Learnings from the Siätllä song translations

[Prrton]

"To dry something" (transitive) = _________-t/it/ti sleyku ukxo (not _______-r/ur/ru ukxo si).

Just noticed that this could also mean that 'to clean something' could be ____-t/-it/-ti sleyku laro

I thought about the same thing!!  

['Oma Tirea]

However, the infamous SatNa`vi is now inaccurate in its mìn ftär and mìn skien instructions.

It looks like it may be inaccurate from the get-go.  They should be ??? nìftär/nìskien.  How can you attribute an adjective to a verb...or are ftär and skien adverbs as well and we never knew it?

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

However, the infamous SatNa`vi is now inaccurate in its mìn ftär and mìn skien instructions.

It looks like it may be inaccurate from the get-go.  They should be nìftär/nìskien.  How can you attribute an adjective to a verb...or are ftär and skien adverbs as well and we never knew it?

Taronyu took a number of liberties in the process of creating the 'Avatar' voice for the SatNavs. There are some interesting word combinations used to represent 1/4 1/2 and 3/4 of a mile. `eyt and nayn are used with venu to indicate decimal feet. tìhum is used for 'exit', and this is a nonattested word. And of course at the time, he did not understand the proper meaning of mìn Then, there is Taronyu's decidely 'british' dialect of Na`vi. I am giving some thought to making my own Na`vi cues, and there is a tool available for building those cues. (The SatNa`vi drove the friend traveling with me nuts. Although for a while, he was genuinely trying to understand a few Na`vi words. At one point he told me to switch to another language. I asked him 'what language?' He said, not seriously, 'Mandarin'. Well, the Mandarin language is included, so I switched it to Mandarin. THAT was strange!)

[Prrton]

Ma Frapo,

Let's keep in mind that mìn also *could* also be used to refer to "turning on an arc", but that's not its genesis. I agree that it seems that many liberties had to be and were taken to create a word like "exit". I also don't believe that Taronyu consulted K. Pawl.

By the way, here is the genesis of TURN in English:

ORIGIN Old English tyrnan, turnian (verb), from Latin tornare, from tornus 'lathe,' from Greek tornos 'lathe, circular movement' ; probably reinforced in Middle English by Old French turner. The noun ( Middle English ) is partly from Anglo-Norman French tourn, partly from the verb.

I suggest that Language Committee take this on as a project at some point in the future to figure out if the Na'vi use this word in ways that we don't expect?; just use kä for 'turning' left and 'right'?; or if they use some other verbs that are closer to 'veer, bank, curve, bend', 'hang a (left/right)' etc.; or some combination (as we do in English)?

Turn is a word of very varied meanings in English (that even covers the Na'vi sense of alo):

verb
1 the wheels were still turning: go around, revolve, rotate, spin, roll, circle, wheel, whirl, twirl, gyrate, swivel, pivot.
2 I turned and headed back: change direction, change course, make a U-turn, about-face, turn around/about; informal pull a U-ey, do a one-eighty.
3 the car turned the corner: go around, round, negotiate, take.
4 the path turned to right and left: bend, curve, wind, veer, twist, meander, snake, zigzag.
5 he turned his gun on Lenny: aim at, point at, level at, direct at, train on.
6 he turned his ankle: sprain, twist, wrench; hurt.
7 their honeymoon turned into a nightmare: become, develop into, turn out to be; be transformed into, metamorphose into, descend into, grow into.
8 Emma turned red: become, go, grow, get.
9 he turned the house into apartments: convert, change, transform, make; adapt, modify, rebuild, reconstruct.
10 I've just turned forty: reach, get to, become, hit.
11 she turned to politics: take up, become involved in, go into, enter, undertake.
12 we can now turn to another topic: move on to, go on to, proceed to, consider, attend to, address; take up, switch to.

noun
1 a turn of the wheel: rotation, revolution, spin, whirl, gyration, swivel.
2 a turn to the left: change of direction, veer, divergence.
3 we're approaching the turn: bend, corner, turning, turnoff, junction, crossroads.
4 you'll get your turn in a minute: opportunity, chance, say; stint, time; try; informal go, shot, stab, crack.
5 she did me some good turns: service, deed, act; favor, kindness.

