Tslam Na'vi.com

Started by MidnightLightning, January 07, 2010, 11:46:22 PM

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MidnightLightning

While there will likely always be a community trying to learn Na'vi, there will also be some that occasions when someone who doesn't speak/read Na'vi wants to know what something says in Na'vi, without having to learn the entire language themselves. Plus, it could serve as a sort of tease, to get people interested in learning the language, or as a double-check for beginners making sure prefix/suffix/infix placement is correct. Since http://translate.google.com/ will likely never have "Na'vi" as an option, I started building my own.

I grabbed http://tslamnavi.com to host it, and have gotten most of the logic in parsing apart the Na'vi prefixes and suffixes (still working on infixes) to get down to a root word, and translating that word. My idea is that the site would be able to automatically reduce a sentence down to the "midway" point of literal English (or other Terran) words, and then have those who do understand Na'vi (or can get the gist of the sentence from the literal translation) submit ideas for "better" translations of that phrase, which could then be voted up/down by the community such that common phrases would get "better" translations able to be served up automatically.

Head on over and kick the tires if you'd like; I've not got the whole lexicon of words in yet, (I'm working down the Learn Na'vi.org Vocabulary page, and have up through the "Connectors" groups added, plus the pronouns. The site should be able to parse out the various noun conjugations, adjective assignment, dual/plural, male/female, and changing word types, and if it still doesn't know the English translation of the word, it will just print out what it thinks the root Na'vi word is, after pulling off prefixes and suffixes.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

MidnightLightning

In creating the programming points to parse out prefixes and suffixes, I did find a few cases where specific words break the system, which means they could confuse new learners, so I thought I'd share those here too:

ikran: Is it a masculine form of the root word 'ikr'? Not likely; Na'vi syllables can't end with two constants like that, so it would have to be the root word 'ikra', and the masculine suffix being reduced to -n (which might it for nouns that end in a vowel?)

ikrane: Is it a feminine form of the word 'ikran', or is it using the adposition 'ne', meaning "to the ikra". Currently there's no Na'vi word 'ikra', but following the general rule of looking for adpositions first, and feminine/masculine suffixes last, this one breaks that logic.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

Hawnuyu atìtse'a

theres already a navi to english translator at http://div.clonk2c.ch/navi_translate.pl but an english to navi translator would be even better. Monumental, in fact.
"And that's how you scatter the roaches."- Col. Miles Quaritch.

Team Quaritch Member

Rey ulte ting rey.

Tuiq

English to Na'vi is quite hard to realize since Na'vi is way less advanced than English. Just take the "Hello. How are you?" example - you can't say it that way. Of course, if you'd enter "I-ERG see-TIME(PRESENT) you-ACC" or something like that, it'd be much easier to parse. It's one of the things on my todo list - you can expect something like that soon.
Eana Eltu: PDF/TSV/jMemorize

MidnightLightning

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

Tuiq

Eana Eltu: PDF/TSV/jMemorize

MidnightLightning

Quote from: Tuiq on January 08, 2010, 09:49:14 AM
Quote from: MidnightLightning on January 08, 2010, 06:52:47 AM
That link appears broken.

It's DVI, not DIV.
Ah, that works. Well, is there a "project" thread for that engine as well; collaboration rather than competition might be best at this stage in the game.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke