Combining Our Efforts II

Started by omängum fra'uti, March 22, 2010, 02:37:46 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

MIPP

I think I found something new *.*

A few days ago I was reading the wikipedia in Portuguese, and I found an interesting thing about diphthongs. Looks like in Portuguese, there are "growing diphtongs" (I don't know the word in English, I'm sorry), which are diphthongs, but reversed. E.g. A normal diphthong would be: "ay" or "aw", and a growing one would be "wa" or "ya". You know what I mean, right? So, I checked the Na'vi dictionary and I noticed something: Y and W are always in diphtongs: either the normal ones (aw, ay, ew, ey) or reversed (ya, yo, wi, etc).

I'm putting it here because I don't know if anyone has ever noticed it...

Well, in portuguese it is called as a "Ditongo Crescente Oral", which literally means "Oral growing diphtong". Here is the link: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonologia_da_l%C3%ADngua_portuguesa. Use CTRL+F to find the text:
QuoteDitongos crescentes orais
/wa/   /ˈkwatɾu/   quatro   
/we/   /lĩˈgwetɐ/   lingueta   
/wi/   /lĩˈgwisɐ/   linguiça   
/wo/   /ɐˈkwozu/   aquoso   
/wɔ/   /ɐˈkwɔzɐ/   aquosa   

You may translate it using a translator... But what matters here is not if "yo" is a diphtong (for example), but that y and w always are with other vowels, after or before.
Na'vi for beginners | Dict-Na'vi.com

Hufwe lìng io pay, nìfnu slä nìlaw.
Loveless, Act IV.

Lance R. Casey

Quote from: Lance R. Casey on August 06, 2010, 09:49:39 AM
If I am to say, say, "in his village", what happens if is juxtaposed with peyä tsray? Do we get an ambiguous *mì feyä tsray, or does the lenition "jump" to produce *mì peyä sray (which, of course, is also ambiguous) -- or is there no lenition at all? Same goes for things like "at the big tree": *ro sawla utral or *ro tsawla utral? Now, the situation can easily be avoided by reordering the words and/or cliticizing the adpositions -- and perhaps this is even mandated (or at least preferred) in such cases.
Tì'eyng poläheiem! :)

// Lance R. Casey

Taronyu


xMine

I'm really interested in the na'vi number system,
so I wanted to know if there is a way to say decimal numbers like 3.14.
Further I'm interested in dates:
Wouldn't be awesome to have a way to say dates nìNa'vi? Maybe this is
already stated somewhere above ;)

So:
1. Do the na'vi have something like months?
2. If yes, how many? They don't have to 12 months, it would be no surprise
at all, if they had like 8 months. (Actually I'd appreciate names other than
"first month", "second month", ... ;) )
3. How to say a date and time?
Not so important in my opinion:
4. Numbers larger than kizazamkivozamkizamkivohin
5. Negative numbers
6. Decimal numbers

Oeru txoa livu, txo tuteo srekrr pamawm...
Kìyevame

Payä Tìrol

There are some Terran languages without some of those concepts, alu negative values, fractional values, and even zero (which Na'vi at least has).

For months, I believe we use zìsìtvi, although we don't have a very clear understanding of Pandora's period around Polyphemus, or Polyphemus's period around ACA, and only Norm uses zìsìt, referring to Earth years. The best we can do, thus, is 1st month, 2nd month, and so on... July could be zìsìtvikive, etc.
Oeyä atanìl mì sìvawm, mipa tìreyä tìsìlpeyur yat terìng

Lance R. Casey

Quote from: Payä Tìrol on September 08, 2010, 06:41:04 PM
For months, I believe we use zìsìtvi, although we don't have a very clear understanding of Pandora's period around Polyphemus, or Polyphemus's period around ACA, and only Norm uses zìsìt, referring to Earth years. The best we can do, thus, is 1st month, 2nd month, and so on... July could be zìsìtvikive, etc.

On that note:

Quote from: FrommerZìsìtviri lì'u lu sìltsan, slä vay set ke pole'un oel tseyä ralit. Kxawm livu "month," slä kxawm kop livu "season." Zene oe pive'un ye'rìn.

// Lance R. Casey

Plumps

According to Taronyu's Dictionary we have zìsìkrr for »season« now...

Lance R. Casey

Quote from: Plumps on September 09, 2010, 05:04:30 AM
According to Taronyu's Dictionary we have zìsìkrr for »season« now...

Yeah, that was revealed in a Na'viteri post in the middle of July, but the quote above is from an email sent just a couple of weeks ago. There may be nuances of meaning involved.

