Bible in Na'vi

Started by Col Quaritch, March 15, 2010, 03:33:28 PM

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Col Quaritch

As the topic says, I and a small group of volunteers are going to start a most monumental task of translating the Holy Bible into Na'vi. At this time I have TesterScott on board and please forgive me I know I have another but your name escapes me at the moment so please pipe up you know who you are :) As to which version its already decided that King James is most well known so from there we will do our very best to translate it into the na'vi language. So biggest help I know I can ask for is grammar in the navi language hehe English too I am sure as well. But I feel for now with just 3 of us on this team we should each take a book and start from there. I am going to start with my fav John. So expect to see some posting of that real soon here.

Ps....yes the Col has a kinder side he just dose not get to come out and play as often :P

Ok edit found your name sorry dude Tìmuiäyä'itan has also asked me in pm's to join the team in doing this task.


eanayo

Very good, dear Colonel! I love your project!

Just out of curiosity: How exactly are you dealing with God, Jesus and all that, and is your translation more of a "conveys the sense" or quite literal? I'm asking because I had a stab at Genesis (well, only the very beginning) a few weeks back, and just substituting God with Eywa didn't seem to be appropriate ;)

If I like the way you're going, I might be interested in joining your cause, though I don't want to promise anything, I'll be pretty busy the next couple of weeks ;)

But at any rate: Best of luck, and looking forward to see this happening!

Visit Our Dictionary for eBook readers, The Na'vi Word Puzzle Game and the Cryptogram Generator
srake tsun pivlltxe san [ˈɔaχkat͡slʃwɔaf]?

Col Quaritch

Well as for Jesus stay the same something I notice is proper names still remain with possible exception of a spelling or two. In a letter we got from Dr Frommer he spelled his name Paul "Pawl" and when in the audio version of that letter it had more of a longer OW sound to it, well at least to my ears so I'm assuming that technically there is no letter U in Na'vi, I could be wrong I am just getting started in this. As to God oh yea Eywa is out. Best I can say at this time is either resort to the Hebrew spelling of some of the names and I.e. replace those letters with na'vi letters or just leave them alone all together till a very better translation becomes aviable to us. Whats most important is that the message remain the same be it in English or na'vi. I would love to have you join our project , first there is no set time period on anyone in turn in their chapters or books. but as we feel we are as done as possible I will make a ftp link aviable to upload your work so I can compile it all together so once done it can be offered (free of course) as a completed Bible to any that wish to download it.


TesterScot

#3
Quote from: Col Quaritch on March 15, 2010, 03:59:52 PM
Well as for Jesus stay the same something I notice is proper names still remain with possible exception of a spelling or two. In a letter we got from Dr Frommer he spelled his name Paul "Pawl" and when in the audio version of that letter it had more of a longer OW sound to it, well at least to my ears so I'm assuming that technically there is no letter U in Na'vi, I could be wrong I am just getting started in this. As to God oh yea Eywa is out. Best I can say at this time is either resort to the Hebrew spelling of some of the names and I.e. replace those letters with na'vi letters or just leave them alone all together till a very better translation becomes aviable to us. Whats most important is that the message remain the same be it in English or na'vi. I would love to have you join our project , first there is no set time period on anyone in turn in their chapters or books. but as we feel we are as done as possible I will make a ftp link aviable to upload your work so I can compile it all together so once done it can be offered (free of course) as a completed Bible to any that wish to download it.

I'd been thinking along the lines of "Iyawä" or "Yawä" (Yaweh) for God, as the sound 'fits' better for na'vi; hadn't got to thinking about a suitable verbalisation for Jesus - again "Iyezu" or "Yezu"; as, if I remember correctly, na'vi doesn't have a "sh" sound (please correct me if I'm wrong).

EDIT - Woo Hoo!!! I managed to post okay!!!! (First time in 3 days).



