Learnings from the Siätllä song translations

[Prrton]

Tiny bit of 'blessed' canon from song translations from Siätll...

Kxu takes WÄ ››› wä ku or kxuwä in Na'vi instead of *TA that might be incorrectly predicted by English. Wan wä ku means to "hide from harm".

Mìn does not mean to turn left or right, but rather its core meaning is to rotate on an axis. K. Pawl shared that it was originally created to describe the 'turning' of a turret on some kind of RDA military equipment for a line that was never performed/recorded in the films.

Direct address can happen interstitially in a sentence without affecting the sentence or being a part of it in any way. E.g. Frìp frìp, ma Evitsyìp, torukä tsawla kxa. Of course, this would be more common in songs or poetry than in everyday speech.

Tompa can just 'begin' via sngä'i without the core verb needing to be expressed in the subjunctive. Presumably that means that it can also ftang and/or 'i'a likewise. I assume it would 'i'a (and not ftang), but that needs to be confirmed still.

Tsawke can takuk indicating that it is particularly direct and strong. CF "beating down" in English and "tompa 'eko" in Na'vi.

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

Hì'ang tìran (indicating that there may be no word for 'crawl' in Na'vi that is strongly associated with their movement the way it is in English). This was not a decision made by K. Pawl explicitly, but bugs/insects typically do not walk in English, so it's worth noting.

The Museum was teaching a custom song during other activity periods called "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" (but sung to a different tune than you may be familiar with).

Paul created the vocabulary item 'etnaw, 'shoulder' (dual metnaw) for the Education department there many months ago, but there had been no 'public release' via his blog, etc. until Saturday and his confirmation of the new word in the singular.

[omängum fra'uti]

Glad I got "sleyku ukxo" right in my original translation of the little bug song. It certainly seemed like the most sensible way to say it. (BTW, here, since you mentioned you couldn't find it.)

Either way, pretty cool stuff!

[Plumps]

It is, thank you so much.

Surely, you meant wan wä ku

What song did you sing?

[Prrton]

It is, thank you so much.

Surely, you meant wan wä ku

What song did you sing?

Yes, of course.

I'll go correct it! Seiyi irayo.

The song is a translation (reinterpretation) of Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

Tul Hu Nga

Tul, tul, tul hu nga
Na'rìngka nì'o'.
Nìprrte', prrte', prrte', prrte'
Oehu makto ko!

Mìn, mìn, kenten mìn.
Pelun ke 'efu spxin?
Nìteng, nìteng, nìteng, ayoeng
Mivay' na po nìwin.

Fnu, fnu, wäpan wä ku
Uo tsaìpxa.
Frìp, frìp, ma Evitsyìp,
Torukä tsawla kxa!

I should have included the lyrics originally.

[Sireayä mokri]

Wou, txantsan!

[Kamean]

Tìrol atxansan!

Ulte mipa horen lesara nìtxan.

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

Direct address can happen interstitially in a sentence without affecting the sentence or being a part of it in any way. E.g. Frìp frìp, ma Evitsyìp, torukä tsawla kxa. Of course, this would be more common in songs or poetry than in everyday speech.

it was quite clear to me actually, but I always used it in endings and beginnings of sentences to not interrupt the sentence. but it's good to know my thoughts were true.

[Plumps]

The song is a translation (reinterpretation) of Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

Tul Hu Nga
...

This is great! Fantastic
Hope to hear the recording soon

['Oma Tirea]

I should have included the lyrics originally.

Srane, and you missed the other song as well.

['Oma Tirea]

Nìprrte', prrte', prrte', prrte'

If I'm not mistaken, the repetition of an adverb can drop the nì- on subsequent repeats, kefyak?  Or was it made that way just to fit in?

Mìn does not mean to turn left or right, but rather its core meaning is to rotate on an axis. K. Pawl shared that it was originally created to describe the 'turning' of a turret on some kind of RDA military equipment for a line that was never performed/recorded in the films.

Are you sure it doesn't even have multiple meanings?  We already have kìm...

...or am I missing something and Na'vi is likely going to have a third word?

[Blue Elf]

Mìn does not mean to turn left or right, but rather its core meaning is to rotate on an axis. K. Pawl shared that it was originally created to describe the 'turning' of a turret on some kind of RDA military equipment for a line that was never performed/recorded in the films.

Has this explanation effect to meaning of mìnyu: ["mIn.ju] _PF n. turner (derived from mìn turn)? It is also name of the plant.

[Prrton]

Nìprrte', prrte', prrte', prrte'

If I'm not mistaken, the repetition of an adverb can drop the nì- on subsequent repeats, kefyak?  Or was it made that way just to fit in?

That was to fit the process of singing it. Please don't extrapolate that to everyday grammar. Paul grammatically preferred Nìprrte', nìprrte', nìprrte', nìprrte', but we (I especially (with the audience in mind)) felt that it was very difficult to sing. It is essentially 4 syllables in pragmatic length due to the way prr is pronounced.