// Lance R. Casey

Taronyu

For those who want what I consider the most detailed analysis of Pandoran astronomy (which deals with month, day, week times), go here:

http://forum.learnnavi.org/intermediate/trrtxonteri/

Payä Tìrol

Yup, I was more referring to that we don't know really how long those periods would be, from an Earth sense, just the names of some of those periods...
Oeyä atanìl mì sìvawm, mipa tìreyä tìsìlpeyur yat terìng

Kayrìlien

Quote from: xMine on September 08, 2010, 12:23:29 PM
I'm really interested in the na'vi number system,
so I wanted to know if there is a way to say decimal numbers like 3.14.

The trick with non-integral numbers in Na'vi is that because they have an octal system to begin with, what we think of as "decimal places" could only exist within a hypothetical Na'vi system as "octal places", where the first number after the period is the number of eighths, the second number is the number of sixty-fourths, the third is the number of five-hundred-twelfths, and so on.

You can do the math to figure it out, but to be honest, the Na'vi themselves have no need for a way to represent non-integral numbers that are not simple fractions like 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc. Because I'm REALLY bored, I bothered to figure out part of that sample number for you if you're really curious, but yeah...the Na'vi would never do this. It's just not necessary for their culture.


3.14 decimal is approximately 3.10753 octal.

Kayrìlien

Prrton

Quote from: Kayrìlien on September 09, 2010, 12:14:34 PM
Quote from: xMine on September 08, 2010, 12:23:29 PM
I'm really interested in the na'vi number system,
so I wanted to know if there is a way to say decimal numbers like 3.14.

The trick with non-integral numbers in Na'vi is that because they have an octal system to begin with, what we think of as "decimal places" could only exist within a hypothetical Na'vi system as "octal places", where the first number after the period is the number of eighths, the second number is the number of sixty-fourths, the third is the number of five-hundred-twelfths, and so on.

You can do the math to figure it out, but to be honest, the Na'vi themselves have no need for a way to represent non-integral numbers that are not simple fractions like 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc. Because I'm REALLY bored, I bothered to figure out part of that sample number for you if you're really curious, but yeah...the Na'vi would never do this. It's just not necessary for their culture.


3.14 decimal is approximately 3.10753 octal.

Kayrìlien


Very impressive, ma Kayrìlien!!

This math is so beyond my brain's ability that I can't even begin to explain.

I believe that we need "simple fractions" and that the Na'vi would have them à la something like «°3pxì|°5ta», and I've proposed things like this in the (distant) past to K. Pawl, but no answers yet. This is a good opportunity to bring it up again, but I agree that full on mathematics (like the Mayan system, for example) would be unlikely within Na'vi society/arts. I also expect that he might create a unique root for "half" an 1/4 and 3/4 might end up roughly abstracted and mapped to something like «hì'pxì» and «txampxì» (which we already have). But, these are just guesses on my part.

Thanks so much for all the rigor. I personally really appreciate (and admire) it.  ;D


Kayrìlien

Quote from: Prrton on September 09, 2010, 12:47:53 PM
Quote from: Kayrìlien on September 09, 2010, 12:14:34 PM

Very impressive, ma Kayrìlien!!

This math is so beyond my brain's ability that I can't even begin to explain.

I believe that we need "simple fractions" and that the Na'vi would have them à la something like «°3pxì|°5ta», and I've proposed things like this in the (distant) past to K. Pawl, but no answers yet. This is a good opportunity to bring it up again, but I agree that full on mathematics (like the Mayan system, for example) would be unlikely within Na'vi society/arts. I also expect that he might create a unique root for "half" an 1/4 and 3/4 might end up roughly abstracted and mapped to something like «hì'pxì» and «txampxì» (which we already have). But, these are just guesses on my part.

Thanks so much for all the rigor. I personally really appreciate (and admire) it.  ;D



I definitely agree with you about needing simple fractions. I'm sure that even in a highly communal society, the Na'vi have undoubtedly run into the situation of "Well, there are fifteen hunters and five sturmbeest carcasses...how do we divide up the meat?" and probably just counted things out. Even without a formal number system, they would definitely be able to divide things up fairly, and even then, with such loose definitions of personal ownership in their society, I can't fathom an argument breaking out because "Hey! Tsu'tey got more meat than I did!" They're more giving than that.

I'm not a language expert by any means, but do you know if "half" has its own root in languages besides English? Like...all of our other fractions are just based on the numbers themselves (or their Latin roots), but as far as I know, "half" is sort of a special case.

