Linguistic similarities? (Earth lang.s and Navi)

[~Ayngahu]

Kaltxì nìmun ma frapo. Oel ayngati kameie.

I haven't been active learning more of the language these past few months (although I still practice with what I know)

Basically, I've been thinking about studying communication/languages. To me, learning new communication is very exiting - especially when I get to use it! I feel that this is a calling to me for a realistic working career, that I can enjoy. I'm grateful to have that

As for linguistic similarities: I'm thinking of a way to get started on this path. I'd like to start out soft and study a single new language and was thinking that if I picked a language with some linguestic similarities to Na'vi, I might get some more insight to take up learning it again. Ideally, if some of you with linguestic experience could and would come up with some comments on which languages on earth have linguistic properties similar to Na'vi (such as transitivity etc.), I'd be very appreciative Also, if you happen to have some other comments, ideas or inspiration for me as to the career posibilities within the aspect of communication and linguistics, I'd be just as grateful, too. I don't know much at this point, so I'm looking around for it


Irayo ayngaru nìwotx. Sìlpey oe tsnì ayngaru atan seiyi tìrey.
Ta ~Ayngahu

[Tsamsiyu92]

Na'vi is a tripartite language, which is langauges with the concept of transitivity, unfortunatly, those languages are rare and I doubt you'll find one with a decent amout of speakers though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_language

[Taronyu]

Basque is ergative.

Korean has cool phonology (ejectives!) and a great alphabet.

Polynesian languages sound similar - Malay is particularly the same.

As for Linguistics - you been to college yet? Or no?

[~Ayngahu]

Thankyou both

As for Linguistics - you been to college yet? Or no?

In Denmark we don't have college, so I can safely say no Our system is based on 9 (+1 optional) grade of public school, after which each education seperately demands additional gymnasial study, all of which are branched into different levels of difficulty and specialization. University is (as far as I know, not knowing much) the pinnacle of all educations anywhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Denmark

Reguarding this, I have a 10th grade examn, with which I should well qualify to start gymnasial study.

['Oma Tirea]

Korean has cool phonology (ejectives!) and a great alphabet.

Polynesian languages sound similar - Malay is particularly the same.

Even outside of polynesian languages they may sound quite similar in terms of consonants (e.g. Thai).

I imagine they sound similar to European languages in terms of vowels and tonality.

Also, I just checked on Wikipedia, and apparently, Korean doesn't really have ejectives (although Georgian does, as do many native African, American and Caucasian languages), just a contrast between strongly and normally articulated consonants.

[Pxia Säsngap]

Kaltxì

I know that some of you might not have the same opinion as I have, but I guess this thread is only meant as a brainstorming session which language could be interesting to learn. So please don't freak out when reading my reply, alright?

I don't know all these "exotic" (for me they are exotic) languages, but as I'm not a native speaker in English I find there are several similarities to English. (Maybe you have got the same experiences ma ~Ayngahu; you aren't a native speaker yourself.) Especially concerning expressions and some of the tenses. In German there aren't as many tenses - in English there aren't either, but some more than we've got in German. If I had created this language I would not even have had the idea of creating such tenses, so...
And to the expressions: I don't mean these idioms, just like smiles to you or such. I'm thinking of expressions like the adpositions(couldn't find proper German translations to every adposition) or the tenses with <er>, <ìy> and <ìm>. In German there aren't any of these. <er> is just the same as kemlì'u leNa'vi without a tense-infix; and to speak in a tense like with <ìy> we use the normal future tense with a special additional word in the sentence (German word for "soon" e.g.). Same as with <ìm> and normal past tense+a special additional word (German word for "just" or "a few minutes/... ago" e.g.).

Also I copied the whole NiaN translating it into German(writing it down, helps me to learn sth). But I couldn't translate everything/every sentence into German, because these examples would not have worked with German-Na'vi, but only with English-Na'vi. So I have got some sentences in English in my "German NiaN", because these examples were just "too English".   AND...when I'm writing Na'vi sentences I always use the English sentence as a help to have the correct sentence structure and correct expressions in Na'vi in the end.
EDIT: Using the German sentence and translate it into Na'vi is usually wrong, but translating it from English into Na'vi it's not (Of course I don't mean literally)...
What should I say: Even if Frommer did a great job creating this language and also managed to create some English-unlike rules and expressions and structures, one can still notice that he's English learning Na'vi.

Hope you understand what I'm talking about. I'm afraid this reply won't help you to decide which language you want to learn next (because you can already speak English), but I may have given you good food for thoughts. You could compare Na'vi to English and then, learning the next language, compare these two to the new language. Wouldn't that be interesting? Such as: Are there really more similarities in Na'vi to English than to other languages? (What I wrote is also just subjective, so it could be that I only noticed several similarities to English, while I've overlooked the similarities to Spanish for example, or even to German...)

[wm.annis]

I would say Malay or Indonesian (they're dialects of each other) would give you the experience that is closest to Na'vi.  Plus, Malay-Indonesian is in the top-10 of languages spoken on the planet, when combining native and second-language learning (a hard number to count precisely, but saying it's in the top-10 list is safe).