Irayoru 'Awve Tìkameie for the profile pic. Go to http://www.mpandoraln.weebly.com to see his ongoing work.
Brand New Learner - please correct my usage 8-)

Col Quaritch

hmmm that dose bring some interesting thoughts. Can't say I'm wild about the Iyawa version but I'm not the final authority of the project as a whole. But I do understand what you are trying to say. This is where it would really help if the good Dr gives us a better word for God. I think leaning more twords Yaweh or as you had put Yawa might be one of our better choices for now. Scott did you know what book you wanted to tackle? I'm starting on John well the first line so far :P


Tìmuiäyä'itan

Oh Colonel, my Colonel...

finally I got to this place. TesterScot sent me. As for my nick, I tried to translate Benjamin (son of right hand/things) into Na'vi, Tìmuiäyä'itun is what I came up with...

As for the translating part I wonder, do we translate whole books on ourselves, or will we bring certain lines to the forum to crosscheck?
I for my part, being new to Na'vi would appreciate as much talk as possible on how sentences are built (we can only win understanding the language, and that'll enable us to translate even better).

I mentioned before that I tried a translation of Psalm 23, I posted two versions as of yet in different forums (the former having some bigger mistakes as I found). I have not reviewed the latter version yet.

Problem is, I started from Hebrew text, so this is maybe not compatible...? KJV would be fine as well, but I like the idea of polishing my Hebrew/Greek a bit while doing this (okay, it'll make things slower, I know)...

As for God's name, I chose yawä because I think it fits best, well as long as both of the vowels are pronounced like in German, but it seems they are (a like... oh well, too many English accents. Like British after... And ä more like the American pronounciation of a...). What I wonder is: Does the KJV have the name of God printed, or does it rather, like Luther, use "Lord" instead. How about swokeyktan in that case...?

I'd try Jesus with Yäsos, which might get close to Greek (though they pronouce it Yisos today, oe fpìl)... any way we do it, we should keep a list of names to get all those names that reappear all the time the same in each book...
Maybe there should also be a list for other important terms that appear throughout the bible. Like messiah, covenant, creation, salvation, redemption, sin... (that could lead to some serious discussion, if everybody has a different idea of what those exactly mean, but being smukan, that shouldn't tear us apart :))

As I started with the psalms, I think I'll stick with it (though revelation would be nice, too ;D but oh, too many words missing)...

Another question to the round: Translation of meaning (many discussions about meaning) or translation of words (many discussions about syntax)?


I think that was it for now, my thoughts I mean. Would be great if we could get this done (okay, start first ::)).

Yawä ngahu

PS: I wouldn't have a big problem using Eywa for God. Christians have through the ages taken up terms with a certain meaning and redifined them just fine... Only thing: One should know the difference. As of now, I am not sure if the movie Eywa is part of creation or the creatress of Pandora, other problem...
srungìri ftära tsyokxìl ngeyä
ke ivomum futa pesuru
lu srung skiena tsyokxta ngeyä
ulte Jesus a nerìn ayfo pamlltxe
san sutehu lu keltsun
slä Yawähu frakem tsunslu sìk.

TesterScot

Quote from: Col Quaritch on March 15, 2010, 07:06:42 PM
hmmm that dose bring some interesting thoughts. Can't say I'm wild about the Iyawa version but I'm not the final authority of the project as a whole. But I do understand what you are trying to say. This is where it would really help if the good Dr gives us a better word for God. I think leaning more twords Yaweh or as you had put Yawa might be one of our better choices for now. Scott did you know what book you wanted to tackle? I'm starting on John well the first line so far :P

I know what you mean about the "Iyawä" version; I'm more inclined towards "Yawä", too.
"Iyawä" comes out as Ee-ya-weh; as opposed to "Yawä", which gives Ya-weh, the more common usage in some churches.
The "ä" at the end - makes a big difference to the sound of the word. "ä" = "eh", rather than "a", as in "father".

