Pamrelfya a'Eoio

Started by Prrton, September 02, 2010, 08:52:46 PM

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MIPP

Quote from: Prrton on September 04, 2010, 01:38:02 PM
Quote from: MIPP on September 04, 2010, 01:31:57 PM
Wow!
So, for a dummies like me, how could I learn to write that way?

I'll post all of the conceptual specs for my designs and if tsmukan Kemaweyan creates the font and distributes it, then all you'll have to do is type!

    ;D

Great! I'll also write it manually (don't know if it is the correct word, I mean, write with a pen in a paper). Just a thing: the chinese characters must be written in a sequence. Will those also be? (I would suggest to send the idea to frommer and he could talk with Cameron and the Na'vi could have their own way to write)
Na'vi for beginners | Dict-Na'vi.com

Hufwe lìng io pay, nìfnu slä nìlaw.
Loveless, Act IV.

Payä Tìrol

#21
QuoteOmum oel futa oeyä lì'fya le'Ìnglìsì lu nìtam kawng

Oh, don't get me wrong, your English is not difficult to understand, it merely has a couple of quirks, like odd adverb positioning, or nonstandard sentence structure, reminiscent of how Na'vi appears to prefer to organize things. I was merely wondering whether this was the result of you trying to translate your Na'vi as literally as possible for the benefit of those that cannot yet understand it in Na'vi, which seems to be the case :)

Fortunately, it seems like the list of words that undergo "stacking" in your writing that aren't affixes is fairly limited, so at least it won't take long once you figure out how to do it. You may have more trouble figuring out how to have your system ignore the false positives...
Oeyä atanìl mì sìvawm, mipa tìreyä tìsìlpeyur yat terìng

Prrton

Quote from: MIPP on September 04, 2010, 01:45:03 PM
Quote from: Prrton on September 04, 2010, 01:38:02 PM
Quote from: MIPP on September 04, 2010, 01:31:57 PM
Wow!
So, for a dummies like me, how could I learn to write that way?

I'll post all of the conceptual specs for my designs and if tsmukan Kemaweyan creates the font and distributes it, then all you'll have to do is type!

    ;D

Great! I'll also write it manually (don't know if it is the correct word, I mean, write with a pen in a paper). Just a thing: the chinese characters must be written in a sequence. Will those also be? (I would suggest to send the idea to frommer and he could talk with Cameron and the Na'vi could have their own way to write)

I don't think that Cameron wants the Omatikaya to be broadly literate. *I* don't want the Omatikaya to be broadly literate. I think it would make their society less interesting. They have Tsaheylu. That's FAR MORE INTERESTING and COMPELLING than writing. But, our early-history 'Rrtan cultures often demonstrate writing relegated to specific ceremonial, mystical, religious, and accounting tasks that are not common in the everyday peoples' lives. Average Egyptian workers could not read the hieroglyphs on the monuments. The same was true in Maya culture. Average Europeans could not read the Bible in the Dark Ages either. Literacy benefits the ruling class when it is the vehicle for enforcing laws or when the rulers are motivated to stimulate culture. That can be good for an economy, if you have an economy.

   ;)

I DO SEE in the film (on Jake's forehead) an indication of pre-literacy symbol use.

   

That dotted V is not a random squiggle. It was done intentionally and is clearly associated with *some* meaning. He's a "novice" or an "initiate" or something that deserves notation.

So, I don't think it completely outside the realm of the imagination that there might be some kind of writing. Perhaps it's "native" to another Na'vi tribe other than the Omatikaya?? But, certainly it would not be formulated the way mine is (marking stress, verb infixes, etc.). I doubt seriously that the letterforms themselves would be genetically related they way they are either... at least not to the extent that mine are.

I also want to make it clear that that nothing about the way these compounded forms are designed is actually related to the way Chinese characters work. This is much more like Korean, but less regulated. I like the idea of "characters" because once you've taken the time to learn the "fixed forms" they're much easier to read (quicker for the eye/brain combo to process). This is my personal experience with Japanese.

 (A)日本の都会と言えば、区役所と図書館が良く近くにある。
 (B)にほんのとかいといえば、くやくしょととしょかんがよくちかくにある。

     ("If we're talking about large Japanese cities, ward government offices and libraries are often nearby.")

That assertion that those kinds of buildings are often near each other is not actually true in my experience, but I feel STRONGLY that (A) as a sentence is much easier to read than (B) (for adults who have learned the characters). One of the factors is that Japanese does not have space between words, but that's not the only factor. 区役所 (ku.yaku.sho, ward government office) and 図書館 (to.sho.kan, library) *pop* into focus in my mind much more easily than くやくしょ (KU YA KU SHO) and としょかん (TO SHO KA N) do, though I can read both easily.