If I personally had to pick a natural language for the best choice of international language (comparatively easy to learn by the largest number of people), Indonesian wins hands down.  English is only winning these days because of the economic clout of England (once) and the US (up to now).  English is a bear to learn, in pronunciation, grammar and the wretched spelling system.  This is not to say Indonesian is trivial — just a bit easier.

[~Ayngahu]

Ma Pxia Säsngap:

Tsawla 'upxare ngang!
I know exactly what you mean. More than anything else, Na'vi was created on an english foundation, so it shows It's not a bad thing, either, because it gives a good angle from english and there are still some pretty interesting twists, like free word order (took me a while getting used to, but when I did, I fnuod taht the mnid kndia flils in the blnaks, you know? ^^).

Ma wm.annis:

Good to know how Malay-Indonesian stands on a global scale, thankyou When you say "experience close to Na'vi", do you mean phonetic or grammatic?
On a sidenote, I found english really easy to learn, but I believe it has more with my enthusiasm than the actual difficulty. There are many factors

[Pxia Säsngap]

Ma Pxia Säsngap:

Tsawla 'upxare ngang!
I know exactly what you mean. More than anything else, Na'vi was created on an english foundation, so it shows It's not a bad thing, either, because it gives a good angle from english and there are still some pretty interesting twists, like free word order (took me a while getting used to, but when I did, I fnuod taht the mnid kndia flils in the blnaks, you know? ^^).

Totally.
I also don't think that the similarities English-Na'vi are a bad thing. As I already said, it helps me speaking Na'vi.
It's great to hear that you've got the same experiences.

Sorry for the length of my post...   There was just so much to say, and I thought if I didn't explain all this, I'd have some kind of "angry mob" against me claiming that; because there are some people in here who would probably feel hurt or something reading my post. (Have already had some discussions based on such statements of mine. )

[Taronyu]

In Denmark we don't have college, so I can safely say no Our system is based on 9 (+1 optional) grade of public school, after which each education seperately demands additional gymnasial study, all of which are branched into different levels of difficulty and specialization. University is (as far as I know, not knowing much) the pinnacle of all educations anywhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Denmark

Reguarding this, I have a 10th grade examn, with which I should well qualify to start gymnasial study.

Well, I highly suggest that you go to a University that teaches Linguistics, then. I suggest...Edinburgh. But I'm biased.

[Unil Akawng]

What should I say: Even if Frommer did a great job creating this language and also managed to create some English-unlike rules and expressions and structures, one can still notice that he's English learning Na'vi.

Hope you understand what I'm talking about. I'm afraid this reply won't help you to decide which language you want to learn next (because you can already speak English), but I may have given you good food for thoughts. You could compare Na'vi to English and then, learning the next language, compare these two to the new language. Wouldn't that be interesting? Such as: Are there really more similarities in Na'vi to English than to other languages? (What I wrote is also just subjective, so it could be that I only noticed several similarities to English, while I've overlooked the similarities to Spanish for example, or even to German...)

Well, allow me to respectfully disagree with the first part of your statement above, and agree with the second

Firstly, in one of his interviews Karyu Pawl made a point of not letting his native tongue unduly affect his work on Na'vi (sorry, can't find the link right now, but it's out there). And I think he was successfull with that, too.

As for the second part of your quote, perhaps you might find it amusing how many features of Na'vi which are foreign to the native English speakers, occur in my native tongue (Russian, that is). Sounds like [ts] and flapped [r]? Check. Noun cases? Check. (Now, of course Russian has a different assortment of cases, but still). Perfective and imperfective verb aspects? Check. Free subject-object-verb order? Check. Double negation? Check. Diminutive suffixes? Check. Possessive dative construction, even? Check! (It's rarely used in modern Russian, but still it exists. For instance Lolu oeru aungia can be directly translated as "Мне был знак", where "Мне" = I-dat.).

[Pxia Säsngap]

Wow ma Unil Akawng, didn't know that there are so many similarities to Russian... (may be caused by the fact that I unfortunately don't speak any Russian (except for some swear words - which are always the first words one knows... )
Tewti.

[Tompa'Ivong]

yes, they are definitely right on the money when it comes to Malay, also look at one of its cousins, the Hawaiian language, it is a good language to know because it helps a great deal with pronunciation.

[Unil Akawng]

...I unfortunately don't speak any Russian (except for some swear words - which are always the first words one knows... )

Sure. Swear words are of particular interest to any new language student. I'm guilty of that, too.

BTW, there are some Na'vi words that are, well, really awkward in regard to Russian vocabulary.  I mean, of course, srane and srak. In Russia, you don't want to use them while speaking Na'vi in public. Because people will stare.     

[Pxia Säsngap]

...I unfortunately don't speak any Russian (except for some swear words - which are always the first words one knows... )

Sure. Swear words are of particular interest to any new language student. I'm guilty of that, too.

BTW, there are some Na'vi words that are, well, really awkward in regard to Russian vocabulary.  I mean, of course, srane and srak. In Russia, you don't want to use them while speaking Na'vi in public. Because people will stare.     

I know what you're talking about. In Germany you shouldn't use fìkem.   It's not exactly the swear word, but in a sentence one could totally misunderstand it, because it's sound is very close to the swear word...    Unfortunately both words are used reasonably often speaking Na'vi.