I was thinking of starting with something simple - [sarcasm]like Revelation[/sarcasm] - or something small - [sarcasm]like the book of Psalms[/sarcasm]
::) ;D



Irayoru 'Awve Tìkameie for the profile pic. Go to http://www.mpandoraln.weebly.com to see his ongoing work.
Brand New Learner - please correct my usage 8-)

Tìmuiäyä'itan

Fpom ngahu!

Hmm, I thought psalms is rather easy, because it is poetry and you are freer than with a real story, as long as you get the message across. Luther did a really good thing back then translating them to German. At some places, he is linguistically plain wrong, but thelogically...
I don't wanna compare myself with Luther though  ;D (not even Lutheran myself ::))

Another advantage of psalms is, that you have small amounts of text (except 119 :o), so you can go one by one...

About a word for God: How about ngopyu = Creator?

Yawä ngahu
srungìri ftära tsyokxìl ngeyä
ke ivomum futa pesuru
lu srung skiena tsyokxta ngeyä
ulte Jesus a nerìn ayfo pamlltxe
san sutehu lu keltsun
slä Yawähu frakem tsunslu sìk.

Col Quaritch

Yea guys what I was thinking is we do say a few lines at time bring them here get the wise all knowing blue kitty's to help our grammar, once were sure that the translation and the message gets across that barrier then you move on to your next few verses. I know this is one serious slow process but I total feel lead to do this. I feel so blessed people have stepped up to say that want to be a part of this cause sheesh talk about being overwhelmed. I guess our first biggest work is a unified agreed upon navi word for God, first and foremost this. Lets face it cant have a good Holy Bible with out him now can we :)

Now with 'Ngopyu' = creator well thats cool but thats more descriptive to me than really a name but I see where your going with this. Would seem so far the best we have at the working moment is Yawa (how the heck are you guys doing the double dots over the A? ) Well I think thats our first real goal gotta find a very very good word for God in Na'vi. Till then my brothers,

Yawa ngahu


Tìmuiäyä'itan

#9
I do the ä with the appropriate key  ;D We have that letter in German...

But there is also a button, between the button for list and the button for ì, that should print the ä as well...

Test: ä

Yes, it does ;)

So, I assume I put the first few lines of the psalm here?

Yawä ngahu


PS: I wasted some time creating this project signature pic. I thought marketing is important these days, and we could well need some more helping hands. If any of you is interested in the link to the pic, orknows how to make a better one, pm me.


Update: Seems pamrel is the word for "writing" (n), I guess that would make swoka pamrel or pamrel swok "Holy Scripture"... finally we gotta give our baby a name... what do you think?

Update: Okay, maybe one of you guys can have a look at that. I think this here should be the right place to discuss it, I'll leave a comment on this on the other thread:

fiway Davidur(David)
This song David-DAT
lu oeru hawnuyu fwa yawä (JHWH) livu
be me-DAT protect-person that-which yawä be-SUBJ
'erì'eiawn oehu sìltsana ayu
remain-IMPF-LAUD I-with good thing-PLU

yereiem tseng ne pxasula tìyomyä pol oeti
put-IMPF-LAUD place-to fresh-ADJ.M NMLZ-eat-GEN he-ERG I-ACC
fyawerìntxeiu pay ne tsawnurokxa tsengyä pol oeti
guide-IMPF-LAUD water-to rest-PART.P-ADJ.M place-GEN he-ERG I-ACC

pol oeru tìreyit a'awnia
zamerungeie
he-ERG I-DAT live-NMLZ-ACC ADJ.M-lose oneself-PART.P
bring-IMPF-LAUD
oeti fpi stxo poyä fya'o ìlä
teykìreian pol
I-ACC for the sake of name he-GEN path along
walk-CAUS-LAUD he-ERG

txo kivä ka lehrrapa tseng tìterkupyä oe
oel ke kamole tìkawngit
if go-SUBJ across dangerous-ADJ.M place NMLZ-die-GEN I
I-ERG not see-PERF evil-ACC
taweyk nga loleiu hu oe
oeti ngayä tìsteu sivi tskol sì tukrul
because you be-PERF-LAUD with I
I-ACC you-GEN brave-NMLZ-V-SUBJ bow-ERG and spear-ERG

