Re: LA Times - Na'vi Challenge - And the WINNER is...

[Prrton]

Dear Community members of LearnNavi.org,

A full-page ad ran in the Los Angeles Times, "The Envelope" supplement, Wed., Feb. 10. It was for an iPhone app, "The Envelope App."

The graphic was an iPhone with the App going. This was the complete text:



     [PSEUDO-NA'VI, IN SINGLE QUOTES,
     ALL CAPS, LARGE FONT. 17 CHARACTERS ONLY.]

     [SLIGHTLY SMALLER FONT, ALL CAPS]
      THAT'S NA'VI FOR
      YOU'RE GOING DOWN

     [Small type, upper/lower]
     Take on top film critics and writers in a
     race to predict who will win the Oscars.
     Get live news feeds from our entertainmen
     experts. Buy low. Sell high. Then beat
     them at their own game.

                      [LOGO]

            Los Angeles Times
           THE ENVELOPE APP
        Nominate yourself to win.

            Get it on your iPhone,
            free in the App Store.



So the challenge is, what can we say for "You're going down" (meaning: "You're going to LOSE!") niNa'vi?

"We would like a line that communicates 'you are going down' or 'you are going to lose'. This fits with the tone and spirit of our game. Please feel free to have fun with it.

"I can't wait to see what you come with. "

Ideally the line should be something that fits in with Na'vi life and culture. The example I first thought of was, "Ikranìl yìyom ngeyä teylut" -- "An ikran is about to eat your teylu." But that's too derivative of the "eat your lunch" expression in English. The Community can come up with something much better.

Keep it short! And if there's a great concept but a vocabulary item or two is missing, not to worry--I'll fill in the blank.

The time frame is tight, since March 7 is fast approaching.

The reward is having your Na'vi published in the Los Angeles Times, even if it is an advertisement.

Fìtìkangkemìri, sìlpey oe, ayngaru prrte' livu!

Pawl

Submissions are complete. Please vote by 5:00 PM Sunday, 21 February (PST) over the weekend. The top items in terms of popularity will be submitted to Karyu Pawl for his final selection/decision. You may vote for 3 choices.

['eylan na'viyä]

maybe someone should change/add the forum-news to link to this topic now

[Nume fpi sänume]

Will probably be added tomorrow. I dont have the power to add this to the news ticker.

[Nìota]

So many of these are really violent! I like the playful ones, like "Your tail is mine." It's competitive, but wishes harm on no one.

[Skyinou]

So many of these are really violent!

I totally agree with you. But Na'vi aren't non-violent people. There should be a neutral way to say that.

[Robert Nantangä Tirea]

wow that's a lot of entries.

Any suggestions on tidying the list up a bit? Maybe running several polls of 10 each eagainst eachother then running the leaders against eachother. I don't know if we have enough time for that though.

[Erimeyz]

Thanks for organizing this.  In addition to sending Pawl the most popular ones, I suggest also pointing him to the thread; I think he'd be interested in seeing what his students are thinking about Na'vi culture, regardless of which one (if any) he picks for the ad.

  - Eri

[Kxanìa Na'rìng]

My personal Favorite has to be: Tsun aynga tswayon kelu kesyalhu ! You can't fly without wings !

Its both evil and inspirational.

[Schlipak]

My personal Favorite has to be: Tsun aynga tswayon kelu kesyalhu ! You can't fly without wings !

Its both evil and inspirational.

It's my sentence! Irayo for the vote!

[Erimeyz]

I liked these:

Oe ngaru layu toruk. I'll be the toruk (that comes for you).
Kllte ngeyä tseng lu, oel mìyunge taw! The ground is yours, I will take the sky!

I think they've got a nice ring to them, and as idioms go, they feel very culturally-appropriate.

  - Eri

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

Aren't the submissions only supposed to be 17 characters long? I think just about every one of them is longer than that.

[Robert Nantangä Tirea]

well my:

Fìtrr oeyä `u lìyu!

is if you don't count spaces =P

[Erimeyz]

In my original submission I included a modified version that's exactly seventeen characters (including spaces and punctuation! ).

I don't know how firm the limit is.  The ad copy suggests 17 max, but Pawl's example was larger than that.  So who knows?

... as usual, Pawl does.

  - Eri

[Kaltxì Palulukan!]

I was the first person to vote. I should have locked voting while I was in the lead!

[Makxarrios]

=.=" I've just submited my vote...
I can see most of the sentences are not realated to the Na'vi culture.
And after i saw the result, i gotta say...
'I don't think "Your tail is mine" is a good one."
also the vote developer didn't use the "MORE ALIEN" sentence, so it's just a simple sentence.
It should be fair. We're voting for the sentence but not for the writer.
The sentence shouldn't be change.

Oeri 'upxare peng nì'aw.

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

I don't want to diss peoples votes but, Come on why "your tail is mine" I really don't think that is a good substitute for "your going down" I would understand if it was the queue but the tail doesn't seem nearly as important and everyone who isn't learning na'vi will start thinking that the queues are tails.

[Kxanìa Na'rìng]

I don't want to diss peoples votes but, Come on why "your tail is mine" I really don't think that is a good substitute for "your going down" I would understand if it was the queue but the tail doesn't seem nearly as important and everyone who isn't learning na'vi will start thinking that the queues are tails.

Just another way of saying, "Your ass is mine!"

[Erimeyz]

I deliberately chose "tail" rather than "queue" because grabbing someone's queue seemed to me like an extremely hostile act - as hostile as threatening to gouge out someone's eyes, or worse - and I wanted the expression to be taunting but not threatening.  Tail-grabbing, on the other hand, seems to me like a dominance-establishing act, similar to "counting coup", but with an even stronger aspect of maintaining an advantaged position over someone in a fight - if you have someone's tail, you undoubtedly have them at a very significant disadvantage, both positionally (you are behind them, you can see them but they can't see you) and manipulatively (you can control their large body movements to some degree, and you can probably inflict a great deal of pain, similar to what you can do to a human if you have a firm hold of their arm while it's pinned behind their back).

Also, in American English the word "tail" is also a reference to the word "butt", and the phrase "your butt is mine" (or more commonly "your a** is mine") is a phrase roughly meaning "I'm going to defeat you" or "you're going down".  The English phrase "your butt is mine" and the Na'vi phrase "I have your tail" have very different connotations, of course - the first is "I will defeat you and take your butt as a trophy" and the second is "I am in control of you".  But the meaning of the two idioms when used as a competitive taunt is the same: "you will lose".

So for two different reasons - one meaningful to Na'vi speakers, one meaningful to English speakers - I thought that "Oeru lu ngeyä kxetse!" would be a good choice.

  - Eri

[Skyinou]

Maybe "Kxetse" is not the right word. If it really means the-thing-for-tsaheylu, then "Oeru lu ngeyä kxetse!" is really threatening and agressive, and you didn't want that I believe. But if the word is not correct, Frommer will change it to return the right meaning of "tail", I hope.
I well imagine a children game; the goal being to catch or touch the tail of the others, while shouting "Nantang!" or something.

[Erimeyz]

Well, the Survival Guide word list gives kxetse as "tail".  Considering that the Na'vi have both queues and tails, I think if they had meant queue they would have said queue.  But you're quite right - if kxetse is really "queue", and K. Pawl wants to use "tail" instead, well then... he'll change it, and we'll learn two new words.

 - Eri