Language and culture

'it a txep · December 23, 2009, 06:38:05 AM

I've been thinking... IMHO, there are two aspects that will make it hard to "live" the Na'vi language.

Firstly, in many cases, language can only be fully understood if you know the culture associated with it. This seems to be very important with Na'vi! Just think of the greetings "I see you" (which includes spiritually "seeing") or "Eywa ngahu". So whoever wants to learn the language is forced to learn the culture too, even though they don't follow those traditions.

Another problem is: I don't think there's a word for "robot" in Na'vi, for instance. (You could, however, make one up, like "metal person"...) While Klingons have all the technology humans have (or at least a similar degree), the Na'vi lifestyle is totally different from ours.

One possible workaround would be a "human Na'vi" where you create words for the things Na'vi don't know, and where you disregard most Na'vi cultural expressions, but would that still be Na'vi then? I'd say no.

What do you all think?

Brainiac · December 23, 2009, 06:41:36 AM

I'd say it's still Na'vi.
after all, could you say how many English words are genuinely English?

'it a txep · December 23, 2009, 06:45:45 AM

The English language has been there all the time while technology was invented... it grew along with it. Na'vi would get a cultural shock of sorts.

Eywayä mokri · December 23, 2009, 06:48:42 AM

As we have seen for some words, the Na'vi language takes an english basis to make the words they were obliged to invent.

Brainiac · December 23, 2009, 07:15:37 AM

@ Kawtu: so, we take the time to slowly edge it towards our culture.
I think that the easiest way would indeed be to start with the names of countries and people.

Taronyu Ayunilyä Alahe · December 23, 2009, 11:34:41 AM

you mean the ones in Pandora right?

the countries are so far not known by me and all I heard was something like the banshee riders of the middle-east or something. I dunno. and the horse-riders of something. sorry but that's all that sticks.

people includes
Mo'At
Eytukan
Neytiri
wait lemme search, oh Tsu'tey
and Ninät or sth.
plus, did I hear Alice as the good hunter?

ooh feel free to add. this is so draft-y.

Brainiac · December 23, 2009, 11:41:02 AM

I meant slowly turning our names and countries into Na'vi

Eywayä mokri · December 23, 2009, 01:28:35 PM

I can remember the good hunter to be Pirral or something like that.

Zalorticus · December 23, 2009, 04:01:55 PM

Well, words will have to be incorporated into the language. In fact, the Na'vi had to create new words for what the humans brought with them.

Taruia · December 23, 2009, 08:02:36 PM

I think that having the Na'vi call the humans "sky people" and the avatars "dreamwalkers" and having a word for English shows that their language is mutable like English. Also, because of what we saw in the movie, there are a lot of Na'vi that are at least semi-fluent in English, so it is possible that the English words for things might slip into their dialect, much like the English language borrowing from many others. Just my two cents however.

shiaru · December 23, 2009, 08:42:45 PM

they call them "Sky people" but they have a long name for them, more specific. Like "dreamwalkers" are called uniltìrantokx, dream is unil, walk is tìran and body is tokx.

so let's break it up. Unil/tìran/tokx dream/ walking /body.

So i think they use their own language and then use it to make new words, but its very basic.

Taruia · December 23, 2009, 09:10:48 PM

I may be mistaken, but I believe that the term "dreamwalkers" refers only to the avatars, while the term "sky people" refers to all humans.

shiaru · December 23, 2009, 09:15:21 PM

you are not mistaken, it is as you say. Skypeople is how they refer to humans. I think is Tawpongu for humans. sky/people.

omängum fra'uti · December 23, 2009, 09:49:41 PM

Well sky person is listed as Tawtute, it's just a matter of how person gets pluralized there.

Uniltìrantokx is the name for the avatars themselves, but uniltìranyu is the name for someone in an avatar. Jake Sully is uniltìranyu when he enters his uniltìrantokx.

Culture is an important part of the language. We already know a few idioms. For example when they want to say listen, they'll say give ear. If you didn't know it as an idiom you might think they literally meant to give an ear, and get confused. And if you tried to say listen to a Na'vi some other way, they probably would not understand.

shiaru · December 23, 2009, 10:30:40 PM

sure Sky person is Tawtute but since they were asking Sky people I went and used the plural form Tawpongu. And I have to agree on culture being a huge part of the Na'vi language, I speak Spanish, Italian, and of-course English. Idiomatic expressions can't be literally translated and in fact they should not, since is not part of another culture thus is has no meaning outside it.

In Spanish there is an Idiomatic expression saying "break his arm" its obviosly nothing related to that, it means take the deal now, it seems good. In Italian there is another one saying "if the cuckolds had a light above their heads what an illumination!" it means if only we knew who the cheaters were.

So I have to agree 100% that to learn this language completelly we need to understand their culture, and them in a deep level. But that is only my opinion on it.

Taronyu Ayunilyä Alahe · December 24, 2009, 08:16:10 AM

Quote from: Brainiac on December 23, 2009, 11:41:02 AM
I meant slowly turning our names and countries into Na'vi

ugh right. careless sorry.

anyone know what tired is in Na'Vi?

hiyika mokri · December 27, 2009, 04:54:18 PM

If I remember correctly from the movie, when Tsu'tey is translating Jake's speech, he refers to the Sky People as a group as the plural of tawtute, sawtute. Pongu seems to be a singular noun that refers to a small group of people, much as English would label a group of birds a flock.