ngal oeru wutsuti yoleiem eo
wusemyu wä oe
you-ERG I-DAT meal-ACC put-PERF-LAUD in front of
fight-PART.A-AGENT.N against I
oeti yoleiur ngal
ulte txana tìnäkit tìng ngal oeru
I-ACC wash-PERF you-ERG
and much-ADJ.M drink-NMLZ-ACC give you-ERG I-DAT

nìngay tìngay sì tìsiltsan nereiong
ìlä oe ayfratrr oeyä tìrey
truely truth an good-NMLZ follow-IMPF-LAUD
via/following I PL-every-day I-GEN live-NMLZ
ulte aytrryä oeyä tìngim
mì helku yawäyä kelku soluyi oeri
and PL-day-GEN I-GEN I long-NMLZ
in house yawä-GEN house V-PERF-HON

My idea of how to translate Psalm 23...
srungìri ftära tsyokxìl ngeyä
ke ivomum futa pesuru
lu srung skiena tsyokxta ngeyä
ulte Jesus a nerìn ayfo pamlltxe
san sutehu lu keltsun
slä Yawähu frakem tsunslu sìk.

TesterScot

Accents -

There a couple of other ways to do it, too...

If you are using Mozilla Firefox browser; use this add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7169
it adds the ability, to type accented characters, to firefox.

Alternatively
hold down your ALT key & type 0236 (on the numeric keypad) to get ì

hold down your ALT key & type 0204 (on the numeric keypad) to get Ì

hold down your ALT key & type 0228 (on the numeric keypad) to get ä

and

hold down your ALT key & type 0196 (on the numeric keypad) to get Ä.

See?  Simples  ;D



Irayoru 'Awve Tìkameie for the profile pic. Go to http://www.mpandoraln.weebly.com to see his ongoing work.
Brand New Learner - please correct my usage 8-)

Col Quaritch

#11
You rock! I think its safe to say from the team we have that Yawä will be our Navi name for God. As to proper names such as Mark or John I was thinking they remain the same. Moat aka dragonlady said Jakes name just fine just with acent to it. I don't recall dose anyone if in the subtitles of speaking his name were any letters replaced?

I'll be putting my first posting here tonight problem be doing it like a YLT since my navi is very very poor. But that I guess is why we have this thread to help each other get it in the right order and its proper meaning.

Yawä ngahu


pbhead

I cannot wait to see what you come up with. 

As far as checking what you have done, anything you post here, will certainly be checked... however, my navi is prolly worse than yours... so all I will prolly be able to do is fix like little grammer things i notice.

Tìmuiäyä'itan

#13
I think this is the most important, to have the grammar that way everyone understands us. Would be rather cool if we could get people from a non european language background on board, because when we translate from English and then for a check back into English, we might not see all problems. So if YOU read this now and your mothertungue is not one of the Roman-Germanic branch, please consider joining :D

Yawä ngahu...

Update: Okay, so for God we use Yawä and for proper names the English ones. Gotta change the Psalm ;)
srungìri ftära tsyokxìl ngeyä
ke ivomum futa pesuru
lu srung skiena tsyokxta ngeyä
ulte Jesus a nerìn ayfo pamlltxe
san sutehu lu keltsun
slä Yawähu frakem tsunslu sìk.

Tìmuiäyä'itan

Hey Colonel, instead of typing all those numbers to get äs and ìs, you might want to have a look here:

http://forum.learnnavi.org/your-projects-other-resources/nausipa-graces-favorite-keyboard-layout-)/msg145737/#msg145737


Yawä ngahu
srungìri ftära tsyokxìl ngeyä
ke ivomum futa pesuru
lu srung skiena tsyokxta ngeyä
ulte Jesus a nerìn ayfo pamlltxe
san sutehu lu keltsun
slä Yawähu frakem tsunslu sìk.

