Email from Frommer re: Numbers (or: The full number chart!)

Started by Nayumeie, January 30, 2010, 08:10:13 PM

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roger

Quote from: Na'rìghawnu on February 01, 2010, 07:25:18 AM
QuoteBut the German would still be intelligible w/o the und.

???

No, it surely isn't intelligible, at least not as it is now.
If a person would say "fünf zwanzig", I'm quite sure that I'd not know, that he means "fünfundzwanzig".
"Fünf zwanzig" simply doesn't make any sense.
Maybe 520 or 5.20 (Euro) ...

E. g. "Das macht fünf zwanzig." (lit.: "This makes five twenty") is understood as "The price is 5.20 (Euro)". No German speaker would understand, that you could mean 25 (Euro). This is for sure!
Well, no, it's not going to be intelligible if no-one ever says it. But it would be just as intelligible as the rest if people started speaking that way; logically it would work just fine. My point is that we don't really need the und in German, but there it is anyway, a historical fossil. We don't really need a in Na'vi, but it might be there anyway. Especially if they haven't been counting to large numbers for very long, they might find it uncomfortable to string a bunch of numbers together without any breaks. Or maybe would mean that we have two independent numbers. At this point we don't know.

roger

Quote from: dky.tehkingd.u on February 01, 2010, 07:31:22 PM
Great... numbers etc. W00tz!  :D

Now how would we actually use them in context? Do they count as adjectives or are there other rules applied to them?  ???
AFAI can tell, "five years" is zìzìt amrr. No plural necessary, because you have a number (as in Hungarian), and attributive 'a' to make the number modify the noun.

Panzerfaust

Just got up the nerd-courage to look at this site yesterday. I skipped over the vocabulary to look at the grammar section, and found some very interesting elements.  Conjugating verbs by emotion and including dual and trial pronouns are really intriguing ideas for a language. I was, however, flattened by the wall of linguistic vocabulary in the main articles, so i thought "this is awfully complicated for day one, i'l go learn to count to 10 for laughs. That will be easy, right?". Sadly i find that the Na'vi use base 8 numbers... fundamentally different to all of human upbringing and thought. Looks like counting to 10 is not going to be so easy. Though of course Na'vi is understandably different from terran languages, i was at first annoyed with the unnecessary complication that having to think in base 8 added. I got to thinking on it, and as i hadn't used a base other than 10 in a long time i started counting on my fingers thinking how to say 10 in Na'vi. I quickly remembered how different bases work and had no problem with it. Then something hit me... when faced with a new number concept i used my FINGERS to figure things out. Humans have 5 fingers on each hand, for 10 in total. We can count to 10 on them, and our entire numerical system is based on 10. The Na'vi, however, have 4 fingers on each hand, allowing them to count only to 8, and oddly enough their entire numerical system is based on 8. I was amazed at how much this made sense... assuredly the most early concept of numbers began with us counting on our fingers, and evolved from there. Only natural then, that we think in 10's, and equally natural that the Na'vi think in 8's. Just how much this now makes sense made me respect the guy that wrote this language alot more, and i am now significantly more interested in understanding (at least some of) it.

Sorry for the rant... i have a habit of making massive posts and i found the brutal logic of 8-fingers-8-base really intriguing.
I am going to look at the guide to linguistic terms i just found in your "downloads" section. Hopefully this will help me understand the articles over the rest of the language better. I have 5 years of highschool spanish and am hoping that will help me understand this language. Thanks to anyone that read all this, lol!
Pak mezazam-vozam-tsìzam-mrrvol srak?
Tsa'u  letsunslu ke lu!

omängum fra'uti

It is no accident that both numbers and fingers are called "digits" in English.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

Tefpakyu

-Tefpakyu-

Panzerfaust

And of course, now looking through the pocket guide it flat out says:
"As the Na‟vi have four digits per hand, they have a base-eight number system."

Guess my discovery wasn't much of a discovery, oh well.

Oe ke tsole'a
Pak mezazam-vozam-tsìzam-mrrvol srak?
Tsa'u  letsunslu ke lu!

dky.tehkingd.u

Quote from: roger on February 01, 2010, 09:06:04 PM
Quote from: dky.tehkingd.u on February 01, 2010, 07:31:22 PM
Great... numbers etc. W00tz!  :D

Now how would we actually use them in context? Do they count as adjectives or are there other rules applied to them?  ???
AFAI can tell, "five years" is zìzìt amrr. No plural necessary, because you have a number (as in Hungarian), and attributive 'a' to make the number modify the noun.

Hmm, so they're normal adjectives then.

Makes sense.


"Fì'u keye'ung lu!"
"Keye'ung? FÌTSENG. LU. SPA'TAAAAAAA!!!"

Erimeyz

Quote from: Panzerfaust on February 02, 2010, 05:04:34 PM
Just got up the nerd-courage to look at this site yesterday.