However, that said, the "stroke order" you're referring to could be relevant for these Na'vi compounded symbols as well, but I don't think it would be for the same reasons. These forms are designed to be appropriate for 'pre-ink' technology applications. They don't have curvilinear forms because those would be harder to carve into hard surfaces or press into clay with a stylus. Stroke order is important for Chinese for the cursive forms of the characters when written with a brush (usually on paper). It keeps the flowing forms more consistent (legible) when written with great speed (as they get more and more curvy).

   

I think the Na'vi might have SPECIAL forms like NA'VI and EYWA as the highly "symbol-ified" forms, but there would not be as many as the Japanese borrowed from the Chinese.

   

If a font is being made, some of these might be justified as being included, but there would be no way to practically support everyone's personal name. Prrton would not make the cut. This name would not exist on Pandora anyway.

   

I'd have to settle for:

   

But, I could certainly write by hand or use it iconographically and anyone could figure out what it was (because it does not use anything that is not alphabetic). That is not the case at all with Chinese characters.

This is far from a "fully baked" deal; especially when it comes to the stacks and compounds.

If Kemaweyan actually is going to figure out how to make a font, we'll likely need to decide (limit) the number of stacks and compounds based on the amount of work he's willing to do. Completing a fully functioning OpenType font is a monumental undertaking; especially one with contextual ligatures.


Payä Tìrol

Quotenothing about the way these compounded forms are designed is actually related to the way Chinese characters work.
Yeah, in Chinese, the individual parts that make up a character only hint at the character's meaning. You get word markers that suggest to you the character might have something to do with wood, or fire, etc., but you can't get around simply memorizing every character you want to learn... This system has parts that are much more rigid in meaning, so you can work up to the meaning of the glyphs if you know the meaning of the components.
Oeyä atanìl mì sìvawm, mipa tìreyä tìsìlpeyur yat terìng

Prrton

Quote from: Payä Tìrol on September 04, 2010, 07:35:46 PM
Quotenothing about the way these compounded forms are designed is actually related to the way Chinese characters work.
... so you can work up to the meaning of the glyphs if you know the meaning of the components.

Sometimes...  ;)

I don't know a lot of people who can name all these "fish", and if they can't, then just figure out which 'fish' it is by the leftover parts.  :-\

魞 魣 魥 魦 魫 魬 魯 魲 魳 魴 魵 魶 魹 魷 穌 鮃 鮄 鮊 鮎 鮏 鮑 鮒 鮓 鮖 鮗 鮞 鮟 鮠 鮦 鮧 鮨 鮪 鮫 鮬 鮭 鮮 鮱 鮲 鮴 鯎 鮾 鮸 鮹 鯀 鯁 鯆 鯇 鯉 鯊 鯏 鯑 鯒

Payä Tìrol

Actually... I meant yours, BUT that's true for Chinese for categories of nouns, like you demonstrated :P

Personally, I'm quite a bit out of practice, it's been a few years.
Oeyä atanìl mì sìvawm, mipa tìreyä tìsìlpeyur yat terìng

Prrton

Quote from: Payä Tìrol on September 04, 2010, 08:35:23 PM
Actually... I meant yours, BUT that's true for Chinese for categories of nouns, like you demonstrated :P

Personally, I'm quite a bit out of practice, it's been a few years.

That's interesting... only half of my post remained posted...

Must be a bug with Unicode and Simple Machines... Oh well...

I did want folks to see this though:

     

I think it's just beautiful! Two for the price of one and each has its own bird on the bottom. Mandarin Duck.


Prrton

     
I don't consider any of this finalized yet. There are several variant forms (for case markings, etc.) not in here yet. This is just a basic mapping of the sounds and a way the numbers should be able to work. The «lere'o» variants are the ones used for consonant clusters when , , or Tsä proceeds a standard onset. Lenition precedes from right to left for the sounds for which it is applicable.

   


Sireayä mokri

Wou! Nìngay this is a GREAT idea, ma Prrton! I thought it was a matter of time before one of us comes up with an idea abot our "own" writing system. The only thing I don't really get is why there are no curves? I mean I know it's for "scratching", but I think we still could have some curves, especially since Jake's bodypaint before his "initiation" into the clan was all curves... Again, great job! :)
When the mirror speaks, the reflection lies.

Plumps

Quote from: Sireayä mokri on September 05, 2010, 10:01:21 AM
Wou! Nìngay this is a GREAT idea, ma Prrton! I thought it was a matter of time before one of us comes up with an idea abot our "own" writing system. The only thing I don't really get is why there are no curves? I mean I know it's for "scratching", but I think we still could have some curves, especially since Jake's bodypaint before his "initiation" into the clan was all curves... Again, great job! :)

Try scratching or carving curves in a stone (kem rä'ä si mì ayutral, rutxe) and you see why ;)
But you're right, the body painting is an interesting aspect ... they, as well as the hands-to-shoulder initiation guesture reminded me of the life rings(?) of trees...