Mìn does not mean to turn left or right, but rather its core meaning is to rotate on an axis. K. Pawl shared that it was originally created to describe the 'turning' of a turret on some kind of RDA military equipment for a line that was never performed/recorded in the films.

Are you sure it doesn't even have multiple meanings?  We already have kìm...

...or am I missing something and Na'vi is likely going to have a third word?

It may have been better to use the action of kìm to describe the behavior of the kenten in the song. I'm not sure. But the lack of overlap is with the "broadest" sense of the semantic range of TURN in English.

If you are in a moving vehicle and you turn left or right, the vehicle is not engaged in the the process of mìn as K. Pawl described it. It is turning on an arc, not an axis. If you're flying on an ikran and you turn left or right, that is also not mìn as articulated to me. The animal must be in (forward) motion for the direction to change. Most 'Rrtan birds could not mìn in flight, but a hummingbird effectively can. I expect that a zize' could also mìn while hovering, but that's a guess on my part. Note that when Jake speaks about turning in flight he uses the word BANK. Perhaps that points towards a Na'vi word we don't know yet.

When you turn your head left or right, that IS the action of mìn (and your neck is the axis). A traditional tank sitting still at an intersection would have to mìn to turn. It would do that on the imaginary axis created by one of its treads moving forward while the other one moved backward. Perhaps K. Pawl felt that mìn was OK for the kenten because the entirety of his body does not 'spin', only his fan does. We'd have to ask him. I did not discuss the difference between mìn and kìm with him specifically. We only talked about the origins of mìn. But the turret of a vehicle typically turns/rotates without spinning (fast and continually).

Note that the word in Japanese used for turning a corner, etc. is magaru which is also the word for "bend". To "turn a corner" in Japanese, one "bends" it (transitively) to the left or to the right.

Mìn does not mean to turn left or right, but rather its core meaning is to rotate on an axis. K. Pawl shared that it was originally created to describe the 'turning' of a turret on some kind of RDA military equipment for a line that was never performed/recorded in the films.

Has this explanation effect to meaning of mìnyu: ["mIn.ju] _PF n. turner (derived from mìn turn)? It is also name of the plant.

I don't see why it would. If parts of the plant rotate around an axis (the stalk?) then it is engaging in the action of mìn. I have never seen the behavior animated or written up in a full description, but as long as it doesn't move forward and turn on an arc then the language seems consistent.

[Tanri]

Very interesting (and completely new to me) explanation, ma Prrton, thank you.
So the noun "mìnyu" (in general sense, not as a plant name) has the meaning "something (or someone) that rotates around its axis"?

[Plumps]

I thought as much ...

I used it in a song translation a while back and asked about it then

[Prrton]

Very interesting (and completely new to me) explanation, ma Prrton, thank you.
So the noun "mìnyu" (in general sense, not as a plant name) has the meaning "something (or someone) that rotates around its axis"?

Though the -yu suffix is fairly productive, I'm not sure what the contexts are for all of the resulting nouns. What would fnuyu actually mean, for example? Is it someone who is mute (unable to speak), or someone who does not speak up when the truth needs to be revealed? I don't know.

Mìnyu might only be a type of plant that has that name through Na'vipomorphism. Perhaps a mìnyu could also be a person who performs the job of 'lookout'/'guard' (constantly turning about to look for signs of danger) or a kind of dancer, as Tsm. Plupmps has guessed. I don't know.

[Tanri]

We have to take it from the positive side: When we recognise that we don't know, in that moment we just learned at least one thing - the very fact that we don't know.

[Prrton]

We have to take it from the positive side: When we recognise that we don't know, in that moment we just learned at least one thing - the very fact that we don't know.

Ngaru tìyawr nìlaw!

[Blue Elf]

We have to take it from the positive side: When we recognise that we don't know, in that moment we just learned at least one thing - the very fact that we don't know.

That reminds me great Czech imaginary säfpìltu Jara Cimrman and his theory of cognition - We know everything : We know nothing 

As mìnyu is a little ungrabbable or unseizable word, we can use it safely only as plant name. Maybe more such "unusable" words exist. For me for example pängkxoyu lekoren - I'd like to hear real tute leNa'vi how po uses it 

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

A lot of plants do move (to follow the sun, etc) by twisting on their stem, so mìn would be appropriate in many cases.

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

A 'great circle' kind of turn like a car or an ikran would make would be a useful term. I remember long ago (before the corrent version of the LEP) suggesting a list of basic aeronautical terms that would relate to flight on an ikran or on toruk. It sounds like this list will need to have a term for turn added. I guess it is time to revisit that list.

In any case, Irayo fpì fmawn a lì`fya, ma Prrton!

[Plumps]

"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