Congratulations, and welcome aboard!  We're all very friendly nerds here. :)

Quote from: Panzerfaust on February 02, 2010, 05:04:34 PM
I was, however, flattened by the wall of linguistic vocabulary in the main articles

Alas, yes, there's a lot of that.  The first step for beginners is kind of steep.  The best starting points we have right now are the Pocket Guide, the Crash Course in Linguistics, and the Na'vi Dictionary:

http://www.learnnavi.org/docs/Learn-Navi-Pocket-Guide.pdf
http://www.learnnavi.org/docs/Linguistic-terminology-crash-course.pdf
http://content.learnnavi.org/taronyu/NaviDictionary.pdf

Quote from: Panzerfaust on February 02, 2010, 05:04:34 PM
"this is awfully complicated for day one, i'l go learn to count to 10 for laughs. That will be easy, right?".

Hah! :) Oh, the irony...

Quote from: Panzerfaust on February 02, 2010, 05:04:34 PM
The Na'vi, however, have 4 fingers on each hand, allowing them to count only to 8, and oddly enough their entire numerical system is based on 8. I was amazed at how much this made sense... assuredly the most early concept of numbers began with us counting on our fingers, and evolved from there. Only natural then, that we think in 10's, and equally natural that the Na'vi think in 8's. Just how much this now makes sense made me respect the guy that wrote this language alot more, and i am now significantly more interested in understanding (at least some of) it.

I'm glad you had that insight!  Paul Frommer (the guy who wrote the language) really has put a lot of thought into it, and has given us all a very interesting (and beautiful) toy to play with.

Enjoy your experience learning Na'vi!

  - Eri

roger

Quote from: dky.tehkingd.u on February 02, 2010, 07:23:06 PM
Quote from: roger on February 01, 2010, 09:06:04 PM
Quote from: dky.tehkingd.u on February 01, 2010, 07:31:22 PM
Great... numbers etc. W00tz!  :D

Now how would we actually use them in context? Do they count as adjectives or are there other rules applied to them?  ???
AFAI can tell, "five years" is zìzìt amrr. No plural necessary, because you have a number (as in Hungarian), and attributive 'a' to make the number modify the noun.

Hmm, so they're normal adjectives then.

Makes sense.

Well, they seem to be used attributively the way adjectives are. (Though, to be fair, AFAIK we only have two tokens of this, and one is a line from the movie.) But that doesn't mean they do the other things that adjectives do. You can say s.t. is "prettier", but I rather doubt you can say it's "five-ier".

Tsu'roen

Quote from: Tefpakyu on February 02, 2010, 05:54:44 PM
Hmm? No Na'vi 0? No computers for you silly Na'vi  ;)
Well the number "0" and it's use is a quiet advanced mathematical concept. Even in the western world it is for less than 1000 years in common use. And West learned it's use from the Arab's who most likely learned it from India.
The zero was also used by Mesoamerican high cultures who had developed quiet accurate calendars that they needed for their agriculture.
To come up with it you need to do some serious math.
I don't know if the Na'vi have a practical use for it. Do they have a calendar? Do they need one? They do not have agriculture and as far as we know the climate is not changing too much.  
Also they had no writing system which makes it unlikely that they did complicated astrological calculations required for developing a calendar.

If they had no "0" we may just assume they adapted the English "zero" -> "sìro" or "tsìro"?
"There are many dangers on Pandora, and one of the subtlest is that you may come to love it too much" ~ Dr. Grace Augustine

"You have a strong heart. No fear. But stupid!  Ignorant like a child!" ~ Neytiri te Tskaha Mo'at'ite

10x (1x 2D, 3x Real 3D, 6x IMAX 3D)
1x Special Ed. (1x IMAX 3D)

roger

Quote from: Tsu'roen on February 02, 2010, 10:57:03 PM
I don't know if the Na'vi have a practical use for it. Do they have a calendar? Do they need one? They do not have agriculture and as far as we know the climate is not changing too much.  

If they had no "0" we may just assume they adapted the English "zero" -> "sìro" or "tsìro"?
Or maybe ziro !

The Na'vi could have quite an elaborate calendar. Evidently (per the SG) the seasons are quite dramatic, so they'd have the four seasons, and we know they have a word for "year". But given that Pandora has gotta be tidally locked to Polyphemus, their day would be equal to their month: Polyphemus would not move in the sky, but would go through its phases daily, being fullest at midnight. If Polyphemus eclipses Rigil (ACA), then there may be cycles of eclipses and non-eclipsing periods. Considering how long an eclipse by Polyphemus would last (a substantial fraction of a day), that might inspire calendars. Then there are the two neighboring moons which create strong tides on Pandora (strong enough for tidal heating of the moon, so much stronger than the effect of Luna on Earth), and there are many seas on Pandora, so there's the timing of the tides as the basis for counting time. And finally there's Kent (ACB), a fraction of a percent of the brightness of Rigil, but bright enough to illuminate the night quite effectively - maybe a thousand times brighter than a full moon on Earth. Half of the year Kent would be in the night sky, and half the year it wouldn't, so those are additional seasons beyond spring-summer-fall-winter. Kent's brightness would vary rather dramatically during its 87-year orbit, which is rather elliptical (e = 0.5), so that provides a handy natural 87-year (Terran year) "century" for the Na'vi. Also, the time Kent illuminates the night sky would cycle through the seasons, so you have that even longer period ("millennium"? "eon"?) between times Kent is at zenith at winter solstice.