Hehe...thanks for complementing my "I'm really bored so why not?" math. I can imagine the scientist in Grace upon finding out the Na'vi number system is octal going a bit haywire. "Let's see, if there are ten to the twelfth connections between the trees, that'd be eight to the...uh...hmm, six, seven, eight, no, but that's really ten...eleven...Aaargh, I can't figure this out! Guys, who's got my God damn cigarette!"

Kayrìlien

Prrton

Quote from: Kayrìlien on September 09, 2010, 01:09:50 PM

I'm not a language expert by any means, but do you know if "half" has its own root in languages besides English? Like...all of our other fractions are just based on the numbers themselves (or their Latin roots), but as far as I know, "half" is sort of a special case.


for "half":


  • Japanese has 半分, "half part" which they got from Chinese. The simple han element combines with lots of other things for the same meaning too.
  • Spanish has mitad.
  • Thai has ครึ่ง (khreung/khrụ̀ng)
  • Korean has 반 (ban) that also comes from Chinese.
  • Catalan has meitat, which comes down from Latin like the Spanish mitad.
  • Swahili has nusu.
  • Irish has leath.

Half is a very handy thing to have. I don't know what Japanese and Korean had before the Chinese influence, but I imagine it was 'something'.  ;)


Payä Tìrol

Chinese also does that whole x分之y ("divided between") thing, which works like y/x

I could see Na'vi using something similar.
Oeyä atanìl mì sìvawm, mipa tìreyä tìsìlpeyur yat terìng

Kì'eyawn

So, i was thinking this morning, we need a way to talk about asking/giving permission, e.g.,

"May i go hunt?"
"Yes, you may."

Since English at least often uses "may" and "can" somewhat interchangeably, it's possible that tsun will get drafted for this task.  Still, i'd like a definitive answer.
eo Eywa oe 'ia

Fra'uri tìyawnur oe täpivìng nìwotx...

Kemaweyan

In russian we use one word for "can" and "may". Maybe in Na'vi we also can use tsun for both this words :)
Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

I agree with most others for words for simple fractions. 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4th would cover most needs. A word for fraction bar would be interesting and useful to us, but how useful to a Na`vi?
We also have generic fractional term - hapxì. Decimals? Again, useful to us, probably not a concept the Na`vi have.

But functional math-- that is truly interesting to think about. Since they have a pretty complete number system (which includes zero), they probably have the ability to at minimum add and subtract. Whether they can do more math, like multiply and divide, is almost a James Cameron question. But it wouldn't surprise me if they can.

If they can do the basic 'four function' math, then I bet they are aware of the concept of pi. This is something that would be immediately useful in constructing almost anything that is round. That said, it would almost certainly be a fraction and not a decimal, and probably a fairly crude one (by our standards) at that.

Beyond pi, I doubt they have much in the way of higher math. One possibility though, might be a means to extract a square or cube root. Such calculations were vital to the construction of siege engines. I think it had something to do with the diameter of sinew bundles (used as torsion springs) as it related to some other aspect of the machine's design. This was so important to the early military designers that they built a simple mechanical device for extracting cube roots. If I recall, it looked like a carpenter's square of some sort, and was somehow laid over a line drawn on something. The users of this device did not understand they were extracting a cube root. Instead, they had apparently learned this particular relationship through trial and error measurements, and made a tool that allowed them to easily figure out this dimension for other sized components.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

'Oma Tirea

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on September 13, 2010, 04:09:38 PM
I agree with most others for words for simple fractions. 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4th would cover most needs. A word for fraction bar would be interesting and useful to us, but how useful to a Na`vi?

Probably not as useful as fko might think, as the Na'vi don't write.  However, a good way to be able to speak fractions in Na'vi would be nice (e.g. ½ = 'Aw... mune, or ½ = Mune...'Aw).

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on September 13, 2010, 04:09:38 PM
If they can do the basic 'four function' math, then I bet they are aware of the concept of pi.

That sounds like quite a leap, even for the sawtute on 'Rrta.  I'm almost certain a Na'vi would be able to conceptualize fractions before decimals, and even before some advanced number like π.  What made you think that?

[img]http://swokaikran.skxawng.lu/sigbar/nwotd.php?p=2b[/img]

ÌTXTSTXRR!!

Srake serar le'Ìnglìsìa lì'fyayä aylì'ut?  Nari si älofoniru rutxe!!

Payä Tìrol

The concept of pi? Sure, but perhaps not in any more detail than "to pxey lu nì'it txan" :P

There is also a slight difference between may and can in English too. May implies permission, while can implies ability, although this distinction is mostly blurred now.
Oeyä atanìl mì sìvawm, mipa tìreyä tìsìlpeyur yat terìng