Sireayä mokri

Quote from: Plumps on September 05, 2010, 10:58:05 AM
Try scratching or carving curves in a stone (kem rä'ä si mì ayutral, rutxe) and you see why ;)
But you're right, the body painting is an interesting aspect ... they, as well as the hands-to-shoulder initiation guesture reminded me of the life rings(?) of trees...


Well, I don't think any of us would scratch these symbols in stones ::) And yeah, nature-inspired "alphabet" sounds good to me. If Na'vi would ever think of writing, what would be their source of inspiration? The forest! :)
When the mirror speaks, the reflection lies.

Kemaweyan

Well, yesterday I had found info of creating the fonts. I decide to use program FontForge, because it has all required features and is totally free (BSD license). I've tried to create some pilot symbols by different ways (manually and automatically from background image) and save that as font. It seems to me successful, the font works.

But there are some problems. I don't know, but I think this is impossible to create instructions for replacement two or more characters to another one character. There are too difficult rules of spotting affixes in the words and that need to add vocabulary in the font :-\ For example, -ur must be one symbol if it stands at end of the word. But what about vur? Also with noun ayawne - this is a-yawne or ay-awne? Anyway we need to know lexis...

Also I not completely understood about «lere'o» symbols. Rather I'm not sure. We must use them when next character is consonant, right? For example:

fpole'
fohu

If it's right, there are no problems to do it ;)

Tam :) For creating the glyphs I need all characters as high-resolution images (I think 500px height enough). Then I'll start the work :)

Irayo nìmun, ma tsmukan :)
Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

Prrton


OK, if you want curves, here are curves. This is my attempt to write the glyphs "cursively" using standards from Asian calligraphy for how to "round off" square things and cut down on the number of discernible strokes. There is, of course, influence from my own handwriting too.

   ;)

   

If you also want to see more examples, I have them. Just let me know.

   

Payä Tìrol

That really almost does look like Chinese cursive for most of it. :P

Also, Kemaweyan, maybe you could have it recognize stuff like nì-, -yä and <ol> and turn it into the appropriate glyph. A bit of a pain to type, but it would basically eliminate improper parsing...
Oeyä atanìl mì sìvawm, mipa tìreyä tìsìlpeyur yat terìng

Kemaweyan

Quote from: Payä Tìrol on September 05, 2010, 12:31:44 PM
Also, Kemaweyan, maybe you could have it recognize stuff like nì-, -yä and <ol> and turn it into the appropriate glyph. A bit of a pain to type, but it would basically eliminate improper parsing...

Yeah, perhaps it's only solution...
Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

Prrton

Quote from: Kemaweyan on September 05, 2010, 11:52:36 AM
Well, yesterday I had found info of creating the fonts. I decide to use program FontForge, because it has all required features and is totally free (BSD license). I've tried to create some pilot symbols by different ways (manually and automatically from background image) and save that as font. It seems to me successful, the font works.

But there are some problems. I don't know, but I think this is impossible to create instructions for replacement two or more characters to another one character. There are too difficult rules of spotting affixes in the words and that need to add vocabulary in the font :-\ For example, -ur must be one symbol if it stands at end of the word. But what about vur? Also with noun ayawne - this is a-yawne or ay-awne? Anyway we need to know lexis...

Also I not completely understood about «lere'o» symbols. Rather I'm not sure. We must use them when next character is consonant, right? For example:

fpole'
fohu

If it's right, there are no problems to do it ;)

Tam :) For creating the glyphs I need all characters as high-resolution images (I think 500px height enough). Then I'll start the work :)

Irayo nìmun, ma tsmukan :)

This is BRILLIANT! I can send you the outline data as an Adobe Illustrator file, EPS, or PDF. Is that not easier?

Please let me know the inventory of the other special things you need too:

  - lenition marker
  - Proper Name capitalization marker
  - other punctuation
  - any stacks or compounds that you do want
  - Do we need non-Navi numerals/numbers? (like Arabic numerals, but that can hang)?

Your question about the Fä lere'o, Sä lere'o, and Tsä lere'o is correct in your interpretation.

I would suggest that for the special case markings you could use get them via SHIFT-sequences since there are no capital letters required. So:

  Ìl makes ergative -ìl
  Ur makes dative -ur
  Yä makes dative -yä  etc.

  ... and ...

  Ol makes -ol-
  Er makes -er-
  Eyk makes -eyk-
  Ats makes -ats-
  Äp makes -äp-
  Iyev makes -iyev-
  Ìyev makes -ìyev-
  Arm makes -arm-
  Aly makes -ayl-   etc...

  ... and ...