PHRASES
at every turn her name seemed to come up at every turn: repeatedly, recurrently, all the time, always, constantly, again and again.
in turn let's consider these three points in turn: one after the other, one by one, one at a time, in succession, successively, sequentially.
take a turn for the better his luck took a turn for the better: improve, pick up, look up, perk up, rally, turn the corner; recover, revive.
take a turn for the worse even the doctors were surprised when Richie took a turn for the worse: deteriorate, worsen, decline; informal go downhill.
turn against after his father died, Bruce turned against his stepmother: become hostile to, take a dislike to, betray, double-cross.
turn away I know you're hurt, but please don't turn us away: send away, reject, rebuff, repel, cold-shoulder; informal send packing.
turn back just before boarding the ferry, Clint changed his mind and turned back: retrace one's steps, go back, return; retreat.
turn down 1 his novel was turned down: reject, refuse, decline, spurn, rebuff. 2 Pete turned the volume down: reduce, lower, decrease, lessen; muffle, mute.
turn in 1 he turned in his brother to the police: betray, inform on, denounce, sell out, stab someone in the back; blow the whistle on, rat on, squeal on, finger. 2 we turned in the entrance forms just in time: hand in/over/back, give in, submit, surrender, give up; deliver, return. 3 I usually turn in before 10 o'clock: go to bed, retire, go to sleep, call it a day; informal hit the hay, hit the sack.
turn of events she was unprepared for this turn of events: development, incident, occurrence, happening, circumstance, surprise.
turn of phrase a clever turn of phrase: expression, idiom, phrase, term, word, aphorism.
turn off 1 his so-called jokes really turn me off: put off, leave cold, repel, disgust, revolt, offend; disenchant, alienate; bore, gross out. 2 please turn off the garage lights: switch off, shut off, turn out; extinguish; deactivate; informal kill, cut, power down.
turn on 1 the decision turned on the law: depend on, rest on, hinge on, be contingent on, be decided by. 2 okay, I admit it—his green eyes turn me on. See arouse (sense 3). 3 I'll turn on the generator: switch on, start up, activate, trip, power up. 4 it began as a simple disagreement, but then he turned on us like a mad dog: attack, set on, fall on, let fly at, lash out at, hit out at; informal lay into, tear into, let someone have it, bite someone's head off, jump down someone's throat; light into.
turn on to Christie has turned me on to the health benefits of yoga: introduce someone to, get someone into, pique someone's interest in.
turn out 1 a huge crowd turned out: come, be present, attend, appear, turn up, arrive; assemble, gather, show up. 2 it turned out that she had been abroad: transpire, emerge, come to light, become apparent, become clear. 3 things didn't turn out as I'd intended: happen, occur, come about; develop, proceed; work out, come out, end up, pan out, result; formal eventuate. 4 it's about time she turned out that bum of a boyfriend: throw out, eject, evict, expel, oust, drum out, banish; informal kick out, send packing, boot out, show someone the door. 5 turn out the light: switch off, shut off, turn off. 6 they turn out a million engines a year: produce, make, manufacture, fabricate, generate, put out, churn out.
turn over 1 the crate fell off the back of the truck and turned over: overturn, upturn, capsize, keel over, flip, turn turtle, be upended, tip. 2 I turned over a few pages: flip over, flick through, leaf through. 3 she turned the proposal over in her mind: think about, think over, consider, ponder, contemplate, reflect on, chew over, mull over, muse on, ruminate on. 4 he turned over the business to his brother: transfer, hand over, pass on, consign, commit.
turn someone's stomach the sight of blood turns my stomach: nauseate someone, sicken someone, make someone sick.
turn to I always had my grandparents to turn to: seek help from, have recourse to, approach, apply to, appeal to; take to, resort to.
turn up 1 the missing documents turned up: be found, be discovered, be located, reappear. 2 the police turned up: arrive, appear, present oneself, show up, show, show one's face. 3 something better will turn up: present itself, offer itself, occur, happen, crop up, appear. 4 she turned up the treble: increase, raise, amplify, intensify. 5 they turned up lots of information: discover, uncover, unearth, find, dig up, ferret out, root out, expose.

['Oma Tirea]

Turn is a word of very varied meanings in English (that even covers the Na'vi sense of alo):

...and slu to some extent as well.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Wow! I never thought one word could have so many meanings! (I have always used the word 'dress' as an example of one word with many varied meanings.)

Under 'noun', number 1 and 2 feel more like adverbs than they do nouns.

['Oma Tirea]

T.A. once told me the word "set" has a lot of meanings, too.  Conceptually they probably overlap with other words, and maybe even other meaning(s) of the same word.  Sran, English can be such a wonky language...