Yes, lots of natural cycles to base a calendar on rather than just day, month, year.

Tefpakyu

I don't think we'll be getting anything on the Na'vi calender until at least Avatar 2, so let's get what we know and formalise it!
-Tefpakyu-

tawway

Quote from: Tsu'roen on February 01, 2010, 06:26:18 AM
The "und" is there only because German turns the last two numberes out of order:
English: twenty five
German: fünf.und.zwanzig (= 5 + 20)
Na'vi: mevomrr (25 oct.)

The Na'vi for 25 (decimal) is actually 31 (octal), so mevomrr isn't right. It should be pxevolaw.

Look VERY carefully at the tables, which show octal, and you'll see that 8 & 9 are missing. It is confusing because we're using our decimal digits and it looks like we're skipping some. Na'vi counts like this


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 20   octal / Na'vi

1 2 3 4 5 6 7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16   decimal / us

1 2 3 4 5 6 7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F  10  hexadecimal


My only save there is that being a unix kinda guy I understand hexadecimal (base 16) reasonably and octal is "half" that. Hex is actually easier because a-f are used as numbers and it immediately triggers "this isn't decimal". Dropping 8 & 9 for octal means that there is no easy way to differentiate. I'd expect to see things like 20o for octal to tell me that it is 2x8 or 16.




tawway

Quote from: Skyinou on January 31, 2010, 02:05:55 PM
Quote from: roger on January 31, 2010, 01:51:53 PM
Remember that the Na'vi weren't supposed to count above vofu '16' because that's how many fingers and toes they had? Well, vofu is 16 octal: it's 14 decimal. So does that mean the Na'vi have three toes on each foot?
Since we can see in the movie that they have 4, it's most probably 16 decimal.

Yes, 4*4 = 16 decimal. In octal it would be 20.

Na'vi have tsìng digits on one hand, vol digits on both and mevol including toes. Go higher only if you dare...
(assuming four fingers/toes per limb)

tawway

Quote from: Megan Megatoast on February 01, 2010, 05:58:00 PM
Quote from: wm.annis on February 01, 2010, 04:58:24 PM
Quote from: Megan Megatoast on February 01, 2010, 04:56:22 PM
So... lets say I wanted to say that there were 9 of something... How do I express 9?

volaw: 8 + 1.

Thanks so much!

So I've gotten conversion from base 10 to base 8 down... but how do I convert from base 8 to base 10? I'm probably missing something obvious.  :-[

You would treat the "columns" as 1's 10's 100's 1000s' but each column isn't 1, 10, 10x10, 10x10x10. It's now 1, 8, 8*8, 8*8*8
(or 1, 8, 64, 512). Like this:

263o = 2*8*8 + 6*8 + 3 = 128 + 48 + 3 = 179 decimal

You can look at 263o as "two sixty-fours, six eights and three". Once you get the columns right it's a lot faster to convert the numbers.


'eylan na'viyä

does anybody know how to ask "how many" or how to say "do something X times" ?

kewnya txamew'itan

I believe from used "pefya holpxay" to mean how many although I could be misremembering and it was actually just "peholpxay"/"holpxaype".

As for do it X many times, I'd probably just use nì-.

So kill twice would be "tspang nìmune".
Internet Acronyms Nìna'vi

hamletä tìralpuseng lena'vi sngolä'eiyi. tìkangkem si awngahu ro
http://bit.ly/53GnAB
The translation of Hamlet into Na'vi has started! Join with us at http://bit.ly/53GnAB

txo nga new oehu pivlltxe nìna'vi, nga oer 'eylan si mì fayspuk (http://bit.ly/bp9fwf)
If you want to speak na'vi to me, friend me on facebook (http://bit.ly/bp9fwf)

numena'viyä hapxì amezamkivohinve
learnnavi's

Payoang

The script on the vocabulary page now supports all number that we know (up to 8028159, "kizazamkivozamkizamkivohin").

http://www.learnnavi.org/navi-vocabulary/#numbers

dky.tehkingd.u

The number conversion page is very annoying to use actually. Can't you just have a normal text box / submit button instead of an annoying thing that changes your value every time you try to type?  >:(


"Fì'u keye'ung lu!"
"Keye'ung? FÌTSENG. LU. SPA'TAAAAAAA!!!"

kewnya txamew'itan

Having just used the bit on the website (which I don't mind too much) I propose that the na'vi for leet should be zati as 1337(dec)=2471(oct).  ;D
Internet Acronyms Nìna'vi

hamletä tìralpuseng lena'vi sngolä'eiyi. tìkangkem si awngahu ro
http://bit.ly/53GnAB
The translation of Hamlet into Na'vi has started! Join with us at http://bit.ly/53GnAB

txo nga new oehu pivlltxe nìna'vi, nga oer 'eylan si mì fayspuk (http://bit.ly/bp9fwf)
If you want to speak na'vi to me, friend me on facebook (http://bit.ly/bp9fwf)

numena'viyä hapxì amezamkivohinve
learnnavi's