä
In the beginner area, Infixes, Suffixes and Prefixes need be clearly identified according to the following:Infixes be isolated by the use of greater than/less than symbols: <>
Suffixes and prefixes be separated by the use of the hyphen : -
For example:
"Oeri Tìrmaron" would become
"Oe-ri T<ìrm>aron"... which, while perhaps less immediately legible, is easier to decipher for beginners (like me) who don't quite know what all the linguistic jargon means.
Additionally, when posting a phrase, question, or statment in Na'vi, i'm sure beginners would also appreciate the translation in the same post. For example
Nga-ri ke lu taronyuYou are not a hunterThis will allow others to learn, or if you make a mistake, it'll help others correct you as they'll know what you're trying to get at.
Futhermore, if you want to go really crazy (and you should) it would be extremely effective if you used a 'Trilinear gloss,' for example:
Oe-l nga-ti kam‹ei›eI-ERG you-ACC See‹LAUD›
"I See you" (a greeting)Notice also that i'm using
bold for the Na'vi Phrase or Sentence, standard text for the gloss, and
Italics for the English translation. Furthermore, the phrase is separated from the rest of the text. All of this increases legibility, and the likeliness that someone will understand what you're trying to say and be then willing to help.
Edit: If you need help understanding the inflections, and especially what terms are used or should be used in the trilinear gloss, download and look at
this document. The English list is given at the end, while the Na'vi list is sprinkled throughout, with explanations. - Taronyu