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

T.A. once told me the word "set" has a lot of meanings, too.  Conceptually they probably overlap with other words, and maybe even other meaning(s) of the same word.  Sran, English can be such a wonky language...

I am assuming you mean the English word 'set' here (and I have thought of a number of uses while writing this). However, the Na`vi word set also has a variety of meanings and seems to be one of the 'freer' words in the language.

Taronyu's pronunciation of set comes across as 'sud', and this took getting used to. I would have expected the final 't' to have been voiced a bot more like a 't', rather than totally like a 'd'. The 'e' is too much like 'u'. Now, I have an excuse to pull out one of those new large diaphragm condenser mikes I just got (at work) and try them out on some new SatNa`vi vocabulary!

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

However, the Na`vi word set also has a variety of meanings and seems to be one of the 'freer' words in the language.

what variety? it just means "now".

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

However, the Na`vi word set also has a variety of meanings and seems to be one of the 'freer' words in the language.

what variety? it just means "now".

It isn't so much meaning, as it is the variety of places in sentences it gets used.

BTW, does anyone have the words for the 'bug song'?

[Prrton]

However, the Na`vi word set also has a variety of meanings and seems to be one of the 'freer' words in the language.

what variety? it just means "now".

It isn't so much meaning, as it is the variety of places in sentences it gets used.

BTW, does anyone have the words for the 'bug song'?

  Hì'ia Hì'ang

  Hì'ia hì'ang tangeksìn tìran.
  Ye'rìn sngä'i tompa. Pot 'ekängo nìtxan.
  Takuk set tsawke. Sleyku fra'ut ukxo. Ha nì...
  Mun tseiun tsahì'ang vivar nìmwey sivop.

[Kamean]

"Poem"tsyìp atxantsan.

[Tirea Aean]

However, the Na`vi word set also has a variety of meanings and seems to be one of the 'freer' words in the language.

what variety? it just means "now".

It isn't so much meaning, as it is the variety of places in sentences it gets used.

BTW, does anyone have the words for the 'bug song'?

  Hì'ia Hì'ang

  Hì'ia hì'ang tangeksìn tìran.
  Ye'rìn sngä'i tompa. Pot 'ekängo nìtxan.
  Takuk set tsawke. Sleyku fra'ut ukxo. Ha nì...
  Mun tseiun tsahì'ang vivar nìmwey sivop.

what happened with line 3?

EDIT: kidding. I see what you did there... (line wrapping in the middle of a word...who DOES THAT? HRH)

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

HRH nì...mun.
by the way in the first line sìn (onto) is wrong. it should be mì.

[Tirea Aean]

HRH nì...mun.
by the way in the first line sìn (onto) is wrong. it should be mì.

why cant the hì'ang walk onto a treetrunk?, you know, before he starts to climb it?

EDIT: Fair enough, sìn and mì are both one-syllable enclitic adpositons (and it seems that Paul did not raise suspicion with using -sìn there over -mì...)

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

well.. it's possible, but I think the wanted meaning is that he's already walking on it.

[wm.annis]

(line wrapping in the middle of a word...who DOES THAT? HRH)

This probably isn't the place for a survey for Metrical Forms on Earth, but suffice it to say that there are poetic and song traditions which have no problem disjointing a word across a major metrical boundary.

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

maybe it can be pronounce as one word "stretched", without breathing in between.

[Tirea Aean]

it just simply caught me off guard reading it. had to read it a few times in its stanza form to get it. had it been a one-liner, I wouldn't have had that problem xD

[Prrton]

HRH nì...mun.
by the way in the first line sìn (onto) is wrong. it should be mì.

By calling this "wrong" for the meaning of "on" you are directly or indirectly (depending on your point of view) impugning the usage of Paul Frommer. He had free reign to change the lyrics of both of the songs to his liking. He was given translations in English and in the English the bug is walking "on" the trunk. Our dictionary gives sìn as meaning both on and onto, which is common in languages other than English.

I am under the impression that sìn means "on" in the sense of "making direct contact with a surface"; and that it takes on the meaning "onto" when a verb of directed motion is used.

Fwäkì spä sìn rìk ftu vul (onto the leaf from the branch. Contact with the leaf is the focus.) contrasted with Fwäkì spä mì rìk ((up and down?) on the leaf. The leaf is the general location where the jumping happens).

If these assumptions are wrong based on canon then we have some work to do with K. Pawl to tidy it up.