Our Dictionary

[Taronyu]

I FIXED IT.

Now, ä and ì are searchable! WAHOOOOOOO!

Also, did some other shiz.

[Plumps]

You ROCK!!!

[Mirri]

I FIXED IT.

Now, ä and ì are searchable! WAHOOOOOOO!

Also, did some other shiz.

*caterwauls*
o/` Did you ever know that you're my heeeeeero o/`
o/` ...ulte fra'u oe nivew lu? o/`
o/` Oel tsun tswon nul.em to ikranit, o/`
o/` ...talun ngari lu hufweti äo oeyä aysyal! o/`

[donjoe]

kem si - use action
kempe si - use what action

"Use"? This is new. Is there anything else that suggests the approximation of "si" to "use"?

[omängum fra'uti]

It's as good an approximation as "make" or "do", which is to say not really.  I can't think of a single English word you could ascribe to "si" which makes sense in all situations.

[donjoe]

Sìltsan, irayo. At least I've got it clear now that "si" =/= "do".

[Java]

How come muntxa is listed as an adjective? Isn't it a noun?

[roger]

Also, "si" does not literally mean "do, make", but it is an auxiliary verb for forming compound verbs.

Then what happens with Neytiri's first line to Tsu'tey: "Ma Tsu'tey, kempe si nga?". Doesn't it still mean "... what are you doing?"? How could it if "si" were only an auxiliary?

Good point. That's why I had assumed si was simply "to make/do", but I'd forgotten about it. I've asked Frommer; hopefully he'll clarify. Or maybe we have the transcription wrong, though it does seem pretty clear that's what she said.

[roger]

I'll post these in our corpus in a minute.

what's the diff tween 'vay' and 'mi'?

F: Vay (ADP-) means 'up to.' It can be used in several senses, not just temporal: "He counted up to 35" or "Follow the river up to the land of destruction" (a line from one of the video games).

Note vaykrr (CONJ): until.

how is dropping the 'a' from 'taluna' and 'taweyka' affected by swapping clause order?

F: Yes, good point--the 'a' can drop only if the construction is head first, with the reason clause following. There's precedent for that kind of thing, however. With le- adjectives, the 'a' drops when the adjective is post-nominal but not when it's pre-:

txon lefpom

* lefpom txon

lefpoma txon

I hadn't thought of atalun vs. alunta! Interesting. Let me consider that, and whether it has implications for other conjunctions. For the time being, though, let's make the canonical form alunta.

[I presume the same would hold for 'taweyka' --> 'aweykta' as well]

[suomichris]

Just browsing through the dictionary, and noticed a couple of things:

• futa: [futa] FE conj. that (subjunctive marker) - Not sure what that "subjunctive marker" is doing in there--should be "subordinate clause marker"?
• 'it: [Pit] S n. bit, a small amount AND
• *'it: [Pit] T n. progeny derived from 'itan son and 'ite daughter - Not sure these are separate forms.  I had been considering the "little bit" to be the source of the 'itan and 'ite forms.

[tawway]

I FIXED IT.

Now, ä and ì are searchable! WAHOOOOOOO!

Also, did some other shiz.

irayo just isn't enough. Great work 

You're trying to hit a moving target.

[Taronyu]

Edited vay--, deleted *'it, edited futa.

Thanks you guys.

Glad you like the new one. Mirri, you're crazy, haha.

[tsamsiyu´]

hello i´m Marcel from germany and i have see Avatar now at twice and i think it is the best film evver i see.
i want to learn Naví. so i download a "card file box" to learn, but i see all is in english. and now i read here you can translate your dictionary. so can you help me Taronyu?
yours sincerely Marcel

Probiert mal das Deutsche Forum: http://forum.learnnavi.org/deutsch-%28german%29/

thank you. you are my recue

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Reflexive infix = <äp>

name = tstxo

Explanation of my name is _______, the phrase is oeru syaw fko ________, syaw is intransitive apparently.

The question would be pefya fko syaw ngar?

Participle of continuation = tut so "and you" as a response to ngaru lu fpom srak is "ngar(u) tut"


Can be found alongside a Frommerian explanation here.

[Mirri]

Kawkrr (ke-aw-krr) is "never", so would that make awkrr "ever"?

It seems awfully close to 'awkrr which looks more like it means "once".

[kewnya txamew'itan]

kawkrr is from ke-'aw-krr as far as I know in which it means not once so it doesn't get us any closer to a word for ever.

[suomichris]

kawkrr is from ke-'aw-krr as far as I know in which it means not once so it doesn't get us any closer to a word for ever.

Since we have negative concord in Na'vi, I don't know that we would need a word for "ever:"

"I'll never go to the store."
"I won't ever go to the store."

The difference in English is just whether you have negation elsewhere in the sentence, since you don't have two negatives in the same sentence.  But, in Na'vi, you only need the one, "kawkrr."

[Mirri]

kawkrr is from ke-'aw-krr as far as I know in which it means not once so it doesn't get us any closer to a word for ever.

Since we have negative concord in Na'vi, I don't know that we would need a word for "ever:"

"I'll never go to the store."
"I won't ever go to the store."

The difference in English is just whether you have negation elsewhere in the sentence, since you don't have two negatives in the same sentence.  But, in Na'vi, you only need the one, "kawkrr."

I'm somehow reminded of flammable and inflammable 

"Will you ever stop talking?" vs "Will you never stop talking?"

So you're saying there's absolutely no occurance of "ever" that can't be rewritten to "never"? All it does is change the answer from a yes to a no (and vice versa)?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I was thinking that after making my post, glad to see I'm not thinking completely weirdly.

The only use of ever I can think of would be within the word "forever" for which we have frakrr.

[suomichris]

I'm somehow reminded of flammable and inflammable 

"Will you ever stop talking?" vs "Will you never stop talking?"

So you're saying there's absolutely no occurance of "ever" that can't be rewritten to "never"? All it does is change the answer from a yes to a no (and vice versa)?

Basically, yes.  The different between the two in English is where you put the negative in the sentence, since in English we only have one negative per sentence.  But, in Na'vi, you'd always have to have the negation in both places, so you'd probably only get "never."  Consider Spanish, which also has negative concord: we have "nunca" for "never," but "ever" doesn't really show up as a lexical item: instead you have something like "alguna vez," which is "some time" if you try to translate the English directly.

So, yeah, I don't think we need "ever" :p