  Slä for the slä stack
  Ma for the ma stack
  Ta for the ta stack
  (presumably most if not all of the adpositions would have their own stacks or compounds)
  Sä- for the sä- prefix
  Nì- for the nì- prefix
  Tì- for the tì- prefix
  Le- for the le- prefix
  Me- for the dual prefix
  Pxe- for the trial prefix
  Ay- for the plural prefix
  -A- for attributive a
  Ulte for the ulte compound
  Na'vi for the Na'vi compound
  Eywa for the Eywa compound

        ... or we could just get rid of all the complicated stuff...

Please PM me with a standard e-mail address so I can send the glyph data as an enclosure, or I can post it to my iDisk and give you a link/password. Whichever you prefer.

    ;D
 

Sireayä mokri

Quote from: Prrton on September 05, 2010, 12:19:46 PM

OK, if you want curves, here are curves. This is my attempt to write the glyphs "cursively" using standards from Asian calligraphy for how to "round off" square things and cut down on the number of discernible strokes. There is, of course, influence from my own handwriting too.

   ;)

   

If you also want to see more examples, I have them. Just let me know.

   

Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about. Don't know about you guys, but I like it :D Although, I got nothing against "scratches" ::)
When the mirror speaks, the reflection lies.

eanayo

Wow, what a nice idea! The cursive version looks especially pretty to me.

Too bad I haven't had time to look at everything in detail yet (moving...), but I hope I'll be able to get into that later next week.

Good luck with the font, ma Kemaweyan, it would be amazing if you could make this!

Visit Our Dictionary for eBook readers, The Na'vi Word Puzzle Game and the Cryptogram Generator
srake tsun pivlltxe san [ˈɔaχkat͡slʃwɔaf]?

Kemaweyan

Quote from: Prrton on September 05, 2010, 12:52:38 PM
I would suggest that for the special case markings you could use get them via SHIFT-sequences since there are no capital letters required. So:

  Ìl makes ergative -ìl
  Ur makes dative -ur
  Yä makes dative -yä  etc.

  ... and ...

  Ol makes -ol-
  Er makes -er-
  Eyk makes -eyk-
  Ats makes -ats-
  Äp makes -äp-
  Iyev makes -iyev-
  Ìyev makes -ìyev-
  Arm makes -arm-
  Aly makes -ayl-   etc...

  ... and ...

  Slä for the slä stack
  Ma for the ma stack
  Ta for the ta stack
  (presumably most if not all of the adpositions would have their own stacks or compounds)
  Sä- for the sä- prefix
  Nì- for the nì- prefix
  Tì- for the tì- prefix
  Le- for the le- prefix
  Me- for the dual prefix
  Pxe- for the trial prefix
  Ay- for the plural prefix
  -A- for attributive a
  Ulte for the ulte compound
  Na'vi for the Na'vi compound
  Eywa for the Eywa compound

Ok.. You mean that we must type that with hyphens? Then we don't need capital letters... I think without hyphens there are no difference between Ayfam and Ayol, for examlpe. But if to use hyphens, there are ay-fam and a-yol. Also with infixes (tsl-ol-am) and cases (vur-ur).

And capital letters (typing with Shift) would mean Proper Names only, kefyak?

Quote from: Prrton on September 05, 2010, 12:52:38 PM
This is BRILLIANT! I can send you the outline data as an Adobe Illustrator file, EPS, or PDF. Is that not easier?

Yeah, that's better :)

Quote from: Prrton on September 05, 2010, 12:52:38 PM
Please let me know the inventory of the other special things you need too:

  - lenition marker
  - Proper Name capitalization marker
  - other punctuation
  - any stacks or compounds that you do want
  - Do we need non-Navi numerals/numbers? (like Arabic numerals, but that can hang)?

There is another problem, this warning I read in FontForge tutorial:

Quote from: FontForgeOpenType Example

Warning

The following example may not work! The font tables produced by it are all correct, but the designers of OpenType (or its implementors) decided that the latin script does not need complex conditional features and many implementations of OpenType do not support them for latin. This is not even mentioned in the standard, but is hidden away in supplemental information on microsoft's site.

So, if we'll create these symbols as latin letters (with latin codes), probably replacements will not work. Perhaps we need to create it with other codes?

And I have question. Is there junction between symbols? For example as here:

Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

MIPP

#39
I don't know if it's possible, but I don't think it is have ever used. Instead of each letter beinf in front of another creating a word: as we do in English, to write Na'vi, we write the words one in front of the other, in a certain sequence: N - A - ' - V - I. I'd think that, could be possible to write words with one only symbol, mixing the letters in one only symbol:
E.g.

Skxawng - it is written with the words as in English, my idea was to write it as:

GNW
SKA

(or any other sequence), but with the symbols you are creating ;)

Thus, instead of having a long word, you'd have a word ina  single symbol.
Na'vi for beginners | Dict-Na'vi.com

Hufwe lìng io pay, nìfnu slä nìlaw.
Loveless, Act IV.