Col Quaritch

Yea, I have yet to hear from TesterScott on the matter but I feel Yawä is our best choice for God at this time. So thats one hurdle out of the way. I agree with you Timuiaya as many other speaking languages we can get on this project by far the beter im sure. I just feel so blessed with the two of you I have now :) Oh love your banner by the way very cool I may ask to borrow a copy of that to add to my own sig.


Tìmuiäyä'itan

Sure you can ;D That's what I made it for. The pic is freely available in the net, so you don't need to copy. All you have to do is get this:

[url=http://forum.learnnavi.org/your-projects-other-resources/bible-in-navi/]
[IMG]http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/1691/signaturbiblelenaviproj.jpg[/img]
[/url]


into your signature. That'll put the picture and add the link to this thread, at least it should (works for me).

Yawä ngahu
srungìri ftära tsyokxìl ngeyä
ke ivomum futa pesuru
lu srung skiena tsyokxta ngeyä
ulte Jesus a nerìn ayfo pamlltxe
san sutehu lu keltsun
slä Yawähu frakem tsunslu sìk.

Col Quaritch

Okay so I'm sitting here slowly working on the first few verses of John and I am wondering do the words "the" and "was" even exsist in navi? Or are these kind of words that are just assumed when spoken or read? Till the mean time the words I cant find in Navi I am just leaving in english in my translations. Should have about first 10 verses of John done soon.


Yawä ngahu


Txur’Itan

#18
Quote from: TesterScot on March 15, 2010, 07:28:21 PM
Quote from: Col Quaritch on March 15, 2010, 07:06:42 PM
hmmm that dose bring some interesting thoughts. Can't say I'm wild about the Iyawa version but I'm not the final authority of the project as a whole. But I do understand what you are trying to say. This is where it would really help if the good Dr gives us a better word for God. I think leaning more twords Yaweh or as you had put Yawa might be one of our better choices for now. Scott did you know what book you wanted to tackle? I'm starting on John well the first line so far :P

I know what you mean about the "Iyawä" version; I'm more inclined towards "Yawä", too.
"Iyawä" comes out as Ee-ya-weh; as opposed to "Yawä", which gives Ya-weh, the more common usage in some churches.
The "ä" at the end - makes a big difference to the sound of the word. "ä" = "eh", rather than "a", as in "father".

I was thinking of starting with something simple - [sarcasm]like Revelation[/sarcasm] - or something small - [sarcasm]like the book of Psalms[/sarcasm]
::) ;D

Pronunciations - You will need an OGG player to play the WIKI sound examples.


.. i .. - | - SOUND
.. w .. - | - SOUND
.. ä .. - | - SOUND
.. a .. - | - SOUND
.. y .. - | - SOUND
.. ì .. - | - SOUND
.. e .. - | - SOUND
.. o .. - | - SOUND
.. u .. - | - SOUND
私は太った男だ。


Tìmuiäyä'itan

Kaltxì ma Col.

I read somewhere that there are no articles (the) in Na'vi, one rather says "this word" or "one word". I guess both will get you in trouble, because "this word" one could understand as referring to the book of John (rather than Christ) and one word could be just any word...
So maybe it'd be something like lì'u Yawäyä, which is already an interpretation (but one that most would agree on I guess)...

"was" is no verb of it's own, but past tense (don't ask which I always get confused with English past tense names) of the verb "be". So you take the verb be and put it into past tense, adding the past tense infix you like, <ay> or <ìy>.

But you could as well leave English words in the text and we discuss them later. I see no problem with that either.

Yawä ngahu
srungìri ftära tsyokxìl ngeyä
ke ivomum futa pesuru
lu srung skiena tsyokxta ngeyä
ulte Jesus a nerìn ayfo pamlltxe
san sutehu lu keltsun
slä Yawähu frakem tsunslu sìk.